The certification challenge of integrated avionics and air traffic management systems

Aviation must undertake considerable modernisation efforts in an era of steady air traffic growth to meet the crucial challenges faced by the industry, which include increasing demand for capacity and efficiency, stronger focus on global aviation safety and greater concerns on minimising adverse effects on the environment. Regulation and certification are vital to ensure high levels of safety and should also evolve harmoniously with the technological developments of Next Generation Avionics and Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems. This paper presents the challenges and opportunities for the evolution of the certification framework, considering the Global Air Navigation Plan (GANP) of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and major air transport modernisation programs including, inter alia, the Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) of Europe, Next Generation Air Transport System (NextGen) of the United States and OneSky of Australia. A critical review is carried out on the existing regulatory frameworks of the concerned aviation authorities namely the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the Federal Aviation Administrator (FAA), the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and the ICAO in relation to certification, in order to identify the key areas requiring further developments. Furthermore, a review of current industry standards in relation to hardware and software design, development, test & evaluation together with available standards for safety assessment are also presented, highlighting the outstanding gaps which should be fulfilled to achieve an integrated Communication, Navigation, Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) system certification. The paper then proposes a top level framework for integrated CNS/ATM system certification considering airborne as well as non-airborne systems, together with a matrix for means of compliance.