Poland’s Air Navigation Service provider decided on a modern, future-proof and field-proven surveillance infrastructure and enhances its existing radar technology by installing a country-wide surveillance network, the Polish RAdar NETwork PRANET. The central communication nodes RMCDE, forming the cornerstones of PRANET and processing and distributing regional, national and international radar data, will be installed in Gdansk, Poznan, Katowice and two sites in the capital of Warsaw.
In the context of a recently received contract from PANSA German ATC/ATM specialist COMSOFT will deploy a total of nine RMCDEs (Radar Message Conversion & Distribution Equipment) for this ambitious enhancement project. PRANET, mainly used for civil purposes, aiming for increased availability of surveillance data throughout the country, will be installed in a redundant architecture, provided by an underlying red and a green IP-based network.
Each radar source will feed both the green and red network via two PRANET nodes, located at different sites; a strategy to prevent loss of radar data in case of a catastrophic failure of any particular site or communication link and to ensure an ultimate high degree of permanent availability of any radar service, at any place, any time.
The very first RMCDE was installed in Warsaw back in 2004 and since then has been performing continuously its operational services at the ATC centre of PANSA. This RMCDE will be upgraded seamlessly to the latest release and integrated in PRANET. Apart from setting up the national surveillance network, the implementation of supervision tools for PRANET, including the CRMCS (Central RMCDE Monitoring and Control System) accomplished by an RMD (Radar Monitoring Display), is part of the contract.
In addition PANSA is enlarging their portfolio of COMSOFT products by a second RAPS-3, the only EUROCONTROL qualified ASTERIX test and evaluation tool. RADNET is an intelligent service-oriented network for the distribution of surveillance data. Its core component is COMSOFT’s RMCDE which was developed on behalf of EUROCONTROL in 1990 and represents currently the most mature ASTERIX implementation on the market.