A fully immersive airport tower experience

Europe is experiencing rapid growth in the number of remote control tower deployment projects in recent years. With advances in camera, sensor and infrared technology, controllers are given a realistic “out-of-the-window” view of the remotely-located airport allowing remote provision of all tower services. SESAR researchers are now investigating how to make this virtual experience even more immersive by exploiting controllers’ senses in addition to their visual sight.

The project explored the introduction of multimodal stimuli (auditory and vibro-tactile), designing dedicated augmented prototypes aimed at supporting controllers performance in remote tower operations. Partners measured the impact of these stimuli, in terms of workload, performance, sense of presence and situational awareness.

Initial outcomes suggest that spatialised audio information may support controllers shifting attention towards potentially critical events, improving performance but, at the same time, requiring more resources (higher workload). Additional human-in-the-loop studies are recommended to further explore the obtained results in a wider range of operative scenarios.

The project also explored the advantages in the use of virtual reality and head mounted display (HMD) technologies to validate the impact of multimodal stimuli in remote tower operations. These advantages deriving from these technologies can also offer benefits for exploration of innovative ATM concepts and scenarios for future training activities.

Benefits

• Multimodal platform for VR simulation of tower operations to validate future augmented remote tower concept.
• Neuro-physiological classifiers to monitor the sense of presence and human performance in remote towers
• Prototypes of augmented multimodal solutions to support remote tower operations