The Fly 2 Plan project recognizes the need to develop an information model to support the exchange of information between ATM and UTM stakeholders. As an international standard used by airports and aviation stakeholders across the world, the ACRIS Semantic Model was chosen as the basis of this new Fly 2 Plan information model.

During the Fly 2 Plan project, Rockport Software has provided significant information modelling expertise:

• Information Model: developed a new information model, based on, and extending, the ACRIS Semantic Model to cater for the specific requirements of Fly 2 Plan
• Use case modelling: using the project use cases and stakeholder interviews, developed the conceptual model, including alignment and clarification of terms used in each of the ATM and UTM domains.
• Standards analysis: developed the information model to ensure alignment and compatibility with existing aviation information models (such as AIDM, AIRM) and message exchange standards, such as those defined by IATA and ICAO for flight information messaging.
• Modelling: developed a logical information model that integrates the ATM and UTM domains of operation, with significant changes to support drone operations and geo-spatial definition of routes.
• Schema development: developed a physical data model representation of the Fly 2 Plan logical information model. Generation of message and storage schemas (JSON/XML) based on this data model.
• DLT/Blockchain schema: developed the the JSON data model schema based on the information model used in the Fly 2 Plan distributed ledger for asset storage.
• Update international standards: provided feedback to ACRIS to ensure the Fly 2 Plan model enhancements were incorporated back into the next update to the published ACRIS Semantic Model as a benefit to the industry.
• Hosting: provided a cloud based instance of the Fly 2 Plan information model to support collaborative development in the agile project development methodology used in Fly 2 Plan.

The distributed application developed by the Fly to Plan project team relies on Hyperledger Fabric blockchain technology deployed using Kubernetes. To lower the barrier to entry and make the solution more accessible, especially to smaller participants within the envisaged network, much of the technical complexity of Kubernetes and Hyperledger Fabric blockchain needs to be relegated to the background.

The Hyperledger blockchain automation framework (BAF) was identified as meeting this objective using the automation tool Ansible to handle the cloud environment setup, blockchain network and chaincode deployment directed by a single master configuration file. During the course of the project, Hyperledger BAF evolved to become the Hyperledger Bevel project.

Rockport Software provided technical expertise in the use of Kubernetes and Hyperledger Fabric deployment:

• Rockport Software provisioned Hyperledger Fabric network test deployments of the Fly 2 Plan distributed application in cloud platforms provided by multiple cloud vendors using customized Hyperledger Blockchain Automation Framework scripts.
• Rockport Software contributed code to Hyperledger BAF (initially a Hyperledger lab) to support the scripted deployment of a Hyperledger Fabric network to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's Kubernetes cluster offering, which was not already supported by Hyperledger BAF. As the Hyperledger lab evolved into the full Hyperledger Bevel product, Rockport Software contributed code to this open source project and merged the new capabilities into the develop branch of the Hyperledger Bevel source code for future releases.

The distributed nature of the blockchain solution developed during the Fly 2 Plan project provides a secure, scalable and trusted environment in which to exchange aviation information. A critical part of the Fly 2 Plan project was to assess the cybersecurity threat environment in which such an application would operate. Oxford University and Cranfield University focused on identifying cybersecurity threats and developing artificial intelligence algorithms that could be used to identify malicious activity within the distributed ledger network.

Rockport Software participated in a series of cybersecurity tests conducted against the Fly 2 Plan application.

• Definition and configuration of test scenarios to support realistic ATM and UTM operations.
• Generation of test messages compliant with existing IATA/ICAO/UTM message standards to meet the agreed test scenarios.
• Cybersecurity testing support - definition of test plans, test scenarios and test messages. Coordinated execution of tests with sample messages and analysis provided for inclusion in the test reports and cybersecurity threat assessment report.
• Test execution support to publish the scenario based messages, acting as a third party data provider.

Rockport Software provided technical expertise to develop test support utilities for the Fly 2 Plan project:

• Rapid development of a configuration-driven test scenario utility in which ATM/UTM test scenarios are defined and compliant test message sets generated.
• Rapid development of a cloud-hosted message simulator to act as a configurable third party to publish ATM/UTM test messages to the Fly 2 Plan network.