Airport Management Simulation Platform / Multi-Remote-Tower Validation Platform TowerLab

Abstract

German Aerospace Center (DLR) develops human in the loop (HITL) simulations for airport operations since the late 1990s. For almost 15 years developments were focused on air traffic control simulators providing an immersive outside view and close to reality working positions. Since 2010 this focus was extended due to new operational developments, namely Remote Tower and A-CDM. Both developments are a severe change in operations and need to be assessed and further developed in HITL simulations. As such, DLR designed the TowerLab and the airport management simulation. Using these facilities a new challenge arose: The number of affected operators rises. Interaction and impact on adjacent working areas such as approach control, cockpit, ground handling and network management needs to be considered. To cope with this challenge, DLR extended the capabilities of ist HITL simulations by enabling interconnection functionality as well as setting virtual agents into the simulation. By connecting multiple simulators and providing a virtual agent to take over multiple roles, DLR is able to conduct large scale validations.