Smart airports, airports as multimodal nodes and passenger experience

Topic updates

29 January 2026

18 September 2025

Call HORIZON-SESAR-2025-DES-IR-02 has closed on the 16-09-2025.

39 proposals have been submitted for a total EU grant requested of around 315 MEUR.

The breakdown per topic is: 

Evaluation results are expected to be communicated in February 2026.

15 July 2025

Disclaimer

As regards enquiries related to the submission of proposals sent to info-call@sesarju.eu, SESAR JU cannot guarantee to provide an answer in time shortly before the call deadline. Therefore, we invite to submit your enquiries at least 2 weeks before the deadline.

Smart airports, airports as multimodal nodes and passenger experience

TOPIC ID: HORIZON-SESAR-2025-DES-IR-02-WA4-2

Type of grant: Call for proposals

General information

Programme: Horizon Europe (HORIZON)

Call: Digital European Sky Industrial Research 02 (HORIZON-SESAR-2025-DES-IR-02)

Type of action: HORIZON-JU-RIA HORIZON JU Research and Innovation Actions

Type of MGA: HORIZON Lump Sum Grant [HORIZON-AG-LS]

Status: Forthcoming

Deadline model: single-stage

Planned Opening Date: 01 April 2025

Deadline dates: 16 September 2025 17:00 (Brussels time)

Topic description

Expected Outcome:

To significantly advance the following development actions:

• IR-4-07 Smart airports, airports as multimodal nodes and passenger experience.
• IR-4-03 Cyber-resilience and cyber-security capabilities enabling the next generation of airport platforms.

Scope:

The following list of R&I needs is proposed as an illustration of the potential project content, but it is not meant as prescriptive. Proposals may include other research elements beyond the proposed research elements below if they are justified by their contribution to achieve the expected outcomes of the topic and are fully aligned with the development priorities defined in the European ATM Master Plan.

• Collaborative management at regional airports supported by Centralised Lite airport operations centre (APOC)

The Airport operations centre (APOC) concept was originally developed for large airports during previous SESAR phases, based on a platform/operational structure which collaboratively and pro-actively manages airport operations performance.

Although regional airports do not generally experience operational constraints in such scale as those occurring at large ones, they do experience issues which underperform their operations. The lack of communication and information shared amongst the stakeholders causes unforeseen deterioration of the airport performance with potential knock-on effect onto the ATM network.

The research area aims at developing a Centralised Lite APOC, aiming at the improvement of inbound, turnaround and outbound predictability based on enhanced local collaborative environment and connectivity with ATM network. The approach is simple, cost-efficient, algorithm-oriented and focusses on use of NM digital services provided to airports. Airport and network information is exchanged thereby forming the basis for improved situational awareness whilst supporting pre-tactical and tactical decision-making. Research shall consider the work performed under solution PJ.04-W2-28.2 “Collaborative management at regional airports supported by Centralised Lite APOC”. Note that there is on-going work by projects RACINE and PEACOCK.

• AOP and performance monitoring for a group of airports

This research element addresses the development of a single AOP to address the needs of a group of airports with similar operational needs that are too small to have their own AOP. This AOP combines information from each individual airports to meet collaboratively agreed joint targets for the group of airports, but taking into consideration individual airport needs and situation. The coordination among airports should always align and never compete with the overall airport-network view. Research also addresses the collaborative process for the definition of performance targets agreed for any set of airports that decide to gather under such a common AOP. The wider neighbouring community will participate in this process. The benefit of joint target setting will be the ability to set more challenging targets for a group of airports than would be possible for a single airport, thus providing improved service to the airspace users over a range of KPA. The overall performance of the group of airports will be monitored against the shared performance targets. The performance of one single airport or the group of airports will be provided, suitably filtered to all the stakeholders (wide access to airport performance). When a group of airports (too small to have their own AOP) with similar operational needs have decided to gather under a single AOP, there is a need to set and monitor the performance targets to further enable performance optimisation.

• Airport integration into the user-driven prioritisation process (UDPP)

The research element covers the integration of UDPP with airport driven local DCB process to support airports, airspace users, NM and ANSPs to anticipate, understand and manage arrivals related disruptive events at airports’ level in planning phase, aiming at reducing impact and knock-on effects. The potential benefits include a better management of disruptions speeding up of the recovery to normal operations. Research may include the allocation of target times for arrival flights (TTA) combined with the user driven prioritization process (UDPP) into the overall reconciliation process, also in case of multiple constraints. The reconciliation of the arrival constraints resolution between the network management function and the airport/AUs is addressed through the following:

• Detection, analysis and coordination of the local demand/capacity imbalances during the pre-flight phase: APOC and AUs coordinate a resolution process supported by integrated tools.
• NM Network impact assessment and application of local DCB (APOC) management proposals during the pre-flight phase (pre-tactical and tactical from ATFM perspective). The progressive integration of AOP and NOP between NM and Airport, will be used when available in NM data.
• Integrating actively to the current mechanism of providing target times of arrival (TTAs) by ATM/Airport stakeholders, the AUs flights constraint through UDPP flights prioritisations.

Research shall consider the work performed by SESAR 2020 SESAR solutions PJ.07-02 and PJ.07-W2-39. Note that on-going work on the evolution of evolution of UDPP concept is performed by HARMONIC project (i.e., on regional constraint reconciliation and network constraint reconciliation).

• Airport environmental performance management

Management of airport operations often necessitates a trade-off between different performance criteria (e.g., flight delay, environmental sustainability, resource availability, etc.). Research is focused on airport environmental performance management with the aim of integrating environmental considerations into the overall airport operations management process, bringing the question of environmental performance into the decision-making process.

Research includes the development of airport performance dashboard / cockpit to ensure an appropriate airport environmental performance monitoring. The introduction of an environmental dashboard in the airport operations plan (AOP) supports monitoring the airport environmental performance from the mid-term/short-term planning phase (D-1) thus improving collaborative decision-making process in the APOC. This dashboard should consider a series of environmental indicators in the daily operation of an airport in the execution phase, triggering and influencing operational decisions. The environmental indicators comprise those used in the performance plans but could also include additional local indicators if needed. The monitoring of the airport environmental performance can trigger the implementation of potential solutions to reduce the airport impact on noise and emissions at and near the airport. Research shall consider the work performed by SESAR solution PJ.04-W2-29.3 “environmental performance management”.

• Smart airports

Smart airports, with landside and groundside fully integrated into the ATM network, will be based around connectivity and other technologies to improve operations and the passenger experience. Research objectives include:

• The integration of airport and network planning and the timely exchange of surface transport network, airport and ATM network information will bring common situational awareness and improved mobility planning activities, notably arrival and departure predictability for both airports and the network. Research may also address the integration of vertiports into airport operations and surface transport network.
• Information-sharing and collaborative decision making will allow the inclusion of outputs from landside processes (passenger and baggage) to be used to improve the accuracy and predictability of airside operations.
• Business intelligence and machine learning will help airport stakeholders collaborate to align process and resource capacity with predicted demand in both planning phase (allocation of resources) and execution phase (dynamic adjustment of the plan based on anticipated impact on punctuality of flights and passenger experience).
• As future solutions will be virtualized and distributed, smart airports should leverage the collaboration power also to enhance the cybersecurity posture to prevent, protect and increase the cyber-resilience from attacks to the infrastructure.
• Adoption of novel passenger processing solutions able to offer a seamless passenger experience within and among airports.
• Considering ATM to be an integrated part of an intermodal transport system, research may include the development of potential solutions to share data between transport modes (e.g., ATM – rail) and to better collaborate to optimise the performance of both the overall transport system and the door-to-door journey. This includes the development of an integrated transport network performance cockpit and the definition of an integrated transport network crisis management process. Note that there is on-going work under project Travel-Wise on these topics.

Drivers for this are the digital evolution of integrated surface movement, multimodal airport collaborative decision-making and flow optimisation, next-generation arrival manager in a TBO context, and enhanced integration between airspace users’ trajectory management processes and ATM Network Manager processes.

• Integration of IFR RPAS in airport and CTR operations

Research addresses the development of solutions for a safe and efficient integration of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) in controlled airspace into the existing air traffic control (ATC) procedures and infrastructures within airports under instrument flight rules (IFR), which are dominated by crewed aviation. To the maximum extent possible, RPAS will have to comply with the existing rules and regulations. The solution includes the identification of specific requirements of remotely piloted operations compared to the crewed operations, and the development (if needed) of technological enablers that could be required for their integration in the airport environment. The scope covers the following aspects:

• Surface operations by IFR RPAS at different type of airports including required coordination for IFR RPAS by using dedicated airport scenarios. Research covers the assessment of the impact on airport capacity and on the efficiency of airport operations.
• Integration into the tower ATC systems of additional IFR RPAS information, such as latency details on voice and C2 link, and usage of a voice communication back-up line.
• Detail handover processes between several ground station operators, potentially in a real flight trial using an IFR RPAS demonstrator and investigate handover contingency procedures (e.g., lost C2 link, or pending ATC instructions). It also includes higher automation in C2 link failure conditions in the airport environment.
• Investigate context-sensitive display of contingency procedures and the reception by tower ATC and RPAS pilots at the respective working positions. The research element includes the consideration of crewed aircraft pilots in the validation of contingency procedures for awareness purposes.
• Develop requirements and architectures for direct communication between ATC and the remote pilot, avoiding relaying voice and data through the RPAS vehicle, while maintaining shared situational awareness with other airport users.
• Integration of IFR RPAS in airspace class D and E controlled from an integrated TMA/CTR -TWR ATSU.
• The use of sustainable taxi technologies in the taxi phase and/or the development of on-board and remote pilot station technologies to allow autonomous taxi.

The research shall consider the results obtained in solution PJ.03a-09 “surface operations by RPAS” and project INVIRCAT. Note there is ongoing work for the accommodation of IFR RPAS in airspace D and E in project IRINA.

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The submission system is planned to be opened on the date stated on the topic header.

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