Virtual and Remote Control Tower

Dr. phil.-nat. NorbertFürstenau, Dipl. Physiker, studiedphysics from 1971 to 1978 at Universities of Braunschweig, Darmstadt andFrankfurt. In 1977 he received the Diplom Physiker degree from the Inst. of  Nuclear Physics of TU-Darmstadt and in 1981the Dr. phil.-nat. degree from Frankfurt University for research on Laserapplications in Biophysics. In his dissertation he investigated the generationof large molecular clusters (predecessors of Carbon Buckeyballs) through Laser evaporationin a micro mass analyser, and his interest started in the emerging topic ofcomplex systems and Synergetics. After a short period as a post-doc researcherincluding teaching tasks at the Institute of Medical Physics / Biophysics, he accepteda permanent position at the DLR Inst. of Flight Guidance in Braunschweig in 1981.Starting with research in inertial navigation and Laser gyro technology, he initializedin 1984 the Fiber Optic Sensors research as group leader at the Department of InertialNavigation / Measurement Technologies. The main focus was directed to fiberoptics based interferometric micro sensors and methods for structuralmonitoring (so called fiber optic smart structures).  During these years numerous research visitsand international cooperations with laboratories in Canada, Korea, andRussia  resulted in a large number ofconference and journal publications.After theresearch focus of the Inst. of Fligt Guidance had turned more and more awayfrom aircraft towards air traffic, the research in measurement technologiesgradually ended and in 1999 the editor joined the Human Factors Department wherehe started the “Virtual Tower” concept study (2002–2004), after winning a firstprize within DLR’s first “Visionary Projects” competition, endowed with an initialresearch grant. He was project leader of DLR’s “Remote Airport Tower Operations”projects RApTOR (2005-2007) and RAiCe (Remote Airport Traffic Control Center,2008-2012). In 2010 he spent a research semester at NASA-Ames Advanced DisplaysLab.(working with Steve Ellis, author of the foreword and (co-) author of two bookchapters), preparing psychophysics experiments for Remote Towercharacterization. In 2011 the editor was again winner at the fifth DLR-VisionaryProjects competition. The proposal: “Extreme Events Prediction” received astarting grant that supported his growing interest in complex systems dynamics.In 2014 he joined the Controller Assistance department where he is currently responsiblefor DLR’s contribution to the European collaborative project “Robust-ATM” (2013– 2016) that addresses air traffic optimization under disturbance usingadvanced mathematical methods. His research interest had always aninterdisciplinary touch and is presently focused on nonlinear dynamics andmodeling of diverse complex systems including human perception (two recentjournal papers in “Biological Cybernetics” and “Cognitive Processing”) and airtraffic management under external stochastic disturbance. He is (co-) author ofca. 120 conference and journal papers and 17 patents. The Remote Tower patentwas recently licensed to a company for commercialisation, and it describes thebasics of an increasing number of installations worldwide, presently underoperational validation.

• Part I Fundamentals & Preconditions.- Introduction and Overview.- Visual Features Used by Airport Tower Controllers: Some Implications for the Design of Remote or Virtual Towers.- Detection and Recognition for Remote Tower Operations.-  Part II Remote Tower Simulation Environment and Remote Tower Center.- Remote Tower Simulation Environment.- Assessing Operational Validity of Remote Tower Control in High Fidelity Simulation.- Video Frame‐Rate Requirements from Visual Discrimination of Deceleration During Simulated Aircraft Landing.- Planning remote multi‐airport control – controller‐friendly assistance.- Part III RTO Engineering and Field Testing.- Augmented Vision Videopanorama Experimental System with Augmented Vision Videopanorama.- Remote Tower Prototype System and Automation Perspectives.- Which metrics provide the insight needed? A selection of remote tower evaluation metrics to support a remote tower operation concept validation.- Model-based Analysis of Two‐Alternative Decision Errors in a Videopanorama‐based Remote Tower Work Position.- Part IV Alternative Approaches and Perspectives.- The Advanced Remote Tower System and its Validation.- Remote Tower Research in the United States.