DESIGNING THE TOWER CONTROL RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT OF THE FUTURE

Kurzfassung

Facing the challenges of increasing traffic load and strong demands for reduction of noise and fuel consumption, research in air traffic management (abr. ATM) needs to be enforced . Among others, human in the loop simulations are a basic tool to conduct this research . Regarding changes in the main research objectives, technical development and user expectations, human in the loop facilities need to be adapted from time to time. The German Aerospace Center´s Institute of Flight Guidance is one of the world’s leading ATM research facilities. To conduct its projects, it has been utilizing human in the loop simulations since the late 1980s. Constant adaptions on these simulations, for instance the apron and tower simulation, were necessary to meet research requirements. The last extensive update of the Apron- and Tower Simulator (abr. ATS) was completed in the beginning of 2002. Thereafter, more than twenty projects were successfully evaluated until 2010. Since then technical possibilities and research requirements changed. As such, a major reconstruction of the ATS is necessary to validate future ATM systems and procedures. This paper provides a detailed insight into the requirements analysis, the conceptual design and first applications of the new DLR Apron and Tower Simulator. Within a first step, the European vision for air traffic will be analyzed as well as upcoming project-proposals. Furthermore, project experiences and validation knowledge of the major ATM institutes operating a Tower Simulator will be collected. Based on this data, requirements on the new ATS can be derived. Bringing together budget, technical possibilities and the collected requirements, a design is figured out. In the end, the success of this design is shown on the example of two projects performed in the new ATS.