New ATM set to go live at Dubai World Central

Raytheon is on track to provide Dubai with the world’s most modern air traffic management (ATM) system to safely and efficiently meet Dubai’s ambitious airport and air traffic growth plans.

The company’s next generation ATM, AutoTrac III (AT3), installed at Dubai World Central’s Al Maktoum International Airport, is scheduled to be operational in early 2012.

Raytheon is no stranger to the region and has quietly been delivering ATC systems across the Middle East, including installations in the UAE, KSA, Oman, Lebanon, Iraq and Kurdistan.

While most people would recognise Raytheon for its activities in the defence sector, the company is actually a global leader in ATM, with systems in more than 50 countries helping to control more than 60% of the world’s airspace.

Raytheon is building on its recent successes in the Middle East, India, Asia Pacific region and the United States, to meet its goals of creating safe and efficient airspace infrastructure designed to accommodate the projected growth in global air traffic.

The AT3 system will provide ATC automation for the Dubai terminal airspace and approach control services for Al Maktoum International, Dubai International, Sharjah International, and Minhad Airbase. The system will also support tower operations at the Dubai International and Al Maktoum International.

The Dubai AT3 system includes advanced safety and efficiency features, such as multi-radar tracking capabilities, advanced flight data processing, advanced safety net functions, online data interchange, arrival and departure management, and electronic flight strips.

Raytheon network centric systems director of international ATM, Stephen duMont, said: “Raytheon’s next generation ATM automation system provides a high-performance, cost-effective solution for the world’s rapidly growing air traffic demands. It contains the most advanced surveillance and flight data processing systems available today and we are extremely pleased that our partnership with Dubai Aviation City Corporation Engineering Projects and Dubai Air Navigation Services will give the emirate the world’s most modern ATM system to safely and efficiently meet its ambitious aviation growth plans.”

In India, AT3 is operational and being used to control the airspace in three of the country’s four flight information regions (FIRs) at centres located at Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai airports. These installations are an important milestone in Airports Authority of India (AAI) plans for the modernization and transformation of the country’s airspace – which is among the world’s most rapidly growing aviation and air traffic markets.

Raytheon is also under contract to deliver AutoTrac to the Indian Air Force at 28 airfields located across the country.

Further afield, Raytheon has been selected to supply its AT3 system for Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department’s (CAD) new area control centre at the Hong Kong International Airport. The CAD’s new centre will be three times larger than its existing facility and AT3 will replace an earlier version of the AutoTrac system that has been operational in Hong Kong since the mid-1990s.

The Hong Kong system will provide comprehensive next generation air traffic management capabilities to control some of the world’s most complex and congested airspace safely and efficiently. Raytheon is also providing a development system to permit training and certification of new air traffic controllers.

The AT3 system features a modern open architecture design and high performance characteristics and Raytheon says it is fully adaptable and scalable to any ATM environment, ranging from a simple tower automation application to a fully integrated national multi-centre system.

“It contains the most advanced flight data processor and displays available today,” said duMont. “The next generation ATM technology presents information to the controller in a coherent, integrated fashion on a situation display. This information includes flight, surveillance, aeronautical and meteorological data, enabling the controller to make timely and efficient decisions to expedite the flow of air traffic.”