Cassidian, the defence and security division of EADS, has introduced its new Airport Surveillance Radar, Next Generation (ASR-NG) radar, which is claimed to offer completely new options for air traffic control and for safe guidance of aircraft during take-off and landing.
The ASR-NG consists of a primary radar for wide-area surveillance of the airfields' surroundings as well as a secondary radar for automatic identification of the individual aircraft. Its extreme sensitivity means that even very small objects such as ultra-lightweight aircraft, slow flying objects such as helicopters or even flocks of birds can be reliably detected and classified. Especially developed algorithms allow for safe guidance of aircraft even in the vicinity of wind turbines.
"Air traffic has become so dense that air traffic control can no longer manage without the most modern radars and automatic identification systems," explained Elmar Compans, Head of the Sensors & Electronic Warfare unit at Cassidian. "In this context, our new radar will make an important contribution to avoiding collisions and to efficient use of the air space."
The Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radar (MSSR) works in accordance with the latest air traffic control standard ‘Mode S Enhanced Surveillance’ and additionally delivers ADS-B data, which greatly improves the interrogation process for aircraft identification as well as flight plan allocations. It has been type certified (NfL II 66/09) by the German air traffic control organisation, Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS), and certified (pursuant to EC 262/2009) by the European ATC organisation EUROCONTROL, which means that there is no need for operators to carry out their own validation procedures.