Brussels South Charleroi Airport also got its Digital Tower camera mast

This week a camera and antenna mast has been installed at Brussels South Charleroi Airport as part of the ‘Digital Tower Project’ (DiTo) by skeyes, in close collaboration with SOWAER (Société Wallonne des Aéroports). This innovative and complex project should be fully operational by the end of 2026. From then on, air traffic at both Liege and Charleroi airports will be managed remotely from a digital air traffic control centre in Namur. Here, SOWAER, the company responsible for developing the Walloon airports, and skeyes are jointly building Belgium's first digital tower centre. Earlier, on 20 November 2023, a similar mast was installed at Liege airport.

The new mast at Charleroi airport, which is 37 metres high, is equipped with advanced high-resolution cameras and technology that allow air traffic controllers to accurately monitor air traffic from a distance. The mast is higher than the current control tower and allows air traffic controllers to accurately manage all movements of aircraft on the ground, during take-off and landing, and in the air around the airport. Thanks to advanced technology, air traffic controllers receive more information than what is normally perceptible to the naked eye, which is especially important in adverse weather conditions. This helps improve air traffic safety and efficiency. The mast is located in the southern part of the airport, 500 metres from the current control tower.

Within a few weeks, camera images from Charleroi will already be available at skeyes' DiTo test centre, near Brussels airport in Steenokkerzeel. There, within a few metres distance, the movements of aircraft at both airports, which are 85 km apart as the crow flies, will be projected on screens in real time. This is done to test and optimise the systems so that improvements can still be made before the control centre in Namur becomes operational.