Australia to Use Sensis Wide-Area Surveillance over Tasmania

Airservices Australia will use Sensis Corporation's wide-area surveillance system over Tasmania to provide its controllers with aircraft location accuracy "better than 150 meters."

The initial deployment of Sensis' MDS (multistatic dependent surveillance) will provide en route surveillance via multilateration and ADS-B (automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast) down to ground level at both Launceston and Hobart airports, according to Les Kelly, who is managing the project for Airservices Australia.  "Once regulatory approvals have been received from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, the system will be used operationally in 2008," Mr. Kelly said.

Sensis MDS uses non-rotating sensors to detect and track the movement of aircraft and vehicles based on their transponder signals, with a precision comparable to GPS, the company claims.  Furthermore, it has a higher update rate than traditional airport surveillance radar, and its performance is consistent regardless of weather conditions.

The system is scalable from small airport applications to coverage volumes of hundreds of thousands of square miles.  And because of its ADS-B compatibility, the system can provide a bridge to new technologies, Sensis says.

Under its contract with Airservices, Sensis is also providing Airservices with its remote control and monitoring system that diagnoses problems and makes MDS easier to maintain.  08-23-2006.

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