Page 23 - ARUBA TODAY

TECHNOLOGY A23
Tuesday 15 September 2015

Now arriving: airport control towers with no humans inside

SCOTT MAYEROWITZ In this April 2015 photo provided by Saab AB, a plane takes off beyond a remotely controlled control tower at Ornskoldsvik Airport
AP Airlines Writer in northern Sweden.
NEW YORK (AP) — Passen-
gers landing at remote Or- Associated Press
nskoldsvik Airport in north-
ern Sweden might catch a a year in salary, benefits dows, keeping them clear Budapest, Hungary. That day. If the FAA approves,
glimpse of the control tow- and taxes for each of six of insects, rain and snow. airport serves 8.5 million the next phase would be to
er — likely unaware there is controllers. The system has been tested passengers annually and, start clearing planes onto
nobody inside. In April, after a year and for severe temperatures: 22 within two years, controllers taxiways and to take off
The dozen commercial a half of testing a system degrees below zero and, could be stationed a few and land.
planes landing there each designed by Saab, all the at the other extreme, a siz- miles from the airport. The National Air Traffic Con-
day are instead watched controllers left Ornskoldsvik. zling 122 degrees. Now, Saab is bringing some trollers Association says it is
by cameras, guided in Now, an 80-foot tall mast Niclas Gustavsson, head aspects of this technolo- participating in the testing.
by controllers viewing the housing 14 high-definition of commercial develop- gy to the United States. Towers for large commer-
video at another airport 90 cameras sends the signal ment for LFV Group, the air Leesburg Executive Airport cial airports are expensive.
miles away. back to the controllers, sta- navigation operator at 26 in Virginia is a relatively They need elevators, air
Ornskoldsvik is the first air- tioned at Sunvsal Airport. Swedish airports, says digi- busy airport with 300 daily conditioning and heating,
port in the world to use No jobs have been elimi- tal cameras offer numer- takeoffs and landings. Just fire suppression systems plus
such technology. Others in nated but ultimately such ous possibilities for improv- a few miles from Dulles In- room for all the controllers.
Europe are testing the idea, systems will allow tiny air- ing safety. ternational Airport, Lees- A new tower in Oakland,
as is one airport in the Unit- ports to pool controllers. Computers can compare burg does not have its own California that opened in
ed States. While the major- Old habits are hard to every picture to the one control tower. 2013 cost $51 million. Tow-
ity of the world’s airports break. Despite the abil- a second before. If some- A regional air traffic control ers at smaller airports are
will, for some time, still have ity to zoom in, control- thing changes — such as center clears private jets cheaper. Fort Lauderdale
controllers on site, experts lers instinctively grab their birds or deer crossing the into the airspace and then Executive Airport opened
say unmanned towers are binoculars to get a closer runway — alerts are issued. pilots use an established ra- a new one in February at a
coming. They’ll likely first go look at images on the 55- “Maybe, eventually there dio frequency to negotiate cost of $15.4 million. Saab
into use at small and medi- inch TV screens. And two will be no towers built at the landing and takeoff won’t detail the cost of its
um airports, but eventually microphones were added all,” says Gustavsson. order. That often leads to system except to say it is
even the world’s largest to the airfield at Ornskolds- Saab is currently testing delays. “significantly less.” There is
airports could see an array vik to pipe in the sounds of — and seeking regulatory Saab has built a system no need for a tower and
of cameras mounted on a planes. approval — for remote sys- for Leesburg and on Aug. elevator.
pole replacing their con- “Without the sound, the air tems in Norway and Austra- 3 started a three-month The companies see a giant
crete control towers. traffic controllers felt very lia and has contracts to de- test with the Federal Avia- market: The vast majority of
The companies building lost,” says Anders Carp, velop the technology for tion Administration. FAA U.S. commercial airports —
these remote systems say head of traffic manage- another Swedish airport controllers will, at first, fa- 315 of 506 — have control
their technology is cheap- ment for Saab. and two in Ireland. miliarize themselves with towers. However, only 198
er and better than tradi- The cameras are housed in Competitor Searidge is the technology and just of the 2,825 general avia-
tional towers. a glass bubble. High pres- working on a remote tow- observe the planes operat- tion airports have manned
“There is a lot of good sure air flows over the win- er for the main airport in ing as they already do to- towers.q
camera technology that
can do things that the hu-
man eye can’t,” says Pat
Urbanek, of Searidge Tech-
nologies, “We understand
that video is not real life,
out the window. It’s a dif-
ferent way of surveying.”
Cameras spread out
around an airport elimi-
nate blind spots and give
controllers more-detailed
views. Infrared can supple-
ment images in rain, fog or
snow and other cameras
can include thermal sen-
sors to see if animals stray
onto the runway at the last
second.
None of those features are
— yet — in the Swedish air-
port because of regulatory
hurdles.
Ornskoldsvik Airport is a vi-
tal lifeline for residents who
want to get to Stockholm
and the rest of the world.
But with just 80,000 annual
passengers, it can’t justify
the cost of a full-time con-
trol staff — about $175,000