1. FPL 2012 Kym Shenton Senior Technical Engineer/Safety Engineer
Frequentis California, Inc.
Monterey, California 1

2. Outstanding Questions for FPL 2012
ICAO changes to ATS messages for DEP
What is the purpose of a DEParture message in the future?
(DEP-AIRID-FROM0200-DEST-DOF/111207)
How can a flight Depart in the Future?
No item 18 at all for ARR ATS messages. Why is this different from DEP messages? You cannot arrive or depart in the future!
Sorting of field 18, yes or no?
With all the changes, why wasn’t the EOBT required in all ATS messages? This would alleviate problems with matching ATS to flight plans and allow multiple instances in the same day of flights with the same AIRID, departure and destination.
Mutually exclusive fields in item 10b. No need to allow all possible combinations of values since only one of the values E,H,I,L,P,X,S would be valid at any one time.

3. smartFPL2012 Converter
Kym Shenton

4. Background
ICAO has introduced changes to the format for flight plan and associated ATS messages in Amendment 1 to the Procedures for Air Navigation Services — Air Traffic Management, Fifteenth Edition (PANS-ATM, Doc 4444).
The changes in this amendment will be effective on November 15, 2012.
Some ANSPs have ATM Systems (i.e. FDPS) that will not be upgraded on-time to meet the FPL 2012 format (NEW Format)
These ANSPs will need to implement an FPL2012 Converter

5. Frequentis Solution = smartFPL2012 Converter
Provides the ability to allow legacy systems to remain unchanged.
Provides bi-directional conversion between the PRESENT and 2012 (NEW) formats.
Provides the ability to hold messages for distribution 24 hours prior to the Estimated Of Block Time (EOBT) in the flight plan message.
Installed between an AFTN/AMHS System and ATM System (ie. FDPS)
Can be hosted on the same computer servers as the AFTN/AMHS system or on separate set of servers.
The interface between the converter and the ATM System can be based on the standard AFTN over asynchronous protocol as defined in ICAO Annex 10 or a TCP/IP based connection.

6. smartFPL2012 Converter

7. Changes to FPL Format Field 10: Equipment and Capacity
The equipment field is being changed to include a significant number of new equipment and capabilities, mostly dealing with new communications, navigation, and surveillance technologies
Field 13
The EOBT has been added to field 13 for ATS messages arrival (ARR), change (CHG) and cancel (CNL).
Field 15
The bearing and distance from a navaid can now be applied to any significant point, such as a waypoint. This has typically already been in use so no conversion is done for field 15.
Field 18
Field 18 is required in all flight plans and ATS messages (except ARR) whose EOBT is more than 24 hours from the current time. In addition, a number of new items have been added to further describe equipment and capabilities.

8. Functional Description

9. Message Reception From the AFTN/AMHS
Upon receipt of a message from the AFTN/AMHS System, the smartFPLConverter checks the type of the message and forwards messages that are not related to flight planning directly to the FDPS.
Flight Plans and ATS messages (CHG, DLA, CNL, DEP, ARR) that are in the NEW 2012 format are converted to the PRESENT format.
Messages converted to the PRESENT format are held on the converter until a 24 hours prior to the EOBT on the Date of Flight (DOF). At that time they are transmitted to the FDPS.
Messages received from the AFTN/AMHS System that are already in the PRESENT format are sent directly to the FDPS.

10. Conversion from NEW to PRESENT Format
The NEW format allows messages to be distributed up to 120 hours prior to flight time.
Flight and other ATS messages with DOF data in Field 18 are held on the smartConverter until 24 hours prior to the EOBT.
A table-driven model is used for the conversion governed by a user configurable “Rules” database. This database allows for local variations in ATS Message and procedures to be supported as well as the support of future ICAO procedures and formats.
The Rules data base is 4 tables in one:
A table controlling conversions related to Field 10a
A table controlling conversions related to Field 10b
A table controlling conversions related to Field 18
A table controlling the order of data items in Field18

11. Conversion from NEW to PRESENT Format (continued)
The Rules Database is bi-directional. Each entry defines the procedures for New-to-Present conversion and Present-to-New conversion
Each rule defines:
The conditions under which a rule shall be applied
The conversion to be taken
Rules can be combined to form complex condition/conversion rules
The goal of the conversion process is that an ATS Message (FPL, CHG etc.) can be converted from one format to another and, if the conversion is reversed, the result will be as close to the original message as possible.
In the course of New-to-Present conversion, advanced 2012 format data is retained in various Field 18 items including the Remarks item.

12. Conversion from NEW to PRESENT Format (continued)
Present Rules New Rules
The above Rules example shows a portion of the Field 10a Conversion table. As an example, if a “J3” code appears in a New formatted FPL, it is converted to a “J” code in the Present format and, in addition, two Field 18 items are added to the message: “NAV/V” and “COM/J3”. Note that the J3 rule is composed of two rule lines as indicated by the “C” in the continuation column.

13. Conversion from NEW to PRESENT Format (continued)
Present Rules New Rules
The above Rules example shows a portion of Field 10b and Field 18 rules. It shows, for example, that if a DLE item is received in a New FPL, it is converted to data in the RMK (Remarks) descriptor item since the DLE descriptor is not supported under the Present rules. The asterisk indicates that associated variable data is to be copied to the Present FPL.

14. Conversion from NEW to PRESENT Format (continued)
Depending on the direction of conversion, one side of the rules table defines matching conditions (the “From Side”) and the other side of the table defines the conversions to be made (the “To Side”).
The conversion process is governed by the Rules table. The process starts at the top of the table and proceeds in order to the bottom. For each rule the system does the following:
Tests if the conditions in the rule (the “From Side” of the table) match the message to be converted
If all the conditions match, the data from the “To Side” is moved to the output message
All matching conditions on the From Side are deleted from the input message so they will not matched by subsequent rules.
When all conversions are completed on Fields 10 and 18, the converted message is rebuilt and all other fields are included mostly unchanged from the original.

15. Conversion from NEW to PRESENT Format (continued)
No indicators within item 18 will be repeated. Thus, there is only one occurrence of NAV/ or COM/ or RMK/ etc. within item 18:
This means that if item 18 already has a NAV/ field, the addition of a second NAV/ field will not add the NAV/ a second time, but will add the data after the NAV/ to the already existing NAV/ field. For instance, item 18 already contains NAV/XXXX. Item 18 contains PBN/B1. The converted item 18 field will have “NAV/XXXX RNAV5 B1” and not “NAV/XXXX NAV/RNAV5 B1”.
The order of the Field 18 items in the converted message is determined by the seq18 column of the rules database.
If the smartConvert2012 program cannot decode an incoming ATS message, the message is forwarded unchanged to the destination system (FDPS).

16. Message Reception From the FDPS
All flight plans and ATS messages are converted to the NEW 2012 format and forwarded directly to the AFTN/AMHS System.
As stated earlier, the Rules Database is bi-directional. Each entry defines the procedures for New-to-Present conversion and Present-to-New conversion
The smartConvert2012 system provides complete traceability of all messages handled and conversions made by the system.
All activity is logged.
Operations people can recall any message and see the before and after versions.

17. Conclusion
Frequentis offers an alternative to ANSPs and CAAs allowing them to avoid expensive upgrades of their current ATM systems to support the new FPL 2012 Flight Plan format.
Interface with any AFTN/AMHS systems available in the market
Can be configured with Single or dual (redundant) computer servers deployment.
Supports fully automated conversion without need for operator intervention.
Comes with modern Graphical User Interface for system configuration.