ESIT – a digital twin of air surveillance infrastructure

Civil air traffic surveillance and management depends heavily on the use of aircraft transponders replying to radio interrogations from cooperative surveillance systems such as secondary surveillance radars, multilateration and collision avoidance systems. A high number of such surveillance systems combined with a high aircraft density can cause a large quantity of interrogations, therefore having a detrimental impact on transponder behavior and sometimes even causing a loss of replies and thus a deterioration in aircraft surveillance. In order to ensure the safe operation of European air traffic management, the European Commission obligates the member states to take measures to ensure that the transponder load in their air spaces does not exceed a safe level. EUROCONTROL, in its function as network manager responsible for supporting the monitoring, management and coordination of the scarce spectrum resource, has contracted the implementation of a European simulation tool to Austro Control in collaboration with SeRo Systems and the Institute of Microwave and Photonic Engineering as subcontractors. This paper examines the development and use of this tool as well as the functionality it provides.