Call: Safe automation and human factors in aviation – intelligent integration and assistance

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Programme

Horizon Europe - Cluster 5 - Destination 6: Safe, Resilient Transport and Smart Mobility services for passengers and goods

Acronym

HE-CL5-D6

Type of Fund

Direct Management

Description of programme
"Horizon Europe - Cluster 5 - Destination 6: Safe, Resilient Transport and Smart Mobility services for passengers and goods"

This Destination includes activities addressing safe and smart mobility services for passengers and goods.

Europe needs to manage the transformation of supply-based transport into safe, resilient and sustainable transport and demand-driven, smart mobility services for passengers and goods. Suitable research and innovation will enable significant safety, environmental, economic and social benefits by reducing accidents caused by human error, decreasing traffic congestion, reducing energy consumption and emissions of vehicles, increasing efficiency and productivity of freight transport operations. To succeed in this transformation, Europe’s ageing (and not always sustainable) transport infrastructure needs to be prepared for enabling cleaner and smarter operations.

Europe needs also to maintain a high-level of transport safety for its citizens. Resilience should be built in the transport systems to prevent, mitigate and recover from disruptions. Research and innovation will underpin the three safety pillars: technologies, regulations and human factors.

This Destination contributes to the following Strategic Plan’s Key Strategic Orientations (KSO):

C: Making Europe the first digitally enabled circular, climate-neutral and sustainable economy through the transformation of its mobility, energy, construction and production systems;
A: Promoting an open strategic autonomy[[‘Open strategic autonomy’ refers to the term ‘strategic autonomy while preserving an open economy’, as reflected in the conclusions of the European Council 1 – 2 October 2020.]] by leading the development of key digital, enabling and emerging technologies, sectors and value chains to accelerate and steer the digital and green transitions through human-centred technologies and innovations.

It covers the following impact areas:

Industrial leadership in key and emerging technologies that work for people;
Smart and sustainable transport.

The expected impact, in line with the Strategic Plan, is to contribute to “Safe, seamless, smart, inclusive, resilient and sustainable mobility systems for people and goods thanks to user-centric technologies and services including digital technologies and advanced satellite navigation services”, notably through:

Accelerating the implementation of innovative connected, cooperative and automated mobility (CCAM) technologies and systems for passengers and goods (more detailed information below).
Further developing a multimodal transport system through sustainable and smart long-haul and urban freight transport and logistics, upgraded and resilient physical and digital infrastructures for smarter vehicles and operations, for optimised system-wide network efficiency (more detailed information below).
Drastically decreasing the number of transport accidents, incidents and fatalities towards the EU’s long-term goal of moving close to zero fatalities and serious injuries by 2050 even in road transportation (Vision Zero) and increase the resilience of transport systems (more detailed information below).

Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM)

The aim of relevant topics under this Destination is to accelerate the implementation of innovative connected, cooperative and automated mobility (CCAM) technologies and systems. Actions will help to develop new mobility concepts for passengers and goods – enabled by CCAM - leading to healthier, safer, more accessible, sustainable, cost-effective and demand-responsive transport everywhere. CCAM solutions will shift design and development from a driver-centred to mobility-user oriented approach, providing viable alternatives for private vehicle ownership while increasing inclusiveness of mobility. CCAM must be integrated in the whole transport system to fully exploit the potential benefits of CCAM and minimise potential adverse effects, such as increasingly congested traffic or new risks in mixed traffic environments.

The focus is on road transport, but relevant interfaces with other modes (for instance transfers and integration with public transport or rail freight transport) will be considered.

All technologies, solutions, testing and demonstration activities resulting from these actions should be documented fully and transparently, to ensure replicability, increase adoption, up-scaling, assist future planning decisions and EU and national policy-making and increase citizen buy-in.

Actions are in line with the recommendations of the new European Partnership on CCAM. The Vision of the Partnership is: “European leadership in safe and sustainable road transport through automation”. It aims to harmonise European R&I efforts to accelerate the implementation of innovative CCAM technologies and services. It aims to exploit the full systemic benefits of new mobility solutions enabled by CCAM. The European Partnership on CCAM plans to closely cooperate with other European Partnerships, in particular with “Towards zero emission road transport” (2ZERO), “Driving Urban Transitions” (DUT), “Key digital technologies” (KDT), “Smart networks and services” (SNS) and “AI, data and robotics” (AI). The European Partnership will establish cooperation mechanisms to ensure close interaction when defining R&I actions to maximise synergies and avoid overlaps.

R&I actions taking place at a socio-technical level aiming to better understand the science-society relationship (particularly when social practices, market uptake or ownership are concerned) should favour solutions that are grounded in social innovation in order to achieve its desired outcomes, i.e. by matching innovative ideas with social needs and by forming new collaborations between public and private actors, including civil society and researchers from the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH).

To test CCAM solutions, applicants can seek possibilities of involving the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in order to valorise the relevant expertise and physical facilities of JRC in demonstrating and testing energy and mobility applications of the JRC Living Lab for Future Urban Ecosystems https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/research-facility/living-labs-at-the-jrc

The main impacts to be generated by topics targeting connected, cooperative and automated mobility under this Destination are:

Validated safety and security, improved robustness and resilience of CCAM technologies and systems.
Secure and trustworthy interaction between road users, CCAM and “conventional” vehicles, infrastructure and services to achieve safer and more efficient transport flows (people and goods) and better use of infrastructure capacity.
Seamless, affordable and user oriented CCAM based mobility and goods deliveries for all and high public acceptance of these services with clear understanding of its benefits and limits as well as rebound effects; based on the changing mobility needs and desires of a society in transition (digitally and environmentally).
Better coordination of R&I and large-scale testing activities in Europe and expanded knowledge base on CCAM solutions.
European leadership in the development and deployment of connected and automated mobility and logistics services and systems, ensuring long-term growth and jobs.

Multimodal and sustainable transport systems for passengers and goods

Multimodal and sustainable transport systems are the backbone for efficient mobility of passengers and freight. In particular, the areas of infrastructure, logistics and network/traffic management play a major role in making mobility and transport climate neutral, also through the digitalisation of the sectors. At the same time, being vulnerable to climate change and other disruptions, resilience in these three areas need to be increased. New and advanced infrastructures across all transport modes are required to enable the introduction of new vehicles, operations and mobility services. Furthermore, efficient and smart multimodal logistics are key for seamless and sustainable long-haul, regional and urban freight transport movements. Finally, dynamic multimodal network and traffic management systems are the “glue” of the entire transport network, for optimised door-to-door mobility of both passengers and freight.

To test solutions related to multimodal and sustainable transport systems for passengers and good, applicants may seek possibilities of involving the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in order to valorise the relevant expertise and physical facilities of JRC in demonstrating and testing energy and mobility applications of the JRC Living Lab for Future Urban Ecosystems[[https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/research-facility/living-labs-at-the-jrc]].

The main impacts to be generated by topics targeting Multimodal and sustainable transport systems for passengers and goods under this Destination are:

Upgraded and resilient physical and digital infrastructure for clean, accessible, affordable, connected and automated multimodal mobility.
Sustainable and smart long-haul, regional and urban freight transport and logistics, through increased efficiency, improved interconnectivity and smart enforcement.
Reduced external costs (e.g. congestion, traffic jams, emissions, air and noise pollution, road collisions) of urban, peri-urban (regional) and long distance freight transport as well as optimised system-wide network efficiency and resilience.
Enhanced local and/or regional capacity for governance and innovation in urban mobility and logistics.

Safety and resilience - per mode and across all transport modes

Safety and resilience are of primary concern for any transport system. The EU set ambitious targets in its 2011 Transport White Paper, the third Mobility Package and, more recently, the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy[[COM(2020) 789 final.]]. COVID-19 has been a stark reminder of the importance of resilience to external disruptions, particularly for transport. Research and innovation will underpin the three pillars affecting safety and resilience: technologies; regulations (alongside acceptable level of risks); and human factors (individual and organisational aspects, including interaction with automation). The approach is risk-based and systemic, including transport means/vehicles, infrastructure, the physical environment (e.g. weather) and the various actors (e.g. manufacturers, regulators, operators, users) as well as all their interfaces, including certification and standardisation bodies.

Synergies should be exploited across research at national, EU and international level together with national authorities, EU agencies and international organisations to improve rulemaking, safety promotion and oversight.

The main impacts to be generated by topics targeting transport safety and resilience under this Destination are:

Safety in Urban Areas/ Road Transport Safety

50% reduction in serious injuries and fatalities in road crashes by 2030.
Improved reliability and performance of systems that aim to anticipate and minimize safety risks, avoiding risks and collisions, and reducing the consequences of unavoidable crashes.
Drastic reduction of road fatalities and serious crash injuries in low and medium income countries in Africa.
Better design principles of future road transport systems enabling also better traffic flow in big cities.

Waterborne Safety and Resilience

Ensure healthy passenger shipping by preventing and mitigating the spread of contagious diseases and infections.

Aviation Safety and Resilience

Decrease number of accidents and incidents due to organisational/human/automation factors and external hazards in all phases of flight, also beyond CAT category (80% goal in FlightPath2050), while enabling all weather operations.
Saving lives following a crash (post-crash survivability).
Anticipate emergence of new threats that could generate potential accidents and incidents (short, medium, and long term).
Ensure safety through aviation transformation (from green/digital technologies uptake up to independent certification).
Maintain safety and resilience despite the scale, pace and diversity of new entrants.

Link

Link to Programme

Call

Safe automation and human factors in aviation – intelligent integration and assistance

Description of call
"Safe automation and human factors in aviation – intelligent integration and assistance"

Expected Outcome

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

Improved monitoring of human performance, system performance and external hazards, in order to pave the way to more automation in aviation while meeting Flightpath2050 safety goals.
Avoiding startle response or “automation surprise”, enabling intelligent assistance to all operators on the air and on the ground in all safety-critical situations and allowing fall-back response in case of severe system perturbations - including pilot incapacitation, cyber-attacks and/or broader operational system-wide failures.
New crew and team configurations, including human-machine teaming, automation supervisory roles and distributed human crew (both airborne and on the ground) to ensure safety and optimise performance without leading to complacency or to loss of critical skills.
Better prepared workforce and training, with smarter selection, qualification and training tools and methods to maintain high standards of safety and resilience, including advanced simulation for complex safety-critical events.
Increased organisational and regulatory preparedness, safety culture and societal acceptance in the advent of more automation in aviation, from earlier integration of human factors and automation into design processes and safety case methods up to ensuring an appropriate level of human factors and automation competence in key organisations, including regulators.

Scope:

Activities should address a renewed safety focus on the teaming between the human and automation, given the steady increase in automation in aviation operations at large (e.g. in cockpit, ATC, maintenance, etc.), including for new airborne services and vehicles such as drones. When automation is unable to cope, control should be handed back safely to the human.

Prepare the next step-change in automation, artificial intelligence (AI), in two steps. Firstly, in the medium term with the role of AI as ‘Digital Assistant’, part of the team, earning the trust of the human operators and the flying public. Secondly, in the long term, with the potential of AI to take over operations. For the transition to digital assistant and ultimately to AI-run operations, develop a novel approach to Human Factors and to safety (and security) assurance methods and processes.

System transition issues should be addressed, to avoid an initial spate of ‘automation-assisted accidents’, as it happened at the last step change in the level of automation in aviation (‘glass cockpits’), which nevertheless resulted in significantly improved safety.

Activities should consider the increasing complexity in aviation e.g. traffic growth expected back in the mid/long-term, more ‘new entrants’ as drones, more extreme weather events, more environmental constraints leading to more complex systems and operations. In such an evolving aviation environment it is needed to better understand and anticipate why incidents happen – the triggering events/hazards, the cognitive failures and the challenges at the human-machine interface – in order to learn the right lessons and then share them both internally and externally. This includes the impact of physical and mental wellbeing on human performance and safety, both in a positive sense (e.g. motivation, positive safety culture) and in a negative sense (e.g. fatigue, constraints during/after pandemic times, fitness for duty, skill loss, and complacency).

More focus is needed then on Human Digital Interface design and on integrating AI into human crews and teams, as a smart assistant to explain, accompany and support operators, in particular at safety-critical situations and to recover from emergencies. More adaptive and trustworthy human-machine systems and more intuitive interfaces should be developed.

Developments should be applied to realistic operational and regulatory contexts while devising how to maintain safety culture and societal acceptance along with organisational and regulatory preparedness. Particular attention should be paid to possible differences such as age, gender and ethnography. Social innovation is recommended when the solution is at the socio-technical interface and requires social change, new social practices, social ownership or market uptake.

This topic requires the effective contribution of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions, as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

Activities should go beyond the state of the art and previous R&I activities, at least at EU level. Activities should ensure no overlap but complementarity for integration with any other aviation activities, such as SESAR / Transforming the European ATM System partnership. The proposals may include the explicit commitment from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to assist or to participate in the actions.

In order to achieve the expected outcomes with increased resources and impact, international cooperation can be foreseen with third countries with relevant capacities in this domain, while ensuring that the respect of European IPR, interests and values is strictly guaranteed.

Synergies with other transport modes and safety/security critical sectors adopting more automation is welcomed, in particular on risk assessment and pre-normative research to ensure fit-for-purpose rulemaking and management systems and a high level of cyber-attack protection.

Synergies with other topics in Horizon Europe can be exploited such as in Cluster 4 e.g. HORIZON-CL4-2021-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01-02 (Software for low-power operation at the edge), HORIZON-CL4-2021-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01-11 (Pushing the limit of robotics cognition), in Cluster 3 e.g. HORIZON-CL3-2021-INFRA-01-01 (European infrastructures and their autonomy safeguarded against systemic risks), as well as with other EU programmes such as Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), NextGenerationEU and Digital Europe.

Specific Topic Conditions:

Activities are expected to achieve TRL 6 by the end of the project.

Cross-cutting Priorities:

Link

Link to Call

Thematic Focus

Research & Innovation, Technology Transfer & Exchange, Clustering, Development Cooperation, Economic Cooperation, Capacity Building, Cooperation Networks, Institutional Cooperation, Digitisation, ICT, Telecommunication, Mobility & Transport/Traffic , Health, Social Affairs, Sports, Tourism, Disaster Prevention, Resiliance, Risk Management, Consumer Protection

Funding area

EU Member States
Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs)

Origin of Applicant

EU Member States
Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs)

Eligible applicants

Education and Training Centres, Federal State / Region / City / Municipality / Local Authority, Research Institution, Lobby Group / Professional Association / Trade Union, International Organization, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, SMEs (between 10 and 249 employees), Microenterprises (fewer than 10 employees), NGO / NPO, Public Services, National Government, Other, Start Up Company, University, Enterprise (more than 250 employees or not defined), Association

Applicant details

eligible non-EU countries:

countries associated to Horizon Europe

At the date of the publication of the work programme, there are no countries associated to Horizon Europe. Considering the Union’s interest to retain, in principle, relations with the countries associated to Horizon 2020, most third countries associated to Horizon 2020 are expected to be associated to Horizon Europe with an intention to secure uninterrupted continuity between Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe. In addition, other third countries can also become associated to Horizon Europe during the programme. For the purposes of the eligibility conditions, applicants established in Horizon 2020 Associated Countries or in other third countries negotiating association to Horizon Europe will be treated as entities established in an Associated Country, if the Horizon Europe association agreement with the third country concerned applies at the time of signature of the grant agreement.

low-and middle-income countries

Legal entities which are established in countries not listed above will be eligible for funding if provided for in the specific call conditions, or if their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority.

Specific cases:

Affiliated entities - Affiliated entities are eligible for funding if they are established in one of the countries listed above.
EU bodies - Legal entities created under EU law may also be eligible to receive funding, unless their basic act states otherwise.
International organisations - International European research organisations are eligible to receive funding. Unless their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority, other international organisations are not eligible to receive funding. International organisations with headquarters in a Member State or Associated Country are eligible to receive funding for ‘Training and mobility’actions and when provided for in the specific call conditions.

Project Partner

Yes

Project Partner Details

Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call conditions , legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes:

at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State;and
at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.

Call opens

24.06.2021

Call closes

19.10.2021

Further info

Proposal page limits and layout:

The application form will have two parts:

Part A to be filled in directly online (administrative information, summarised budget, call-specific questions, etc.)
Part B to be downloaded from the Portal submission system, completed and re-uploaded as a PDF in the system

Page limit - Part B: 70 pages

Type of Funding

Grants

Financial details

Expected EU contribution per project	The Commission estimates that an EU contribution of between EUR 4.00 and 8.00 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of a proposal requesting different amounts.
Indicative budget	The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 12.00 million.
Typ of Action	Innovation Actions (IA)
Funding rate	70%

Submission

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System. Paper submissions are NOTpossible.