The solution’s ability to track aircraft as well as ground support equipment provides a real-time, holistic view of airport operations that enables airports to enhance operational efficiency and help reduce incidences of ground incursions.
“Lack of situational awareness consistently contributes to critical issues at airports, including incidents on the airfield, inefficient aircraft turn management and improper use of ground support equipment,” said Rakan Khaled, general manager of Airport Solutions at Collins Aerospace, an RTX business. “This system provides real-time data to airports to solve for those issues.”
Three components have been developed to improve airport operations by enhancing operational efficiency, reducing costs, reducing fuel burn and helping avert airfield incidents:
– Aircraft tracking with automatic dependent surveillance uses broadcast and radar feeds from both approaching aircraft and those on the ground for surface monitoring
– Asset tracking that enables ground asset optimisation through accurate real-time tracking of motorised and non-motorised equipment
– An interactive map application uses geofencing to allow operators to set up location and speed restrictions for different assets, with alerts warning users to any operational violations.
Collins Aerospace’s Airport Surface Awareness System is integrated with FlightAware Firehose and Foresight services to provide real-time flight and route information, including arrival time and runway and taxi-out predictions for an airport to accurately forecast aircraft turnarounds.
