Control Towers' Days Are Numbered

Digital control towers, including “remote” towers, are on the verge of transforming the world of air traffic management, offering significant operational, safety, and efficiency benefits over the current system, proponents say.

There is no longer any need for a physical tower as high-definition, day and night, thermal, and pan-tilt-zoom cameras can feed images to air traffic controllers, presenting them with a panoramic view of the airfield wherever they are. This image can then be augmented and enhanced with everything from radar feeds and flight information to the location of closed taxiways, significantly improving the situational awareness of controllers.

UK Air navigation service provider NATS has been researching remote towers for a few years. More recently, NATS Services took a stake in Searidge Technologies, a key player in this emerging technology. Searidge claims to have been the first company to have an operational video system in an air traffic control tower and now has the technology at 30 sites in 16 countries. Searidge cofounder and CTO Alex Sauriol, along with NATS head of customer solutions Andy Taylor and NATS chief architect Simon Daykins, explained the technology and addressed concerns about it during a recent webinar.

Taylor pointed out that “towers don’t need to be remote to be digitized” and emphasized that the purpose of the technology is to provide controllers with data and tools to analyze the airport environment. Artificial intelligence will play a vital part in the future by allowing better decision making.