Toulouse will host the first remote air traffic control center in France
Remotely manage the air traffic of an airport located more than 500 km away. The screenplay is no longer science fiction. The General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) decided in the summer of 2022 to entrust the Frequentis company with the installation at Tours airport of the first Digital Advanced Tower (DAT) in France, which will be managed remotely from the Toulouse Blagnac site.
A mast equipped with 18 cameras
With 150,000 passengers per year, Tours airport hosts a single airline, Ryanair, which offers flights to Marseille, London or Porto. The air traffic control of the former French Air Force base is managed by the military. The withdrawal in 2021 of the activities of the army gave the idea to the DGAC to carry out an unprecedented experiment in France.
” Lhe Toulouse-Blagnac DGAC site will welcome the first RTC (Remote Tower Center) of France. The Frequentis company will be responsible for installing a mast equipped with 16 cameras to recreate a 360-degree view of the Tours-Val de Loire site, which will be the first DAT (Digital Advanced Tower). Two other PTZ type cameras will allow you to zoom very far on precise points of the ground or on airplanes circling. Enough to offer better vision than what the human eye currently perceives from a control tower.
The images will be transmitted to the Remote Tower Center which will be created in Toulouse and which will eventually be able to manage the air traffic of five French aerodromes “, describes Dominique Arnouil, project manager at the air navigation service (SNA) South.
A center of 400 m2 to manage five aerodromes
This new kind of control center will be installed in a building of the DGAC located near the tracks. ” It is an old garage that we had to completely renovate and the 400 square meters available upstairs can accommodate five different positions as well as a large technical room “, he details. Air traffic will not be managed by the teams in charge of Toulouse-Blagnac airport but by the military controllers of Tours airport who have agreed to travel to the Pink City.
To prevent transmissions and counter the risk of failure or cyberattack, it is planned to double the links. ” The air navigation safety policy is to double the operational systems (normal/emergency such as energy management, frequencies, etc.). Having several network operators is also desirable, the probability of having two operators down at the same time being lower “recalls Dominique Arnouil.
The first studies will start from 2024. ” First, we will verify that the image created by the digital tower corresponds exactly to what the controller sees. We will also test the radio, vision, strips (flight plan information), movements on the ground or even weather information as well as the controller environment be well transcribed “, develop Dominique Arnouille.
Sweden, a pioneer in this technology
If the tests are conclusive, then instruct the DGAC to act on the operational commissioning which could take place at the end of 2025-beginning of 2026. The remote control center could first be tested only on commercial lines and then extended to the all IFR traffic (according to instrument flight rules) and finally accessible to VFR traffic (visual flight practiced in particular by recreational aviation). If successful, the DGAC could create other remote air traffic control centers in France.
Abroad, many airports are already using this technology. Sweden was the first country in the world to do so in 2015 and now has six equipped airports. This is also the case, for example, in the United Kingdom at London City airport. Since the spring of 2021, the platform has been controlled remotely via a center located a hundred kilometers away in Hampshire.