[11] In 2001, a "Virtual Tower (ViTo)" concept won the DLR's first Visionary Projects (Wettbewerb der Visionen, WdV) competition with €200,000 awarded for the first two years of research, beginning in 2002.
[14] Live validation trials were planned at a few selected airports in Germany, Spain (ENAIRE), Norway (Avinor) and Sweden (LFV) as part of SESAR Joint Undertaking Projects 06.08.04 and 06.09.03 during the years 2012–2015.
[18] In March 2009, Saab Group and LFV carried out a live shadow mode demonstration of their existing remote tower concept.
Despite several biases the controllers' situation awareness was over-average and their workload remained in average range and operational feasibility could be shown the first time.
[21] During ATC Global in Amsterdam in 8–10 March 2011,[22] SESAR Joint Undertaking had a ceremony where Project 6.9.3 'Remote & Virtual Tower' was given the award for 'most advanced for deployment'.
In June 2016, Irish Aviation Authority was granted SESAR Joint Undertaking funding for remote tower demonstration.
[27] The concept is also becoming a reality in Braunschweig, where it all began many years ago at DLR Institute of Flight Guidance: From mid-2024, DFS Aviation Services GmbH (DAS) will be running air navigation services at the Braunschweig-Wolfsburg and Emden airports centrally from Braunschweig, deploying FREQUENTIS technology.
DFS developed its remote tower system together with the Austrian technology company Frequentis, while the video and infrared sensors come from the German group Rheinmetall Defence Electronics.
[40][41][42][43] In 2014 the European Organisation for Civil Aviation Equipment (EUROCAE) founded the Working Group (WG) 100 "Remote and Virtual Tower".
Subsequently, the WG-100 work focused on an extension of the previous MASPS (revision A) to include 'visual tracking' and automatic Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera object following technologies.
'Visual tracking' is understood as the augmentation of the display of objects on the visual presentation by using information obtained only by image processing of the video from the optical sensors for the purpose of increasing the operator's situation awareness.
The cost savings originate from the following factors: There is also a great potential to better and more cost efficiently serve flights which either are scheduled outside the core opening hours of the airport, or by being able to serve non-scheduled traffic (ambulance flights and search-and-rescue helicopters) with an air traffic service during night time when a smaller airports would normally be closed.
In comparison to early cost-benefit calculations (e.g. by LFV-ROT in 2008), improvements in technology made the concept even more feasible, e.g. video adopted the HD standard and the cost of high-resolution cameras decreased from over €10,000 to less than €5,000 circa 2018.
[51] Airports with low traffic levels can be controlled simultaneously (Multiple Remote Tower Operations – MRTO), like at the Remote Tower Centre concept at Dublin Airport to provide air traffic services for located over 100 miles away Cork (21,442 aircraft movements in 2019) and Shannon (13,151 movements in 2019).
In Scotland, HIAL's air traffic staff at 4 affected airports were expected to relocate from the islands to the new remote centre in Inverness,[26] but only 11% (6 out of 54 received survey responses) or 7% (6 out of expected 90 responses) of employees wanted to take up employment at the new centre, with some of those considering daily commuting instead of relocation.
[26][53] The Prospect trade union representing air traffic controllers in the UK assessed the plans as having "very significant negative impacts" on the local economy if the centralisation plans go ahead,[54] with 48[26] staff at the risk of redundancy (£2.2 million gross annual salaries)[26] at "very significant expense to the taxpayer"[55] (£9.9 million spent until August 2022[56][57]).
[27] The International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers' Associations (IFATCA) is critical of the multiple simultaneous mode of operation due to limitations of trials: all simulated scenarios are selected samples of reality with possible blind spots, and present incoherent results.
A closer examination of the technology and its practical use would indicate that it is more appropriately categorized as a sustainable innovation, marking an evolution in aerodrome control by supplanting visual observation with a surveillance system.