On 26 May 2026, ATM-EXCITE was selected as a flagship reference case for the Civil-Military Walking Tour at Airspace World 2026. The tour was led by the European Defence Agency (EDA). Around 15 senior decision-makers from across European aviation joined the session. Our partner UPVISION delivered a live demonstration of the ANYSKY solution, covering its architecture and de-masking capabilities.
This post explains what the Walking Tour is. It also covers why ATM-EXCITE was chosen as a reference case, and what the ANYSKY demonstration showed.
What is the SESAR Civil-Military Walking Tour?
Airspace World is the leading annual forum for the European ATM community. It brings together regulators, industry, research organisations, and institutional stakeholders. Together, they discuss the future of European airspace.
Within the event, the SESAR Joint Undertaking organises Walking Tours. These are guided sessions in which an expert leads a small group of senior visitors through selected project booths. The goal is to connect individual research efforts to the broader challenges they address. The format is deliberately designed for decision-makers. Rather than a conference panel, it is a focused, narrative-led experience.
The Civil-Military Walking Tour focuses specifically on coordination challenges between civil and military aviation. This area sits at the intersection of the Single European Sky framework, national defence requirements, and the growing complexity of shared airspace. For more background on why this matters, see our earlier post on civil-military coordination in ATM.
Why ATM-EXCITE was selected as a reference case
ATM-EXCITE did not emerge from a standard industry R&D process. Instead, its origins trace directly to EDA’s work on the IMAC SES CAT B programme. Through that work, a clear operational gap was identified. Specifically, business aviation and civil special flights lacked adequate tools to interact securely with military airspace management systems. Moreover, no off-the-shelf solution existed to address this need.
As a result, EDA approached the SESAR JU to explore whether SESAR Exploratory Research could serve as an enabling instrument. The answer was yes. Consequently, ATM-EXCITE was created: a consortium of six European partners developing five complementary technical solutions. These solutions target the civil-military coordination and cybersecurity gaps in current ATM systems.
Because ATM-EXCITE was born from an institutionally identified operational gap, it represents exactly the kind of case study the Walking Tour is designed to showcase.
What ANYSKY demonstrated
The ANYSKY solution is developed by UPVISION. It addresses digital trust and security attestation in the context of civil-military operations in shared airspace. In practical terms, it combines existing ATM infrastructure with an independent remote attestation platform. This platform verifies the identity and integrity of data sources — a critical capability when civil and military systems exchange sensitive information.
At Airspace World 2026, UPVISION presented ANYSKY’s architecture. They also demonstrated its de-masking capability. This is the ability to reveal and verify the true identity of an aircraft or data source operating under anonymised transmission, in a controlled and authorised manner. This capability is directly relevant to the scenarios ATM-EXCITE was designed for — particularly flights where identity protection and selective disclosure must coexist.
The demonstration illustrated the core tension that all ATM-EXCITE solutions address: how do you share enough information to maintain safe operations, while protecting details that military aviation requires? ANYSKY tackles this from the identity and attestation layer. However, other solutions approach the same problem differently. ADVERMA works from the data verification side. SEALD operates at the encryption layer. DACSEC ADS-B applies cross-domain security principles. Finally, SIMCOM models coordination scenarios through multi-agent simulation.
What this visibility means for the project
Being selected as a reference case for a SESAR JU Walking Tour is a meaningful signal for a project at the exploratory research stage. Furthermore, the Civil-Military edition is led by EDA — the same institution that originally identified the operational gap ATM-EXCITE is addressing. This gives the selection particular significance.
For the broader European civil-military ATM community, it is also a reminder that the SESAR Exploratory Research instrument can produce operational value from problems that commercial R&D would not typically prioritise. ATM-EXCITE is still in its research and validation phase. Nevertheless, the solutions are grounded in real operational requirements and already generating results that decision-makers can engage with directly.
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