On December 18, Changi Airport welcomed its 60-millionth passenger of 2017, a record number in the airport’s history. Easing up the handling capacity of the three main terminals, in October last year Changi opened Terminal 4, which will allow the airport to handle 82 million passengers annually. Along with it comes a capability to handle increased aircraft movements at the airport and in the surrounding airspace.
Changi has seen steady increasing commercial aircraft movements since 2012; in 2016, it chalked up 360,000. Come the early 2020s, it will have three runways, and by 2030, five terminals covering 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres).
The challenge posed to Changi and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) is how to safety manage air and ground movement at an airport that is growing at breakneck speed.
CAAS has embarked on a Smart Digital Tower initiative for Changi airport, to explore how remote tower operations, which were only recently introduced to some small airports, can be applied in major hubs like Singapore by exploiting new technologies.
In a paper written by Ho Wei Sean, head of the Centre of Excellence for the Air Traffic Management Programme Office, CAAS said the Smart Tower aims to explore enhanced situational awareness, increased visibility, improved line of sight, and enhanced operational efficiency.
These can be achieved with multiple cameras with night vision or infrared technology used in low visibility conditions, such as torrential rain or haze, which are common in the tropics. The result is also removing the need to deploy air traffic controllers to various towers at the airport, and visual data is pumped to a remote, centralized room where all controllers will operate.
On Nov. 21, 2017, CAAS inked a contract with NATS for a S$7 million (US$5.27 million) pilot program to develop a smart tower prototype. The trial will run for 22 months and will also employ advanced camera and video stitching technologies, thus enabling better display of information.
“The prototype will function as a proof-of-concept to evaluate the performance of a smart digital tower to supplement the current tower. We will use data analytics, and review relevant work processes to benefit from the advantages that smart tower technologies offer,” said Rosly Md Saad, director of air traffic services, CAAS.
“The project will utilize the leading smart tower solution for larger, high-intensity operations, provided by Searidge Technologies, combined with NATS’s operational, human factors, safety and regulatory assurance, training, and transition expertise,” a NATS spokesperson told AIN.
“We expect digital tower technology to revolutionize air traffic management. It represents an exciting, viable solution for airports in offering a new level in assurance and resilience, as well as operational enhancements and cost efficiencies. The project with CAAS is potentially transformational and could help shape how smart digital airport towers are deployed at large hub airports all over the world,” he added.
Single Asian Sky
In the skies, Southeast Asia is already the home to some of the busiest routes, such as Singapore-Jakarta, Singapore-Kuala Lumpur, and Bangkok-Hong Kong. Those routes have an annual average of around 3 million passengers between them. The airways are set to become busier as the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) finalizes part of the ASEAN Single Aviation Market. Also known as the ASEAN Open Skies Policy, it now allows domestic codeshare rights between points within the territory of any of the 10 ASEAN member state, resulting in more flight options for consumers. The floodgates will open if all outstanding issues such as protectionism policies are rectified, and the adoption of the fifth freedom of the air within ASEAN.
Singapore upgraded its ATC system in 2013 with the Long Range Radar and Display System III (LORADS III), which has range up to 500 nautical miles (926 km), and can track 2,000 aircraft, four times as much track-handling capacity as its earlier variant. It is also one of the few stations in the region to be ADS-B capable.
Malaysia is in the midst of constructing a new ATC center and hopes to increase hourly movements at Kuala Lumpur from 78 to 108, and install ADS-B capability. The center will open in 2019 with Thales and Selex ES, Indera Systemas as main systems providers. Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam have all embarked on various degrees of upgrades to their ATC systems and infrastructure.
Rosly added that the ASEAN Air Traffic Management Master Plan was signed in October 2017, a technical roadmap to support the Seamless ASEAN Sky (SAS). “The SAS aims to facilitate the flow of aircraft across ASEAN in a more integrated and harmonized manner. When fully realized, the SAS envisages an increase in airspace capacity, enhanced safety, and reduced delays and operational costs for airlines.” he said.
However, airline leaders believe change will not happen overnight, nor without its hiccups.
“It is not about the introduction of new technology but about changing operational procedures,” said Andrew Herdman, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines at the AAPA Summit in Taipei last October. “ATM modernization must extend beyond the purview of individual states.” He sees that Asia is a much more complex environment than Europe, noting that institutional policies and ATC system varies significantly in ASEAN while Europe has centralized flow control under Eurocontrol.