Airport ATC to go automatic

American Company Bags Rs 42-Crore Design Contract

V Ayyappan | TNN 

Oct 27:

Chennai: After defining air routes for landing and take-off under the Performance Based Navigation (PBN) sytem, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has taken steps to introduce automation of air traffic control at the Chennai airport. 

    A meeting with representatives of US-based Raytheon, which bagged the Rs 42 crore contract to automate ATC, is scheduled in the coming days to discuss the details. “They will have to study the procedures used here and then design a system that can match ours,” said a senior AAI official. 

    Like PBN, automation is crucial for the airport here because the traffic has crossed 400 aircraft a day. In Mumbai, PBN was installed when traffic touched 350 aircraft a day. So, an automated ATC system will ease the workload of controllers, improve air safety and make handling of aircraft in the congested air space easy. 

    Installing an automated ATC system, however, is going to be a long process. Raytheon’s officials “will be working with air traffic controllers simultaneously to perfect automation before starting the training programmes and actual implementation,” an official said. 

    It is likely to take at least a year before the system becomes operational. 

    Chennai airport does not see busy traffic throughout the day; the skies over it are heavily congested during the morning and evening peak hours. 

    “Too many flights are handled during peak hours, especially because airlines have slotted flights one after the other at short intervals. We have to handle over-flights, aircraft climbing and descending at neighbouring airports before routing the flights for arrivals and departures at Chennai airport. It is high time we had a modernised ATC,” said a source. 

    The AAI officials in Delhi never thought air traffic would increase so rapidly at Chennai. 

    The airport is expected to get a new radar system in a few months but it will be installed by another company. Raytheon, therefore, will have to standardise the automation procedure to suit the radar system. According to air safety expert and former pilot captain Mohan Ranganathan, “automation can be implemented only if the PBN system is followed thoroughly in the country. Now, ATCs are forced to switch from PBN to conventional air traffic control quite often. The airports in Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong follow only PBN. In India, we follow both the systems.” 

    Pilots say that though PBN allowed for four miles of separation between aircraft in air, Delhi and Mumbai ATCs insist on a 14-mile separation. “This shows that PBN is not put to optimum use,” said Ranganathan. 

T EC H U P G RA D E 

    Automation package includes new main radar, surface movement radar, remote-controlled air-ground VHF communication and upgrade of oceanic surveillance 

    Remote-controlled air-ground VHF communication will be installed at Port Blair, Vishakhapatnam, Udhagamandalam and Bellari to improve VHF communication with pilots flying over land 

Information about flights from oceanic control, radar and meteorological dept will be integrated for air traffic controllers 

Automation will improve air safety because controllers will get alerts on the location of aircraft if their routes or position are in conflict with other aircraft.