At inter airport Europe 2021, ADB SAFEGATE will present its Airfield 4.0 roadmap, which uses digital technologies such as wireless telemetry and sensors to automate and enable two-way communication between airfield assets and stakeholders. Data on, for example, the status of airfield lights and other airfield assets are aggregated, delivered upstream to cloud computing tools that analyze performance and communicated to various control systems. The results are shared via performance dashboards which help airfield operations and maintenance staff to detect patterns and make quick, accurate decisions.
“Foundational to Airfield 4.0 is the addition of intelligence to hardware devices, coupled with a right-sized communication medium. It promises to do for airports, what Industry 4.0 is doing for traditional manufacturing,” said Regardt Willer, CMO and VP - Airfield, ADB SAFEGATE. “With Airfield 4.0, we’re moving away from providing isolated stand-alone hardware commodities to solutions driven by software that deliver interconnected devices and control systems which will communicate seamlessly both ways. Data shared upstream is analyzed for actionable insights to usher in a new era of data-driven decision making and collaboration among airport stakeholders.”
To enable this digitalization, hardware, i.e., airfield assets such as lights, power equipment, signage, etc., will have among other things built-in sensors. These sensors will collect different kinds of data on the device and surrounding environment status in real-time. Reliable and proven communication technologies, right-sized to the required data density and frequency, will provide the high bandwidth and speed needed to transmit this data upstream – a marked change from today’s control systems where data mainly flows downstream.
With increased intelligence from the asset base, cloud computing tools will bring analytic capabilities to identify trends and patterns on how airfield assets perform to help airports make sense of these large volumes of aggregated data. These tools will also enable greater integration with surveillance into the airfield, which allows for true collaboration between stakeholders such as airfield and air traffic control (ATC) personnel. Ultimately, this will enhance situational awareness, streamline operations through data-driven decision-making and bring airports closer to truly predictive maintenance.
From Nov. 9-12, visitors to ADB SAFEGATE’s stand (stand 1320, Hall B5) at inter airport Europe in Munich will be able to see how Airfield 4.0 works as a proof of concept and how intelligent assets enable an interconnected airfield to raise performance on three dimensions - safety, efficiency and sustainability.
Highlights include:
New intelligent inset lights: Lights with built-in smart sensors connect to ADB SAFEGATE’s new LINC 360 System.
- LINC 360: Moves beyond ILCMS (individual light control and monitoring systems) to serve as a next-generation communication platform, increasing bandwidth to support secure, reliable and quick two-way data exchange. Leveraging existing airfield circuit cabling is cost-effective and enables easy migration to help airports meet future data requirements.
- ALCMS KPI dashboard: A visualization tool that helps airfield personnel gauge airfield performance and quickly make accurate, data-driven operational decisions by displaying key airfield asset and systems performance indicators in a user-friendly way.
- Advanced Power Supply (APS) and Distributed Parallel System (DPS): Green power solutions that unlock the full power savings potential for LED products, have proven to save 95% energy consumption compared to halogen and 60% compared to traditional LED solutions.
The showcase will also feature simulation videos of the runway incursion alerting system (RIAS), follow-the-green adaptive lights (ADAL) with simple block guidance and runway status lights (RWSL), including the recent RWSL implementation at Istanbul Airport’s Runway 3.
