Air traffi c management Is AI cleared for take-off?
As digital air traffi c control towers continue to gain acceptance across the industry, the implementation of AI in this space is beginning to gain traction. Andrew Tunnicliffe speaks with Andy Taylor, chief solutions offi cer, digital towers, at NATS, to learn about how
machine learning and AI can be paired with digital towers to improve operational effi ciency, safety and resilience, and help to maximise situational awareness for air traffi c controllers.
operations director, Juliet Kennedy, at the end of April 2021. She was proclaiming the arrival of a remote digital air traffic control (ATC) tower for London City Airport (LCY). To be clear, it’s not the first airport in the world to make use of this technology – that honour belonged to the Scandinavian Mountains Airport in Dalarna, Sweden, in 2019. LCY was, however, the first major international airport to follow suit. Nestled at the heart of the city’s Docklands, the airport
“D
igital tower technology tears up a blueprint that’s remained largely unchanged for 100 years,” said NATS’
serviced 5.1 million passengers in 2019; a figure that fell to 714,000 as aviation suffered in the darkest days of the pandemic. The news followed a decade of research and development, live trials – including at the airport during the Covid lockdowns – and even operational services on a smaller scale. ATC is complex and all-consuming, where multiple elements are in play: from looking out of a window to tracking flights via radar, monitoring ground movements to surface winds and other fluctuating weather conditions, and countless other functions. Bringing this together, in one place, unquestionably has its advantages.
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Future Airport /
www.futureairport.com
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