NLR - Aerospace Research, Technology Development and Consultancy

The National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) is one of Europe's leading technological institutes in the field of aerospace and performs a wide range of activities in aerospace research, technology development and consultancy. It was founded in 1917 and operates with a staff of 700 professionals located in the Netherlands.

Its customer base includes national and international governmental organisations, aircraft and aerospace system manufacturers, airports, airlines, air forces, and air navigation service providers.

SAFETY, EFFICIENCY, CAPACITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTANCY

The NLR helps airports and related service-providers to face challenges in the field of safety, efficiency, capacity and environmental issues.

In order to perform its work and maintain its knowledge, the NLR operates a number of state-of-the-art facilities and tools, including test aircraft, real-time and fast-time air traffic and airport simulators, an extensive air-safety database and various other modellers and analysis tools for safety and environment.

AIR TRANSPORT SAFETY INSTITUTE

Within the NLR there is a dedicated institute for safety, the NLR Air Transport Safety Institute (ATSI). Services offered in this field are safety assessments and cases, safety-data analysis, safety management and regulation support, and incident and accident investigation.

One example of a high-profile contract awarded to the NLR is the complete study into safety management in Switzerland after a series of severe accidents around the turn of the 21st century. Others are safety assessments for specific situations – such as the effect of high obstacles on flight safety and runway incursion studies – and studies into the effects of changing operational procedures, methods, infrastructure and organisation on safety.

AIRPORT CAPACITY AND EFFICIENCY MANAGEMENT

Many airports are struggling to keep pace with the continuing growth in air travel and maintain market share in a very competitive environment. NLR activities to help airports face this challenge include controller-tool and operational-procedure design; airport lay-out assessments; training exercises; and studies into collaborative decision-making between the various personnel who are active in or around an airport.

Examples of activities that the NLR has performed are runway and taxiway lay-out studies for various Middle Eastern airports; development of departure management systems; fast-time studies; and real-time simulations.

ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS SIMULATION AND TRAINING

Another interesting service that the NLR has developed is the organisation of large-scale exercises in a simulated environment whereby various employees of airports, service providers and airline operational centres can train for specific circumstances involving sudden adverse weather conditions.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REDUCTION

There is more and more concern about the environmental impact of air traffic. This becomes very noticeable around airports where traffic growth leads to resistance against the associated increase in noise, emissions and third party risks.

Within the NLR, a dedicated group of specialists is active in creating models of noise, emission and third-party risk patterns, studying the design of environmental friendly arrival and departure profiles, impact analysis of future scenarios on the environment, noise measuring and calculations, and communication strategies with the neighbourhood.

Based on this expertise, the NLR acts as a consultant for airports seeking to minimise the environmental impact of their current operation or limit this impact in future scenarios. The NLR also developed the Internet application StanlyTrack, which enables live tracking of air traffic around airports and which is used by various German airports.