Civil aviation, the adoption of new systems and applications: Institutional impacts

ASI (Italian Space Agency) and ENAV (Ente Nazionale di Assistenza al Volo) have collaborated to realize an infrastructure prototype to evaluate the benefits and the critical points of the introduction of the satellite navigation in civil aviation. SENECA (SatEllite Navigation sErvices for Civil Aviation) is the main output of this collaboration; it aims at demonstrating the services and the products supporting the use of satellite navigation. This paper deals mainly with the description of the SENECA architecture, showing the structure based on several subsystems. The possibilities and the future evolutions of the aviation are taken into account to show how interoperable satellite navigation systems (including the Galileo constellation) can allow the growth of air traffic maintaining high requirements in safety and performances.