Technical approach to FF-ICE planning and global harmnization through IIH&V

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Manual on Flight and Flow Information for a Collaborative Environment (FF-ICE) outlines the components and requirements to achieve a common picture in global Air Traffic Management (ATM) for implementation readiness in 2020. To prepare for this global implementation by ATM stakeholders and ensure the technical feasibility and interoperability across implementations, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) initiated the International Interoperability Harmonization and Validation project (IIH&V) to validate the FF-ICE Planning Provisions [1], FF-ICE Implementation Guidance [2], and message exchanges in a lab environment. This paper explores the technical components of the FAA's IIH&V exercise while the complementary paper “An Operational Approach to FF-ICE Planning and Global Harmonization through IIH&V” explores operational components of the exercises. In order to effectively validate the FF-ICE Planning provisions and implementation guidance, it was required that the exercises focus on two areas. The first focus area was ensuring that future versions of the ICAO exchange models (primarily FIXM) were prepared to support FF-ICE. The second focus area was identifying system-level implementation decisions that could affect international interoperability, critical components to implementation readiness. Thus, the role of the ICAO exchange models, the role of data governance, and the feedback communicated to the FIXM Configuration Control Board (CCB) and the ATM Requirements Performance Panel (ATMRPP) are discussed herein. The FAA split the focus of the IIH&V project into three sequential validation exercises, with each exercise integrating more advanced systems into the lab infrastructure. For each exercise, the paper presents a system architecture diagram as well as an overview of the messages exchanged across systems. Several validation exercises have taken place in the context of a mixed mode environment in which only a subset of actors is FF-ICE capable, thus requiring the use of “bridging” capabilities such as data transformation to allow systems to remain interoperable despite differences in message type, version, etc. Validation 1 included the initial “mixed mode” environment envisioned in 2020 in which FF-ICE capable actors have implemented pre-departure FF-ICE message exchanges for pre-departure trajectory negotiations, while other actors are still using legacy capabilities. Validation 2 expanded trajectory negotiation into the post-departure portion of an active flight using bi-directional Air-to-Ground (A/G) System Wide Information Management (SWIM) data links, and single or bi-directional communications between the Flight Management System (FMS) and Electronic Flight Bag (EFB). Validation 3 further explored post-departure trajectory negotiation leveraging Data Communication (DataComm) messages in addition to A/G SWIM. The outputs and results of the IIH&V project outlined in this paper bring clarity to FF-ICE Planning Provisions and Implementation Guidance, as well as support the authoring organizations refining these documentations through input given to the ATMRPP. The IIH&V project also begins laying the groundwork for the development of FF-ICE Execution for post-departure.