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Airservices Australia has been working to install a new 30-metre camera mast at Canberra Airport for its new “digital tower”.
Canberra will be the first airport in Australia to use digital aerodrome services (DAS), which allow for 360-degree remote air traffic management via cameras and sensors positioned at the airfield. The 18-millimetre galvanised steel mast installed this month is a step towards DAS coming online next year.
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Airservices plans to begin fit out of a new operations centre in the Canberra region within coming months, with testing to commence once cameras have been installed.
“Airservices will be deploying DAS in Canberra first, followed by Western Sydney. Western Sydney International Airport will be the first airport in Australia to be built without a traditional bricks and mortar tower,” said David Wells, Airservices head of transformation for the Western Sydney and Canberra portfolio.
“DAS enables Airservices to maintain and enhance safety through augmentation and digitalisation, addressing the limitations of physical towers and human observation. This world-class technology will improve the capability of our controllers, enabling us to deliver even greater levels of safety and increased capacity wherever it is deployed.
“The technology has been used, proven and demonstrated to be safe in over 10 airports and five countries around the world.”
Airservices officially unveiled its DAS project for Western Sydney Airport in March, which will be operated from a remote control centre in Eastern Creek when the airport opens in 2026.
Ballina Byron Gateway Airport in northern NSW is also planned to eventually use DAS, but these plans have been pushed back, with a conventional tower to be used in the interim when it moves to controlled airspace next year.
David Webb, Airservices head of transformation – OneSKY and aerospace, told Australian Aviation last year that DAS offers air traffic controllers the ability to quickly spot unexpected people or vehicles on runways and keep track of different aircraft, in addition to their benefits in cost and speed of deployment.
“In a tower environment, you need to be looking out the window to see what’s going on. When you replace that with screens, the camera can spot the aircraft for you and tag it for you. So rather than go, ‘where is Alpha Bravo Charlie?’, various systems have already picked it up for you,” he said.
“You have the same controller doing the same job they do, with all these enhancements for themselves that do it a lot more safely.”
