The Autonomous Flight Plan Approval Service (A-FPLAS) is an AI-powered solution designed to streamline the process of evaluating and approving flight plans for drones. As part of the SESAR solution framework, A-FPLAS analyzes essential parameters, including weather, airspace constraints, drone capabilities, and regulatory requirements, ensuring that all flight plans comply with safety and operational standards. The service operates in real-time, comparing each new flight request against a dynamic database of approved plans within a reasonable time to act (RTTA) window, optimizing airspace management in high-density or urban environments.
If a flight plan cannot be approved immediately due to conflicts or other restrictions, A-FPLAS generates a U-Plan recommendation, which provides optimized routing alternatives to help operators adjust and resubmit for swift approval. This functionality enhances the system’s flexibility and efficiency, allowing drone operators to respond quickly to dynamic airspace conditions and reducing bottlenecks in the approval process.
The validation of the Autonomous Flight Plan Approval Service (A-FPLAS) focuses on three key capabilities, each associated with specific validation objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs). The first objective (OBJ-SOL0450-ERP-001) is to assess the compliance of submitted flight plans with the dynamic airspace structure, including geolocation, capacity, restrictions, weather, and turbulence conditions. The KPI for this objective is the system’s ability to return compliance results for all flight plans within the Reasonable Time to Act (RTTA) window. The second objective (OBJ-SOL0450-ERP-002) is to evaluate conflict detection among submitted flight plans, considering their assigned priorities and operational uncertainties (e.g., drone type, performance, wind). The corresponding KPI is the successful assessment of all flight plans within a single RTTA window, providing real-time approval or rejection decisions. The third objective (OBJ-SOL0450-ERP-003) is to generate recommendation actions for rejected flight plans. The KPIs here include the system’s ability to return clear rejection reasons and provide operators with feasible alternative actions, also within the RTTA window. These validation scenarios collectively demonstrate A-FPLAS’s ability to deliver safe, efficient, and real-time autonomous flight plan processing.
Autonomous Flight Plan Approval System process flow: Including U-Plan Authorization and U-Plan Recommendation
Connection of Autonomous Flight Plan Approval System (A-FPLAS) with other U-space Services
Simulated UAS traffic scenario – conflicting volumes are highlighted in red, while conflict-free volumes are shown in blue.