SITTI at RACOON Open Day

The remote tower concept is an interesting new field of application for the remote control of airport towers. The idea is to allow operators to remotely perform all the tasks they would carry out at an airfield tower, but sitting at a different place. They have to have full awareness of the environmental conditions of the airport they’re remotely controlling and have access to all resources they would have used if sitting in the real tower. It is easy to understand that the remote tower concept is of high interest to ANSPs, because it may allow to reduce the number of operators needed on site, by also maximizing the operator efficiency, because the same operator may change his context and have control of more than one airport.

ENAV, the Italian ANSP, adhered to the SESAR pilot project on remote towers, by connecting the Linate and Malpensa airports to a central site from which operators can act as if they were physically sitting in the respective towers. The pilot project (named RACOON) was successfully concluded by utilizing the MULTIFONO Voice Communication System by SITTI: two Controller Working Positions (CWP) have been configured to remotely access the resources made available at Linate and Malpensa.

ENAV organized the RACOON Open Day on 11 November 2016 at Malpensa airport to show the solution adopted and the benefits that can be gained by properly applying this concept.

SITTI is proud to have actively contributed to the full success of this project.