Fraport AG, the Manager and owner of Frankfurt Airport (FRA), has chosen Sensis’ advanced Multilateration surface system to expand and upgrade the tracking of ground movements of vehicles and aircrafts at FRA.
The surveillance system is extremely important mainly because FRA plans on inaugurating a new runway in the month of October. It has also planned to open a Pier A-Plus at Terminal 1 along with additional ramp areas in 2012. A new Terminal 3 is also being planned in the future.
Fraport is replacing all existing multilateration sensors, which are being used at the airport, with the new, advanced sensors for obtaining precise surveillance of all transponder equipped vehicles and aircrafts that operate on the airport surface. Way back in 1999, FRA was the first airport to choose Sensis multilateration sensors for surface surveillance, and since then the system has both been altered and expanded a number of times to keep pace with the changing traffic and geographic requirements at the FRA.
The three existing 4000 m long runways would be complemented by the new 2800 m long runway in the Northwest region, which would be used for bi-directional landings. This would lead to a 50% increase in the total runway capacity. FRA’s capacity would increase from 82 takeoffs and landings every hour to 90/h. In the future, the capacity would grow to accommodate 100 movements per hour by 2015 and eventually up to 120/h. A surge of 4% to 7% is expected for passenger traffic on a yearly basis, and FRA maybe serving almost 65 million passengers per annum within a period of 4 years.
Fraport revealed that the Sensis system had evolved and grown along with the Frankfurt Airport, providing precise surveillance essential for handling the ground traffic at the ninth busiest passenger airport in the world. He further revealed that the massive expansion plans need dependable and cutting edge multilateration technology and necessary infrastructure. He also emphasized that Sensis had been a long time partner who had helped them to meet their operational targets under tight time schedules.
Sensis Multilateration makes use of multiple non-rotating sensors for triangulating aircraft locations on the basis of transponder signals to offer air traffic controllers with accurate identification information and aircraft position, irrespective of weather conditions. The system utilizes minimum number of sensors and supports Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast.
Ken Kaminski, General Manager and Vice President of Sensis Air Traffic Systems, revealed that the solution would offer a flexible surveillance infrastructure for handling future growth and advancements in the airport.