This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Integrated Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance Conference (ICNS). Over the years, ICNS has become the premier global event for promoting, maturing, and disseminating CNS policies, standards, and innovation, shifting the focus from isolated communications, navigation, and surveillance functions to integrated services. This integration optimizes aviation RF spectrum use, incorporates technological advancements, and enhances safety, efficiency, and capacity.
ICNS addresses both long-term research and development, as well as the practical implementation of integrated CNS technologies. As our regular attendees can attest, the conference is structured around three pillars:
- Panel Sessions (mornings): Discussing key topics, policies, and technological advancements in CNS.
- Technical Paper Presentations (afternoons): Showcasing cutting-edge CNS research and developments.
- Networking Opportunities (throughout the day): Fostering informal exchanges among policymakers, regulators, industry leaders, researchers, scholars, professionals, students, and experts worldwide.
A Special Milestone
This year’s conference is particularly significant as it is our silver jubilee — 25 years of ICNS — and, for the first time, is being held outside the United States. This milestone underscores the conference’s international reach and reflects our commitment to global collaboration in advancing CNS technologies and supporting harmonized developments and timely operational innovations. We also welcome a record number of participants from more than 40 countries.
The 2025 edition is hosted by EUROCONTROL, the SESAR Deployment Manager (SDM), and the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SJU) at EUROCONTROL’s Brussels headquarters.
Get ready for three days filled with insightful discussions, groundbreaking presentations, and valuable networking opportunities!
Plenary Program
Our plenary program comprises welcomes from the top management of our hosts: EUROCONTROL’s Director General, Raúl Medina, SDM’s Executive Director, Mariagrazia La Piscopia, and SJU’s Executive Director, Andreas Boschen. We also have four outstanding keynotes: EASA’s Executive Director Florian Guillermet, European Commission’s Head of Single European Sky Unit, Flor Diaz Pulido, ICAO’s Deputy Air Navigation Bureau Director, Pascal Luciani, and ESA Lead Astronaut, Luca Parmitano.
The plenary program includes six panels, two per day, all covering very topical subjects, with the second day panels building upon our 2025 theme: “Integrated CNS: Towards Innovative and Efficient CNS Service Provision.”
Each plenary session features outstanding facilitators and speakers representing policymakers, regulators, industry, air navigation service providers, airlines, associations, academia, and other key CNS stakeholders.
Technical Program
This year’s technical program sets an all-time record with about 140 outstanding CNS-related research and development presentations across six tracks: air traffic management, operational efficiency, communication and security, navigation and surveillance, unmanned aircraft systems, and advanced air mobility developments.
More than 400 authors from Europe, North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region contributed to this year’s technical program. Notably, one-third of the technical presentations are from students, reflecting strong engagement from young researchers.
Networking and Recognition
Beyond the formal sessions, ICNS offers numerous networking opportunities during morning and afternoon breaks, lunches, and evening events.
Join us in the Europa Foyer after the first day’s technical program for a networking reception to thank our sponsors and supporters. During the reception, we will announce the Best Paper Awards for both professional and student papers — please join us to celebrate the winners.
On the evening of day two (Wednesday), we will celebrate ICNS’s 25th anniversary with a reception at the Belvue Museum, near the Brussels Royal Palace. We will also announce the winner of the ICNS Champion Award, selected from your nominations recognizing outstanding contributions to CNS advancements.
Support and Gratitude
For ICNS 2025, the generous support of our financial sponsors and hosts allows us to offer fully complimentary participation for all attendees. We are especially grateful to our financial sponsors: platinum sponsor NASA, gold sponsor Airbus, silver sponsors Frequentis, Aireon, Viasat and Indra, exhibitors Startical, Sunhillo and Honeywell and our supporters ESSP and L3Harris. Special thanks to our hosts, EUROCONTROL, SDM, and SJU, for helping cover conference expenses and supporting this milestone event.
ICNS is a not-for-profit event, organized by volunteers investing their personal and supporting organizations’ time. We want to acknowledge the outstanding support and contributions of the members of the ICNS 2025 organizing committee: Technical Program, Plenary Program, Sponsor, Awards, Student Paper, Communication, Local Arrangements, Finance, Publication & Registration, and IEC Chairs, the ICNS Executive Committee (IEC) members, and all involved in making this event a success. We also want to thank the AIAA Digital Avionics Technical Committee (DATC), the owner of our conference, and the DATC Chair in particular, for all the support in navigating around organizational challenges we encountered this year.
We are particularly grateful to our outstanding keynote speakers, plenary facilitators and panellists, authors, track and session chairs, reviewers, and hosts’ supporting staff for their invaluable contributions to the conference’s success.
Your Contribution Matters
Lastly, YOU — the participants — are the heart of this conference. Your contributions through presentations, discussions, and engagement make ICNS the leading event for CNS advancements.
Take full advantage of ICNS 2025 — inspire and be inspired. Help shape the future of aviation CNS with technological excellence and shared knowledge while addressing evolving operational needs.
We wish you a fruitful and enriching conference.
Nikos Fistas and Brent Phillips
ICNS 2025 Conference General Co-chairs