Posted by Courtney E. Howard
CALGARY, Alberta, 3 Nov. 2011. Officials at Canadian Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) NAV Canada needed an improved all-weather surface surveillance and situational awareness of runways, taxiways, and terminal areas at Calgary International Airport, Canada’s third busiest airport. They found their solution at Saab Sensis Corp. in Calgary, Alberta. NAV Canada is deploying a multilateration system from Saab Sensis, as well as the company’s VeeLo NextGen vehicle locators for the surveillance of vehicles operating on the airport surface.
Surveillance data from the Saab Sensis multilateration system will be fused with data from the airport’s Surface Movement Radar (SMR) for seamless, continually updated surveillance. In addition, the location and identity of vehicles equipped with Saab Sensis VeeLo NextGen units will be incorporated into the air traffic controller’s surface display.
“Saab Sensis multilateration is a field-proven airport surface surveillance technology,” says Kim Troutman, NAV Canada vice president, engineering. “The addition of Saab Sensis multilateration and vehicle locators at Calgary will complement existing surface movement radar to give NAV Canada’s air traffic controllers improved situational awareness. This will help meet NAV Canada and the Calgary Airport Authority’s goal of improved efficiency.”
Saab Sensis multilateration employs multiple non-rotating sensors to triangulate aircraft locations based on transponder signals, providing air-traffic controllers with precise aircraft position and identification information regardless of weather conditions. With a higher update rate and greater positional accuracy than traditional radar, Saab Sensis multilateration provides effective surveillance for increased safety, capacity, and efficiency of ground and airspace movements.
Additionally, each multilateration sensor deployed by Saab Sensis supports Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B), providing an infrastructure that is ready for today’s surveillance needs and tomorrow’s avionics.
“NAV Canada continues to select Saab Sensis multilateration for surface and wide-area applications, as Calgary will become the fifth Saab Sensis multilateration deployment in Canada,” says Ken Kaminski, vice president and general manager of Saab Sensis. “Saab Sensis surface multilateration is an economical, adaptable solution that can easily accommodate future airport growth or the integration with a Wide Area Multilateration system for complete terminal area surveillance.”
VeeLo NextGen is a small, lightweight device in a rugged, weather-resistant enclosure that is attached to the exterior of an airport vehicle to provide air traffic controllers with situational awareness of vehicles operating on the airport surface. The vehicle locator attains its position from a Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS)-enabled global positioning system (GPS) receiver and broadcasts its location and identity using the Mode S Extended Squitter ADS-B message format. VeeLo NextGen automatically turns off when the vehicle travels outside of the movement area, ensuring an efficient use of available aviation spectrum.
Saab Sensis continues to be the multilateration provider of choice for NAV Canada, with Wide Area Multilateration systems in Fort St. John, Kelowna, and Vancouver Harbor and surface surveillance at Montreal Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport. NAV Canada has also deployed Saab Sensis ADS-B in Hudson Bay and on the East coast of Canada.
