ADS-B

Flying over oceanic regions is going to be safe and cost effective for airlines as the Airports Authority of India (AAI) is planning to install a new generation surveillance system at 14 small airports in the country. The aim is to plug blind spots over land and sea where radar surveillance is not effective. The new system, automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast (ADS-B), helps air traffic controllers track aircraft faster than with conventional radar. ADS-B ground stations will get the position of a flight automatically every second. Pilots will be able to fly at altitudes as high as 45,000 feet which will make flying safe, green and faster. As the aircraft can be monitored, more flights can be accommodated on an air route. AAI is planning to install ADS-B at Jaipur, Lucknow, Calicut, Agartala, Thiruvananthapuram, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Port Blair, Nagpur, Mangalore, Coimbatore, Kochi, Varanasi and Amritsar. The deadline is set for 2014. ADS-B uses global positioning satellites to get inputs about the speed, altitude and location of aircraft flying in areas that cannot be reached effectively by secondary surveillance radar. The new surveillance system will be most useful for planes flying over the Bay of Bengal from South East Asia to the Gulf countries, Europe and the UK. AAI will install an ADS-B ground station at Port Blair. Around 200 aircraft cross the 200 nautical miles over Andaman and Nicobar Islands daily. ADS-B will help aircraft flying on seven air routes that cut across Bay of Bengal. It also will help air traffic controllers reduce the separation of aircraft as they cross one another. Now, planes take more than 15 minutes to cross one another which delays flights. When radar coverage is not good, air traffic controllers in Chennai send text messages to the aircraft receiver to obtain its speed and location. This is an expensive system. “ADS-B will help reduce separation between aircraft. One plane can be separated by 30 miles on cruise altitude when the new system comes into vogue. This also helps the plane reach optimum cruising altitude without compromising on safety while cutting down on cost,” said V Somasundaram, member, Air Navigation Services, AAI board. Chennai airport has already installed ADS-B and trials were conducted. “We are yet to start using it. Trials were successful. It’s a good system which helps us to track an aircraft without the knowledge of pilots. The plane and the ground station will be in touch automatically and the input will be visible on the monitor,” said an air traffic controller. “The new system is an evolving technology and we are planning to integrate it with existing radar-based systems at airports. It is going to be a key element in air traffic management world over. Currently, surveillance is being done using secondary radar. India is planning to install ADS-B to provide surveillance in remote areas to cover existing radar gaps and provide complete surveillance over the continental airspace and around Port Blair over the Bay of Bengal,” said D Devaraj, southern regional executive director, AAI.