Remote AFIS: development and validation of low-cost remote tower concepts for uncontrolled aerodromes

Abstract

Remote tower systems are widely established as a means to provide efficient air traffic control (ATC) from a remote location. However, even these cost-effective systems cause procurement, implementation, and maintenance costs, which make them unaffordable for non-ATC aerodromes with low revenues, often only offering an aerodrome flight information service (AFIS) or UNICOM information service. In this paper, two more inexpensive concepts enabling remote control at these aerodromes are presented. They are based on a simplified camera set-up comprising a pan-tilt-zoom-camera (PTZ-camera) and a simple panoramic camera. A virtual reality-headset (VR-headset) is used to display the video streams and to control the PTZ-camera. The results of a validation study with nine ATC and AFIS officers using live traffic at the Braunschweig-Wolfsburg aerodrome (BWE) are presented. They are discussed with respect to perceived usability, virtual reality induced cybersickness, and operator acceptance. The system’s cost is compared to that of a conventional remote tower set-up. Furthermore, measured objective data in the form of angular head rotation velocities are presented and requirements for the camera set-up are deduced. In conclusion, the developed concept utilizing both the panorama camera and PTZ-camera was found to be sufficiently usable and accepted by the validation participants. In contrast, the concept based only on the PTZ-camera suffered from jerky and delayed camera movements leading to considerable cybersickness and making it barely usable.