ATM system integration of a nationwide wide-area multilateration system: Integrating WAM into a state-of-the-art ATM system including an ARTAS tracker

Abstract

Austro Control is implementing an Austria-wide Wide Area Multilateration (AWAM) System. The nationwide system is designed to improve surveillance coverage within the FIR LOVV for en-route and all six terminal airspaces and provides coverage and performance that is equal to or better than existing radar infrastructure. The system consists of a single Saab Sensis MDS system with a total of 61 sensors distributed throughout Austria feeding a single central processing station (CPS) located in Vienna. The system is used operationally at Austro Control since December 2013 in the en-route airspace as an additional surveillance sensor for the main tracker and fulfills the performance requirements for SPI IR [1] compliance. This paper describes the operational and technical challenges of integrating such a system into the operational ATM system, focusing mainly on the ARTAS tracker. Apart from integration into Austro Control's main tracker ARTAS, AWAM will be included in the survival system tracker as well. One of the preconditions is to integrate it directly as a WAM system and make use of the advantages this technology can offer but still work well together with the existing radar infrastructure. The primary challenge is to model correctly the different properties and behavior of the WAM system compared to radar characteristics paired with the limited experience with such sensors in operational ATM systems. In order to increase system availability, the complete coverage volume of the AWAM system is split into several output segments. Those segments can be individually faulted without impacting other areas. For the ATM system including the trackers, AWAM therefore looks like a bundle of sensors and is processed accordingly. The integration into the surveillance data distribution and the operational status monitoring are additional challenges which will be discussed. The status of the implementation, encountered challenges and details of the chosen approach and solutions will be presented in this paper.