SELEX Elsag - Air Traffic Control Communications and Ground Systems

For more than 32 years SELEX Elsag has been a leader in the supply of turnkey systems for voice and data communications between the pilot and controller to ensure effective air traffic control. Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and in the air. The controller's primary task is safety: it consists of separating certain aircraft to prevent them from coming too close to each other, both horizontally and vertically. Secondary tasks include ensuring orderly and expeditious flow of traffic and providing information to pilots, such as weather and navigation information.

Ground systems for air traffic control

SELEX ELSAG's range of capabilities in ground systems for air traffic control encompasses the design, manufacturing and marketing of a wide range of equipment and integrated systems to be installed on various ground control centres. The company offers products and systems to satisfy ground-to-air communications (both voice and data), surveillance and network management needs.

Radio base stations for voice and data communications

SELEX Elsag's third-generation radio base stations provide customers, such as Italian ENAV, Chinese CAAC and Indian AAI, with a multi-mode communication system, which is able to communicate using various voice and data modes simultaneously. This allows for increased operation effectiveness, in compliance with the standard established by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Projects for increasing and developing ATC technologies

SELEX Elsag is an active member of many founded projects for increasing and developing future ATC technologies, including:

• SAFEE: air transport security
• E_CAB: overall network infrastructure, data management architecture and specifications of an advanced wireless gate link solution
• SWIM-SUIT: innovative technologies for a system-wide information management infrastructure for the European air transport system
• SESAR: standardising the future generation of air traffic management (ATM) systems
• SANDRA: focused on network security, integrated modular radio and airport surface datalink development (AeroMACS), aligned with SESAR

Multi-mode ground station for ground-air-ground communications

Based on OTE D100 software-defined radio technology, the OTE MGS100 multi-mode ground station meets all of the challenging requirements for ground-air-ground communications, supporting present and future civil and military ATC applications.

Multi-mode ground station for ground-to-air voice communication systems

The OTE MGS100 multi-mode ground station exceeds ICAO and ETSI standards for AM-DSB mode for ATC ground-to-air voice communication systems. It is easily configured in terms of:

• Antenna and multi-coupling systems
• OTE D100 radio configurations (TX, RX or TRX) with different channel spacing (25kHz and 8.33kHz) and high-power amplifiers on demand
• Single frequency and automatic multi-frequency operation in the VHF or UHF band
• Analogue or voice over IP (compliant with EUROCAE ED 137) operating modes
• Embedded radio changeover operation (1+1 without external changeover devices)
• 'Dual backbone' support: OTE D100 equipment provides native redounded interfaces to VCS
• Voice and data network interfaces completely configurable

Ground-air-ground datalink support for air traffic management

The provision of ground-air-ground datalink support for current and future ATM applications is a challenging integration problem that cannot be solved using simple radio equipment. SELEX Elsag's OTE MGS100 has been successfully tested and deployed with the following capabilities:

• Full implementation of VDL2 protocol stack according to ARINC 631-5 specification
• Integration with ATN sub-network, for CPDLC applications and with ACSP networks for ACARS operations
• Redundant and modular design in order to satisfy future VDL2 growth (up to four frequencies) and to meet the ANSP availability stringent requirements ('five nine' ground station networks)
• Data and event logging capability
• Full IP architecture

Multi-mode digital radio series for all communication standards

SELEX Elsag's OTE D100 radio series is a multi-mode software defined radio (SDR) family which can implement all communication standards foreseen by ICAO annex 10 without modifying hardware and modules. The OTE D100 waveform can be easily configured for:

• Voice networks with traditional analogue AM-DSB modulation with channel spacing options of 25kHz or 8.33kHz for VHF band and 25kHz for UHF band
• AM-MSK modulation for digital ACARS functions and operations (2,400bit/s) on VHF range
• D8PSK modulation (31.5kbit/s) for VHF datalink mode 2 sub-networks

The OTE D100 also provides interfaces for datalink and digital applications by using a double Ethernet 10/100BaseT IEE802.3 standard, which is configurable for VoIP or VDL2. Thanks to the implementation of the EUROCAE ED-137 standard VoIP protocol, SELEX Elsag radio equipment can be directly interfaced to an IP network to transport voice and signals.

Network management system for ATC radio communication systems

Mission critical systems, such as air traffic control (ATC) ground-air-ground radio communication systems, must be kept in operation and updated to provide controllers with reliable technology for safely performing ATC operations.

SELEX Elsag's ONM100 modern network management system supports the reliability of mission critical ATC radio communication systems. It assists problem solving, minimises non-operational time, enables easy reconfiguration of radio equipment to meet new operational needs, and monitors system parameters and performance to maintain the required quality of service (QoS).