Remotely Operated Towers

[cbradio]

Airservices Australia teams up with Saab and LFV for remotely operated tower trials | Cision Wire

"Remote tower technology allows air traffic at small or medium-sized airports to be managed and controlled remotely from a single, larger air traffic services centre."

Is this Jetson-style wishful thinking or is there actually any substance in it?

Anyone seen or been involved in the Swedish "trials"?

[PRD Area]

Are these also the genii who are advocating Class E airspace overlying Class D control zones? I thought the whole premise of building a tower was to have controllers at the top predominantly using their eyes, in conjunction with other information sources, to provide a safe and expedient aerodrome control service to traffic.

Even with a high quality video link, I doubt any controller could effectively provide a aerodrome control service from a remote location with quality anywhere near approaching the levels we get from current staffed facilities.

The best case scenario I could potentially envisage with a "remote tower" would be a system similar to current low visibility procedures. This would mean lower overall aircraft throughput, no VFR traffic (even on CAVOK days), and heavily increased infrastructure requirements at the aerodromes concerned. Worst case would of course be some paint getting scratched, and punters going home inside wooden boxes.

Is anyone able to tell me what safety improvements this idea could offer?

- PRD Area (concerned pilot)

[Squadgy]

Heathrow's contingency VCR is a remote facility and provides for up to 70% of normal capactity.

Detail here

[Dick N. Cider]

Yes it's true that Heathrow has a contingency remote tower but as described above it's based upon LVO. Hardly full service.

[SimGod]

its already been done in Sweden by LFV/SAAB, I hear they say it works OK as a fall back solution. (not sure how capacity is affected however)

ART - Advanced Remote Tower - Home


Saab - Award for remote air traffic control

http://www.caats2.isdefe.es/private/...171011/ART.pdf

[mana]

Same concept in the USA with the "staffed nextgen towers" ...

Staffed NextGen Towers (SNT) Praxis Foundation

"All the technology to do this exists today, and it is being battlefield tested in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen

This is the military-industrial complex looking for spin-off applications.

All the changes they want to implement in the next five years will be wrapped in two labels: Next-Gen and Carbon Footprint."

[M609]

Having worked at the airfield (As TWR ATCO) used for testing (Ängelholm/ESTA) , having talked to the controllers after the testing, I know that this system i FAR from mature, and have major issues.

Yes, there are technologies that might me an improvement for both on-site ATC towers and remote sites in the future (HUD style representation of imformation on the windows, tracking boxes on moving objects etc.)

But: There is still things that the system restricts the controller.

There is poor depth reception making it difficult to use visual seperation close to the airfield. (Hard to integrate VFR traffic into the IFR traffic on the ILS etc)
Poor resolution on the images even in fair visibility conditions. (Human eye vs. camera) Very poor image in rain and even more so in snow.
Tracking boxes on birds and snowflakes
Same boxes (needed because of the poor resolution) block/obscure the real aricraft, that coupled with the boxes (when radar generated) moving way off target based on predicted radar track.
Display systems still needs the "viritual VCR" to be dark to get an acceptable picture quality. (Think old style radar room)

not sure how capacity is affected however)

A lot.....

[Scott Diamond]

Why would they go through all the bother of projectors etc to represent the traffic situation if they could just use a tower with bloody windows

[M609]

Why would they go through all the bother of projectors etc to represent the traffic situation if they could just use a tower with bloody windows

Some "smart" manageres has gotten it into their heads to create TWR centers that will control a lot of smaller airfields from one location. Saves a lot of staff apparently. (Donīt ask me how, itīs not like you can control 2 towers at once, now is there!!)

[Dick N. Cider]

Money is always worth saving for a CEO to stuff in shareholders pockets.

If you have many towers with small traffic peaks spread across different time zones, one controller may staff several of these sequentially. If you have high density traffic associated with a relatively short industrial build up - say the opening of a large scale mine, you can put the pole with cameras up instead of building and staffing a tower at a remote locality. When the traffic need reduces, take the cameras off the pole and move to the next location.

You can save money with reduced infrastructure and what you need can mostly be in the same place reducing maintenance costs (spares carried, technical staff etc. etc.)

You get the drift...

DNC

[chillie]

http://youtu.be/zxErWrP9jiQ

This may have been posted before somewhere. Seems the technology is not only there to reduce staff but to improve safety and visibility. And provide a 360deg recording.

Ch

[Greenpilots]

The European Cockpit Association has a position on this:
https://www.eurocockpit.be/stories/2...tower-services

Cheers,

Felix

[SINGAPURCANAC]

it will be funny to see NOTAM in future. Multiple tower center ( or RTC ) is closed due to lack of stuff.

[chevvron]

Originally Posted by SINGAPURCANAC

it will be funny to see NOTAM in future. Multiple tower center ( or RTC ) is closed due to lack of stuff.

Or 'tower at XXXX not available due to a swarm of bees on the camera'

[good egg]

This has already been covered in previous threads...

http://www.pprune.org/atc-issues/563...echnology.html

http://www.pprune.org/atc-issues/568...-officers.html

(Sorry, I'm on my phone and linking pages is just too technical for me!)

I do think that this thread is prob the best named for general discussion on the topic though so perhaps (after reading the other threads) this is the place for additional comment?