Douglas Equipment SPD - Airport Runway Friction Measuring and Reporting System

Douglas Equipment SPD (Special Products Division) designs and manufactures "designed for user" airport ground support equipment and airport runway maintenance equipment for both commercial and military airport operators worldwide. This equipment includes the market-leading Mu-Meter runway friction measuring system.

SPD also produces aircraft handling units, weapon handling trolleys and ISO container handling trailer systems, and also offers a complete design, post design and comprehensive after sales service.

MU-METER MK6: AIRPORT SURFACE FRICTION MEASURING SYSTEM

The Mu-Meter Mk6 is a continuous friction measuring and reporting system designed for testing airport runways, taxiways and road surfaces. The system tow vehicle flexibility of the Mk6 means that it does not require any special installations or dedicated vehicles in order to operate.

The Mu-Meter system carries out a variety of runway friction test applications:

• Outputs reports in regionally defined format, e.g. CAA CAP683 / ICAO / FAA, etc.
• Provides accurate daily friction measurements as part of a pavement maintenance plan
• Immediate (weather-related) friction reports for transmission to inbound flights
• Runway friction classification and mapping for records and audit purposes

RUNWAY FRICTION TEST AND MEASUREMENT SYSTEM

Mu-Meter equipment consists of a small three-wheeled trailer, incorporating electronic measuring systems which operate in conjunction with a computer carried in the chosen towing vehicle.

The Mk6 trailer system produces signals that are presented on the laptop screen and are processed for later downloading to an office printer. In addition, the recorded data can be exported via the laptops RS232 serial port or stored on floppy disk (a disk drive is provided externally with the laptop unit). This feature provides the ability to download the data to an IBM compatible computer for data storage and analysis at a later time.

REAL-TIME AIRPORT RUNWAY EVALUATION SOFTWARE

Information sensing, conditioning, processing, recording, storing and visual display are all enacted by the electronic system. The Mk6 system uses a Windows environment software that is fully PC compatible. All data transfer and user-friendly analytical software is offered in full CAA CAP683 / ICAO / FAA format.

Digital information from the Mu-Meter trailer is processed and the resulting data is output to a touchscreen laptop, featuring a real-time graphical display, for constant evaluation. This touchscreen display shows operator / vehicle positioning data and is the main user interface. From here the user can display menus, programs, run information and friction / distance graphs. The user can also perform a basic analysis of the test runs.

A zoom and pan function allows for close inspection of the graph down to a resolution of 1m of the runway. This can be conducted immediately after the run has been conducted or later back in the office.

WATER DELIVERY SYSTEM

A water delivery system is available as a "customer extra" and can be supplied to supplement the Mu-Meter when required in dry weather to classify runways, as defined in the appropriate authority classification specification.

CORROSION PROTECTION

The components of the Mk6 Mu-Meter are corrosion protected against all normal conditions and materials encountered at modern airports.

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