Belgocontrol and Living Tomorrow examine future of air traffic control
As of today, Belgocontrol will participate in the Living Tomorrow research and development platform. It aims – together with many other partners – among other things to develop visions for the future on topics that control people’s daily life, such as mobility.
Aviation in general and air traffic control in particular are in constant development. Belgocontrol closely monitors evolutions in the sector and prepares for the future. The company wishes to play an active part in that future, not just in the field of aviation safety, but also in other social respects, economically as well as ecologically and socially. That is why Belgocontrol already took initiatives regarding noise protection measures, wind turbines and drones and started a number of research projects involving specific aspects of its operations with various universities.
By participating in the Living Tomorrow project, Belgocontrol wants to examine the future of air traffic and of air traffic control. Research starts from very specific questions that are raised in the sector: what are the stakeholders’ needs, how will our environment evolve, who will be the future players in both manned and unmanned aviation,…?
Also digital transformation will be studied: how will the available technology generate data and insights? How can air traffic control use it to work in a more customer-oriented and a sustainable way?
Via workshops and demonstrations Belgocontrol and Living Tomorrow wish to gain useful insights that they will share afterwards with the general public.
Johan Decuyper, CEO of Belgocontrol: “The pillars of Belgocontrol’s vision are building partnerships and looking ahead to the future. The collaboration with Living Tomorrow is perfectly in line with these pillars. Together with this new partner, we want to stay on top of developments in our business, to analyse them and to integrate them in our functioning so we can further improve our services and keep competing at an international level.”
Joachim De Vos, CEO of Living Tomorrow: “Big changes are up ahead for future air traffic controllers. New technology, such as drones, UAVs but also artificial intelligence and augmented reality. What will that mean for managing the air traffic of tomorrow? As a leading organisation in building ‘innovation culture’ and its translation into practice, we are proud that Belgocontrol takes its future into its own hands and relies on Living Tomorrow to support them in this.”
About Belgocontrol
Belgocontrol is an autonomous public company, created in October 1998, with the mission to guarantee the safety of air navigation in the airspace for which Belgium is responsible. Its zone of activities extends from ground level (at Brussels Airport and the airports of Antwerp, Charleroi, Kortrijk, Liege and Ostend) to flight level 245 (8,000 metres) above Belgium and from flight levels 145/165 to 245 for the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The EUROCONTROL centre in Maastricht is responsible for the area above 8,000 metres, and jointly manages the air traffic of the upper airspace of Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the western part of Germany.
More information on belgocontrol.be
Member of FABEC
Belgocontrol, the Belgian air navigation service provider, as well as its counterparts in Germany, France, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Switzerland constitute the member states of FABEC, which aims to improve efficiency of air navigation in central Europe. As from December 2017, Belgocontrol CEO Johan Decuyper chairs the CEO group of FABEC.
About Living Tomorrow
Living Tomorrow is a social demonstration and innovation platform that seeks to prepare people and organisations for and inform them about the future. It does so by offering research & development support to dozens of government institutions and companies in the form of open innovation, vision and strategic planning, pilot projects and experiment design. Through many years of experience and intensive guidance by Living Tomorrow, in collaboration with its spin-off TomorrowLab, future scenarios can be presented in the form of demonstrations and presentations of new concepts.
Living Tomorrow, with its partners, offers an experiene of future possibilities and innovations to the thousands of visitors it receives. Visitors are given expert explanations, while Living Tomorrow and its partners receive valuable feedback. The latter can then be used to inform future research. In addition, visitors are given information about future innovations, technologies, social media, the internet, etc.
More information is available on www.livingtomorrow.com and www.tomorrowlab.com
