Tern Systems Hosts Visioneering Session in Budapest

On March 11th, Tern Systems hosted a Visioneering Session at our Budapest office, gathering a selected group of industry leaders and innovators to discuss the technical and regulatory evolution of Air Traffic Management. 

The event featured guests from four air navigation service providers, Isavia ANS, HungaroControl, Slovenia Control, and Austro Control. As well as representatives from the European Transport Workers Federation (ETF), FlightRadar24, and the SESAR3 Joint Undertaking.

The day opened with a presentation from Magnús Már Þórðarson, CEO of Tern Systems, who addressed current trends in the industry. 

Magnús highlighted the unique perspective of independent, agile vendors, emphasizing that we are currently in the midst of a technological revolution that has the power to reshape the industry. A key theme of his address was the tension between the industry’s inherent conservatism, driven by safety-critical requirements, and the urgent need for innovation. 

He concluded by urging partners to embrace the current technological shift as an opportunity to move forward, emphasising that collective influence is necessary to ensure the industry evolves in a way that makes sense for the entire ecosystem.

Polaris and the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Gunnar Þór Magnússon (Senior Research Engineer) and Davíð Sindri Pétursson (Software Architect) provided a technical deep dive into Tern’s journey with Polaris, our second-generation ATM system. Ten years ago, Tern’s systems lived in single code repositories with "grown" rather than "designed" code, relying on mutable shared state which made modification and scaling difficult. Polaris, which started development in 2015, was built from the ground up as a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).

The team explained how Tern leverages open-source tools, using Protocol Buffers for interface definitions and gRPC for network communication. By using Docker and virtual machines, they demonstrated that they could move from unpacking hardware to running simulated traffic in less than an hour. The SOA model allows for parallel development of individual Polaris components like Surveillance Data Processors and Safety Net Servers, which have already been delivered as the backup system for HungaroControl.

While praising the industry’s move toward SOA, the team offered critical insights into the SESAR roadmap. They warned that the 50 "level-two" services specified may present high operational loads and suggested a more flexible approach where one instance can handle multiple services to maintain data locality. They also stressed the urgent need for defined inputs and outputs, noting that a less formal version delivered immediately is preferable to a formal specification years away. Finally, while supportive of orchestration, they cautioned that running Kubernetes in a safety-critical ATM environment is significantly more complex than it appears on paper.

The Roadmap: SDO8 and the Decade of Transition

Alan Siebert detailed the SDO8 deployment priority, outlining Europe’s ten-year transition to a new ATM service delivery model. 

The goal is to change almost every level of ATM infrastructure within a decade. This transition involves a two-phase roadmap.

Phase 1 focuses on certification for system design and Data Processing Operators by 2027, while Phase 2 envisions cloud computing platforms being acceptable for safety-critical services in the 2030s. As a result of these developments, SD08 will permit the adoption of a multi-vendor model by ANSPs, where open platforms and interfaces allow integration of components from various system providers. ANSPs will be able to have a system that serves their needs, using reliable components from trusted providers, all certified to be interoperable and reliable under operational conditions. 

Following the presentations, the group transitioned into a collaborative workshop to discuss what the ATM ecosystem would look like in 10 years. Key topics included a discussion on how the industry can move towards the ATSP - ADSP separation, where data provision is separated from the provision of air traffic control, and also on how the new service delivery model can be a potential enabler of more flexible software solutions for ANSPs, thus avoiding vendor lock-in. Participants also discussed creating incentives for airspace users to share data and fostering trust in cross-border information, such as weather data exchange between countries. The participants discussed the need of integrating ATM with Unmanned Traffic Management and eventually Space Traffic Management to handle returning space objects and other emerging operational challenges.

The session concluded with a commitment to proactive engagement through a 2026 Action Plan. Tern Systems intends to enter into an even more active collaboration with EASA, not only through project activities but also by reaching out to EUROCAE through its various working groups and taking the initiatives to be a creative partner in the standardisation process. By exploring the frontier of "Automatic Certification", our goal is to replace traditional bottlenecks with a streamlined, test-driven approval process that gets critical technology into the field faster.