ENAIRE is evolving and developing the airspace dedicated to drones (U-Space), working on the associated regulations, the appropriate cloud infrastructure, and collaborating on joint projects with other European countries to ensure coordinated and harmonised development.
Two of the critical infrastructures and roles for the development of U-Space are the CISP (Common Infrastructure Service Provider) and USSP (U-Space Service Provider) platforms, on which ENAIRE is working together with AESA (the Spanish Aviation Safety Agency) towards certification.
The project’s goal is to create digital tower prototypes in a VR environment, using the GAMMASIM VR simulator—an ENAIRE-developed product already in operation—to test them, draw conclusions, and support the approval, commissioning, and operation of virtual towers.
Virtual reality headsets are used to test new function developments within the virtual tower environment, such as ASMGCS (Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System), and to enhance situational awareness.
The project also serves as a testbed to emulate what an ATCO would see from a digital tower. Specifically, the aim is to have a concept card within two years for developments made in the GAMMASIM laboratory, including:
Its objective is to analyse the use of UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) platforms as an opportunity for developing GNSS interference detection and geolocation applications. This project, which won ENAIRE’s Internal Innovation Award, began on 9 February 2022 and remains under development, with an estimated three-year duration.
The main activities to date have focused on risk analysis, defining requirements, selecting the type of drone required to carry the payload, and developing the service documentation for project execution. In April 2025, field tests were carried out to measure the concept’s effectiveness, yielding promising results.
This involves creating a workload model for air traffic control in digital, remote, and even hybrid towers, where workload represents the measure of control activity that a controller can handle.
The workload is determined by analysing controllers’ actions, such as speaking on frequency, transferring a flight, or locating a flight on their display. The overall assessment is highly positive, and the model has been instrumental in developing the Concept of Operations for both Conventional and Remote Towers.
For more information about ENAIRE’s R&D projects, please contact us at the following address: InnovacionENAIRE@enaire.es
