A novel framework to assess the wake vortex hazards risk supported by aircraft in en-route operations

The work presented in this paper was partially funded by the SESAR Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 699247, as part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme: R-WAKE project (Wake Vortex Simulation and Analysis to Enhance En-route Separation Management in Europe - http://www.rwake-sesar2020.eu/). TThis paper presents the simulation environment developed within the framework of R-WAKE project, funded by SESAR 2020 Exploratory Research. This project aims to investigate the risks and hazards of potential wake vortex encounters in the en-route airspace, under current and futuristic operational scenarios, in order to support new separation standards aimed at increasing airspace capacity. The R-WAKE simulation environment integrates different components developed by different partners of the R-WAKE consortium, including simulators for weather, traffic, wake vortex phenomena, wake vortex interactions and different tools and methodologies for safety and risk assessment. A preliminary example is presented in this paper, in which 200 historical trajectories were simulated to show that the novel framework works properly. A WVE encounter has been detected in such first scenario, however with no significant safety effect on the follower aircraft. A second controlled scenario has been then run to force the detection of a severe wake encounter under realistic en-route conditions. Such scenario has given evidences that confirm the safety relevance of the underlying research concept.Peer Reviewe