London City Airport to introduce digital control tower

News

London City Airport is to replace its existing 30 year-old control tower with an advanced digital system that will be controlled remotely from a new base.

The airport will become the first in the UK to operate a digital air traffic control tower.

Slated to become operational in 2019, the technology will use advanced cameras and sensors to gather data from the airfield and provide a live feed via a secure and superfast fibre network to a new control room at the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) centre in Swanwick, Hampshire.

At the heart of the system will be a new 50m high tower equipped with 14 High Definition cameras and two pan-tilt-zoom cameras. These will provide a full 360 degree view of the airfield and be used to form a seamless panoramic moving image of the airfield that will be coupled with an audio feed and radar readings from the skies above London.

Operators will be able to use a range of viewing tools such as high definition zoom and enhanced visuals, which provide detailed views of activity on the airfield, including close-up views of aircraft movements along the 1500m runway, with pan-tilt-zoom cameras that can magnify up to 30 times for close inspection.

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