Artificial intelligence conquers airports. Aeronautics has long been digitized and automated, but now thanks to the work of Indra, one of the leading global technology and consultancy companies, AI is even reaching the control tower, the nerve center of air traffic management and the stronghold of human control albeit aided by technology. The new system created by Indra provides instead a remotely managed digital control tower, able to offer unprecedented levels of safety and efficiency in landing and take-off thanks to the use of artificial intelligence.
The revolutionary system can lead to savings of up to 50%, eliminating not only the costs associated with physical tower construction, but also increasing efficiency in operational exploitation, mainly due to workload balancing in multi-airport systems. Indra's solution is therefore the first solution in the world that incorporates functions based on artificial intelligence to perform critical air control processes without the need for human intervention. In particular, the system employs advanced Deep Learning architectures trained to perform multiple operational processes through autonomous computer vision.
The solution from Indra, a company based in Spain but operating worldwide, is also capable of detect any anomalies in the configuration of the aircraft, so as to communicate it to the operator. If, for example, an aircraft's landing gear fails to deploy or its flaps fail to open properly before taking off, the controller is immediately alerted. Likewise, the system autonomously identifies and tracks any moving aircraft, vehicle or person. Watch particularly high-risk areas, warning of unauthorized vehicles, people, animals, birds and even drones that can pose a threat to safety.
Indra's remote tower solution was also integrated with the company's ARMS anti-drone system, capable of selectively neutralizing any UAV. This solution was designed to avoid situations like those experienced in December 2018 at Gatwick and Heathrow airports. Visually, the new Indra digital remote tower uses 4K cameras, which offer the highest image quality and high quality illuminated night vision. As far as usability is concerned, the solution has been integrated with multiple external systems to present the pertinent information to the controller directly on the large screen, correlating it with the aircraft or resource being viewed.
This prevents the operator from having to look away from what is happening in the aerial or flight platform. By developing this solution, Indra goes beyond the philosophy of current remote tower systems, focused on replicating the physical tower experience and enter a new operating paradigm, where artificial intelligence works hand in hand with people.
The world's first remotely operated landing
In addition to designing the AI control tower, Indra together with the Norwegian navigation service provider Avinor and Kongsberg recently built, for the first time in aviation history, a commercial aircraft landing at an airport with the help of controllers located hundreds of km away. This milestone was reached last October 19, when a passenger plane requested permission to land at Rost Island airport at the Bodo control tower, located on the mainland of Norway. The controllers supervised the approach maneuver and remotely provided instructions for landing safely.
It is expected that in the coming months the Bodo remote tower will gradually take over control of up to 15 airfields. At a later stage, it could manage 36 of the country's 46 airports. The experience acquired in this project, together with the company's research and development work in the context of European programs such as Sesar, are the foundations that have allowed Indra to consolidate the success of the development of the most advanced digital remote tower solution on the market.
