RTX Introduces the Collins Airport Surface Awareness System

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Collins Aerospace, an RTX business, introduces Collins’ Airport Surface Awareness System for real-time tracking, monitoring, and recording of both aircraft and ground support equipment at airports.

The ability to track aircraft as well as ground support equipment provides a real-time, holistic view of airport operations that enables airports to enhance operational efficiency and help decrease ground incursions.

“Lack of situational awareness consistently contributes to critical issues at airports, including incidents on the airfield, inefficient aircraft turn management and improper use of ground support equipment,” said Rakan Khaled, general manager of Airport Solutions at Collins Aerospace. “This system provides real-time data to airports to solve for those issues.”

There are three components developed to improve airport operations by enhancing operational efficiency, reducing costs, reducing fuel burn and helping avert airfield incidents:

Aircraft tracking with automatic dependent surveillance uses broadcast and radar feeds from both approaching aircraft and those on the ground for surface monitoring.

Asset tracking enables ground asset optimization through accurate real-time tracking of motorized and non-motorized equipment.

An interactive map application uses geofencing to allow operators to set up location- and speed restrictions for different assets, with alerts warning users to any operational violations.

The Airport Surface Awareness System is integrated with FlightAware Firehose and Foresight services to provide real-time flight and route information, including arrival time and runway and taxi-out predictions for an airport to accurately forecast aircraft turnarounds.