Frequentis is leading an artificial intelligence (AI) research project to enhance remote digital tower safety and efficiency. The company has teamed up with Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) and Airport Vienna to research and develop smart assistive technology for RDT vision systems.
Named Smart Assistant for Enhanced Remote Digital Tower (SAFER), the project, which is being funded by the Austrian Aeronautics Research and Technology Programme – Take Off, aims to increase efficiency and ensure safety in RDT operation through multimodal AI. Multimodal AI techniques and approaches for vide0-centric object detection and tracking in remote digital tower scenarios will be explored in the research project, with Frequentis as the overall project lead, responsible for processing, data collection and management, software integration, evaluation and validation.
Hanu Juurakko, Executive VP ATM Civil and Chairman of SAFER’s Executive Board said: “AI will add significant benefits to ATM technology and we have been investing in this field in order to enhance the safety and efficiency of the technology we provide to our customers.”
He added that speech recognition, automatic object detection and tracking are just some of the developments made with AI since 2008. “We look forward to working with our partners to ensure customers benefit from AI advances to meet the required need for greater efficiency.”
As well as enabling new technologies for reliable and accurate location, recognition and tracking of objects the project will open up new possibilities for developing a smart assistive tool for automatic generation of reliable safety alerts to warn the controller of critical situations. This will streamline efficiency and increase safety at airports and enable cost-efficient operation models such as multi remote tower operations.
