World’s largest remote towers centre is under construction

This is an key milestone for international aviation, and mark the beginning of an important innovation program. The new Remote Towers Centre in Bodø, Norway is an MNOK 110 investment (about €11 millions) and will become a nerve centre for aviation from 2020, says Anders Kirsebom, CEO of Avinor Air Navigation Services.

More robust air traffic management

-The Remote Towers Centre will run on the Ninox Remote Towers platform. When complete, it will provide more flexibility and better accessibility to 15 airports, which spreads across a vast geographic area of Norway. As a result, the new Remote Towers Centre will open up the possibility to increase the opening hours of smaller airports, ensuring better access for ambulance flights and business development alike for small Arctic communities. Today these airports often have to keep closed for parts of the day, due to the lack of staff, says Kirsebom.

Civil aviation utilizing military technology

The Avinor Air Navigation Services Remote Tower Centre will replace conventional towers at 15 airports, using hi-tech military technology.

-We are implementing the Ninox Remote Towers platform together with the Kongsberg Group and Indra. One of the success factors for this project is that the new platform will provide an equal or better safety level compared to that of conventional towers. We therefore take the time needed to make this right, following the aviation sector’s mantra “safety always trumps time”, Kirsebom explains.

-The Ninox Remote Towers platform includes the use of IR technology (infrared camera) and MTI technology (Moving Target Indicator), which detects moving objects in the airspace or on the ground. This includes drones, birds, humans, cars or other objects which can represent a danger to air traffic, says Kirsebom.

Facts

• The Avinor Air Navigation Services Remote Towers Centre will be the world’s largest in terms of the number of airports that will be controlled from one control centre.
• The centre will employ about 60 persons, ensuring better knowledge sharing and redundancy amongst staff.
• The first airport tower to be controlled remotely is Røst, located in the Lofoten islands of Norway. The plan is run the first operation by September this year.
• The Ninox Remote Towers platform is unique in the sense that no other remote towers solutions run on only one, rotating camera. The single rotating camera provides a 360 degrees view of the airport and airspace. Other remote towers solutions are dependent on using several cameras to create a similar overview of the air traffic.

Photo Credit: Archus architects.

Photo Credit: Archus architects.


Photo Credit: Archus architects.

Photo credit: Catchlight Fotostudio

Photo credit: Catchlight Fotostudio