From left to right: Marcus Filipp and Björn Wahlström of Swedish Air Navigation Service Provider Luftfartsverket LFV
Recently, the Swedish Air Navigation Service Provider Luftfartsverket -LFV has extended its membership of the NARSIM user community for ten years. The NARSIM community, led by NLR, is composed by Luftfatsverket-LFV, the Deutschen Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt -DLR and Nanyang Technological University-NTU of Singapore, organizations that focus on research and validation of innovative air traffic management concepts. The goal is to jointly develop NARSIM, an innovative simulation platform that strives for the research, development, prototyping and validation of new ATM concepts. At a later stage these concepts shall help with safety, capacity and efficiency challenges of air navigation service providers and airports due to on-going growth of global air traffic.
One of the research activities recently conducted by NLR together with LFV, using NARSIM, concerns the so-called ‘Remote-Tower’ concept, which means controlling the airport from a remote location instead of a conventional airport tower. Part of this cooperation last year, in the Netherlands, remote air traffic control was performed for the first time with live trials in multiple mode, a development of the already operational Remote Tower Service in Sundsvall Sweden. The demonstration was part of the European SESAR program, which focuses amongst other things on the improvement of aviation performance in Europe. It is expected that in the future, the Remote Tower concept will lead to more efficient deployment of local air traffic service and lower costs for air traffic management activities and for that reason LFV and NLR are further cooperating in this concept.
According to LFV R&D Platform Manager Marcus Filipp, LFV research platform is equipped with a set of ACC, Area Control Centre, controller working positions and Tower working positions and is available for LFV partners within COOPANS. The platform enables research within the entire flight phase, from airport, departure, TMA and En-Route. Connection between all parts of controlling aircrafts during the entire flight phase enables demonstrations of future concepts.
NARSIM is a software product that can run either on low-cost consumer hardware or more advanced hardware like a 360 degrees projection tower for high fidelity simulation purposes. It is a real time ATC simulator that simulates all parts of on ATC system including CNS and can be used for research, concept validation or ATCO training. It is able to simulate en-route, ACC, approach, tower and apron controller working positions with pseudo-pilots controlling the air-traffic and ground vehicles. Simulated traffic can also be automated or incorporated from flight simulators. It interfaces with most simulator and industrial system interfaces allowing the coupling of third party systems like operational ATC systems, other simulators and CNS components. Furthermore, NARSIM includes a full range of controller tools seen in current or near future ATC systems.
NLR NARSIM Tower
