The Advanced Remote Tower System and Its Validation

The Advanced Remote Tower project (ART) studied enhancements to an existing LFV prototype facility (ROT) for a single airport remotely operated tower: projection on a 360 degrees panorama screen, adding synthesized geographic information and meteorological information, video tracking, fusion of video and radar tracks, labelling, visibility enhancement and surveillance operations with a remotely controlled Pan Tilt Zoom camera. The ART functions have been embedded in the existing Swedish test facility for single airport remote tower operations in Malmö airport Sturup observing Ängelholm traffic about 100 km to the North. These functions were tuned and validated during tests with 15 operational tower air traffic controllers. Emphasis was on the traffic and situation awareness of the tower controllers using remote cameras and a projection system for safe operational tower control, replacing direct view on the airport and its traffic. The validation results give valuable information for further development and operational application even outside the Remote Tower application area.