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In the future, air traffic controllers will no longer sit in the tower, but operate from control centers that are sometimes hundreds of kilometers away. From here, they monitor the traffic from several airports – even at the same time. The “OMNyFlug” project shows how they focus on the right aircraft.
At regional and small airports, the volume of traffic is mostly marginal, apart from the daily peaks (“peaks”) in the morning and afternoon. The idle times and the associated low income, e.g. B. at night, there are high costs for the air traffic controllers deployed. To counter cost pressures, several initiatives are working to centralize air traffic control for small and regional airports. The aim is to establish a so-called multiple airport remote control (Multi-Remote-Tower, Multi-RTO) and to implement the necessary technologies in a single control center (Multi-RTO-Center). In addition to new technological approaches, the implementation of such a remote control requires new tasks for air traffic controllers and supervisors.
The focus of the research project was the prototypical development of two planning tool components – one for air traffic controllers and one for supervisors. The software solution developed in the project enables an effective distribution of air traffic controller resources in multi-remote tower operation. A new type of planning and optimization tool is used that reduces idle times and personnel costs. This could significantly strengthen the competitiveness of regional and small airports.
The “OMNyFlug” project was funded by the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport (BMDV) as part of the mFUND innovation initiative with a total of around 495,000 euros.
In addition to the network coordinator HFC Human-Factors-Consult, the project partners were the company m-click.aero. After a period of around three years, the project will be successfully completed in December 2022. The final event will take place on Friday, December 16, 2022, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. via zoom:
Link to Zoom Meeting (German language only).
About the funding program mFUND of the BMDV
With the mFUND innovation initiative, the BMDV has been funding data-based research and development projects for the digital and networked mobility of the future since 2016. Project funding is supplemented by active professional networking between actors from politics, business, administration and research. Open data is provided via the Mobilithek. You can find more information at www.mFund.de.
The aim of the project is to develop software assistance using the available basic data of the aeronautical infrastructure in order to completely digitize the NOTAM process. The NOTAMs can be processed automatically and displayed in a pilot’s “navigation device” (Electronic Flight Bag – EFB). This reduces not only the risk of missing important NOTAMs, but also the pilot’s workload in flight planning to a considerable extent.