Validating the FACTS2 air traffic simulation framework

The modernization of the European air transportation system will increase the need for data communication. This creates the need for large-scale simulations to ascertain that new aeronautical communication systems fulfil the requirements of future air traffic management communication. In this paper we validate the method of synthetic air traffic generation for aeronautical communication system evaluation by comparing the results of the FACTS2 simulator to radar-correlated flight-plan data of Germany and EUROCONTROL forecast data for Europe. FACTS2 is the German Aerospace Center's next generation framework for aeronautical communication system evaluation. Our results show that FACTS2 captures European air traffic very well, but overestimates the number of flights in Germany. The geographic distribution of flights is accurate at a geographic resolution of 0.1° or coarser and the time distribution of flights in Germany is reproduced correctly.