Today, on 1st of December, about 20 international distinguished guests visited DLR to eye-witness for the first time a validation exercise addressing “Highly Flexible Allocation of Aerodromes to Remote Tower Modules” in a large Remote Tower Center with 15 connected aerodromes. The SESAR exercise PJ.05-W2 EXE-2.1 is a V3 validation that explicitly focusses on the supervisor position and advanced planning tools to optimize the allocation in between of aerodromes, ATS officers and operator working positions in large Remote Tower Centers.
The validation has been be conducted in the Remote Tower Laboratory at DLR by DLR, Frequentis AG and the Lithuanian and Polish ANSPs Oro Navigacija and PANSA from 15/11/2021 until 30/11/2021. In a real-time human-in-the-loop simulation two real ATCOs control up to three aerodromes each via two separate multiple Remote Tower Modules (mRTMs). An additional real supervisor ATCO acts in the back and, assisted by a planning tool, handled 15 aerodromes to find an optimal allocation of mRTMs and ATCOs to these aerodromes.
The Open Day started with some introductory class room sessions incl. some intermediate feedback from the ATCOs. Thereafter the participants watched an example test run in the DLR Remote Tower Laboratory with a Frequentis Supervisor planner industrial prototype operated by Oro Navigacija and PANSA ATCOs and a supervisor. In the lunchbreak and in the Q&R session afterwards there were excellent discussions about the experiences gained and how to proceed with this concept of supervising many airports in large Remote Tower Centers.