Evaluation of the eDEP Tower Control Position Package

Abstract

Nowadays in a control tower there exist many different and independent interfaces in order to manage the airport's air and ground traffic, the systems do not share the managing information, so in the control tower position there are many screens with different information. For this reason, is necessary to study the integration of the airport systems in a unique working position, the Integrated Tower Working Position (ITWP). The Eurocontrol objective has been to design a prototype of Human-Machine Interface (HMI) which demonstrate the ITWP, so it will be possible to manage the airport movements from an integrated interface in the control tower. The information and input data integrated came from the TMA/APP sectors, AMAN(Arrival Manager), DMAN (Departure manager), A-SMGCS(Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System), EFS, METEO Systems, Wake information, Stand and Gate Management, data link applications and ATFM applications, Airport CDM concepts. This way the tower controllers have access to all essential data and can give clearances and orders from and integrated interface, and is expected that the safety and efficiency of the air traffic management will improve. The objectives of this project are to evaluate this prototype, analyse if it is possible to manage an airport from this integrated interface and write a user manual to be able to control an airport with this prototype. Also it will be explained how to design an airport with the eDEP platform, the java files which have to be created to define all the elements (gates, taxiways, taxipoints), modify the airport arrivals and departures, taxiing routes and approximations.