IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - April 2021 - 5

DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2021.3064616

From the Editors of the Special Issue on Avionics
Systems: Future Challenges
Roberto Sabatini , RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
Kathleen A. Kramer , University of San Diego, San Diego, CA 92161 USA
Erik Blasch , Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Arlington, VA 22203 USA
Aloke Roy , Honeywell, Baltimore, MD 21237 USA
Giancarmine Fasano , University of Naples Federico II, Naples 80138, Italy

Roberto Sabatini

Kathleen Kramer

Aloke Roy

APRIL 2021

Avionics systems are experiencing a rapid evolution fueled by advances in
communication, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) technologies, and the
widespread adoption of artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML)
both on board aerospace vehicles and in ground-based decision support systems. These technologies have the potential to transform the future of aviation and spaceflight, but their successful development and deployment
need to simultaneously address safety, efficiency, security, and sustainability requirements.
Technological advances of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and the
Erik Blasch
maturation of UAS traffic management (UTM) and urban air mobility
(UAM) concepts not only offer new promising business opportunities, but
also present unique technical and operational challenges, with the need to
assess and properly manage the emerging social, economic, and environmental impacts. The increasing dependency on connectivity, automation,
and autonomy exposes avionics and air traffic management (ATM) systems
to new vulnerabilities, and requires an integrated, cyber-aware approach to
achieve cyber-resilience. On the other hand, the new exciting perspectives
offered by the space economy have enormous potentials, but require new
multidisciplinary approaches to space mission design and new cyber-physiGiancarmine Fasano
cal architectures supporting space domain awareness and space traffic management (STM) (see Figure 1).
While large-scale research and innovation initiatives are reshaping
the future of the aerospace sector, it is now clear that avionics systems
are becoming cyber-physical and progressively evolving into a variety
of autonomous, intelligent, and adaptive human-machine systems.
Cognizant of the challenges that future avionics systems must overcome, this special issue was developed to span a wide range of topics
and tackle, more specifically, the key technical challenges and solutions emerging in the low-level ATM context, including the evolution
of CNS systems (and associated performance metrics), and the need
for efficient AI solutions in next generation avionics systems. It also
aims to illustrate the current state-of-research and educational best
practices by bringing together the different viewpoints of experts in
the relevant domains and includes discussion on the challenges that
must be addressed to support further advances in industry-focused
research and innovation.
The articles published in this special issue discuss aspects relevant to
communications and navigation ( " Flight trial demonstration of secure
GBAS via the L-band digital aeronautical communication system, " by
IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE

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https://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-3399-2291 https://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-4789-0245 https://www.orcid.org/0000-0001-6894-6108 https://www.orcid.org/0000-0001-6073-7811 https://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-2205-3077

IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - April 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - April 2021