The SATWAYS solution aims at the provision of remote control and monitoring of all heliport equipment over the satellite link and through a remote facility controller. The system will also resolve the serious issue of communication loss during approach by maintaining radio contact with the pilot via a local heliport VHF frequency. All radio communications will be relayed to the flight controller over satellite, reverting his position into a “virtual control tower”.
Other safety issues such as the weather conditions, security and status of the equipment at the heliport during operations are addressed as well as the lack of reliable landline telecommunications infrastructure in small, isolated islands.
“The entire project provides a new working paradigm of how advanced VoIP and satellite technology can be applied to Air Traffic Control”, explains Spyros Apostolacos of inAccess Networks S.A.
The SATWAYS project has recently entered its pilot operation phase. It was successfully installed at the heliport of Patmos Island in the Aegean Sea. The commissioning of the SATWAYS solution on Patmos Island will provide the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority HCAA for the next six months with local radio coverage, telephony, heliport infrastructure monitoring and control, weather information and video surveillance in a converged manner and in real-time over a privately-owned satellite IP network.
In parallel, the satellite Radio-over-IP functionality of the solution will also be tested in support of the control of aircraft flying in the south-eastern sector of the Aegean Sea.
“Albert Einstein once said imagination is more important than knowledge. We combined both, in the development of SATWAYS,” remarked Mr. Constantine Simaiakis, Chief of HCAA’s Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Division, Communications sector. “We are creating an anthropocentric system aiming at the provision of communication and a variety of other services both reliably and efficiently in the Air Traffic Management domain, in environments where legacy systems fail.”
“From ESA’s point of view, this is an outstanding example of how the current schemes to support Applications in the Telecommunication area may be successful. As far as the current project is concerned, a good blending of company competence, user motivation and ESA support has led to a system which is receiving very positive feedback by air-traffic controllers and pilots,” commented Stefano Badessi, Technical Officer of the project.
The SATWAYS operational system has been designed to comply with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) guidelines on performance of VSAT networks for ground-to-ground radio communications. The SATWAYS pilot uses the ESA HellaSat2 geo-stationary satellite allotment, part of the Telecommunications Technical Assets, to implement the space segment. It has been determined that 200 kHz of satellite bandwidth is sufficient to accommodate a single heliport implementing this system.
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