London City Airport, a general aviation field popular with business travelers, will become the first airport in the U.K. to install a digital control tower, the airport has announced. The tower will be equipped with 16 high-definition cameras that will transmit data to a control center in Swanwick, Hampshire, about 100 miles away, where air traffic controllers will do their job off-site. “The cameras will provide a full 360-degree view of the airfield in a level of detail greater than the human eye, and with new viewing tools that will modernize and improve air traffic management,” the airport said in a news release. Two of the cameras will have pan, tilt and high-definition 30x zoom capabilities, providing detailed views of activity on the airfield, including close-up views of aircraft movements along the runway.
The facility at Swanwick, developed by Saab Digital Air Traffic Solutions, will also include the audio feed from the airfield, and radar readings from the skies above London. The London City controllers also will have real-time operational and sensory data to build an augmented-reality live view of the airfield. For example, they can overlay the images with weather information, on-screen labels, radar data, aircraft call signs, or track moving objects. The technology is already in use at two airports in Sweden. The London City remote tower will become operational in 2019.
