Design advancements for an integrated mission management system for small air transport vehicles in the COAST project

Purpose This paper aims to describe the activities that are ongoing, in the Cost Optimized Avionics SysTem (COAST) project, to design an integrated mission management system (IIMS) to be used as support to the pilot and/or to act as a backup in case of pilot incapacitation onboard on small air transport (SAT) vehicles, under single-pilot operations. Design/methodology/approach The COAST project, funded by Clean Sky 2 programme, is developing enabling technologies for single-pilot operations in the European Aviation Safety Agency CS-23 category vehicles. Such technologies include specific tools that are designed as individual enablers for single-pilot operations and specifically address: the real-time support to pilot's decision making in maintaining the vehicle self-separation (this technology is the tactical separation system [TSS]); the real-time support to pilot's situational awareness about observed and forecasted weather conditions (this technology is the advanced weather awareness system [AWAS]); and the real-time management of emergency conditions due to pilot's incapacitation under single-pilot operations (this technology is the flight reconfiguration system [FRS]). Based on the outcomes of the design activities of such individual tools, in the COAST project emerged the opportunity to proceed with the design of a further system, leveraging the individual tools and benefitting from their integration. Findings The IMMS design started in the year 2020 and the activities carried out up to mid-2021 allowed to define the concept of operations of the system, its high-level requirements (functional, interface and operational requirements) and the preliminary system architecture. Originality/value The IMMS contributes enabling the implementation of single-pilot operations in CS-23 category vehicles, thanks to the possibility to support, in normal operational conditions, the pilot's decision-making and, in emergency conditions due to pilot's incapacitation, the automatic flight management up to the safe destination.