Air passengers’ safety starts on the ground. From pushback to parking, whether on the tarmac or in the skies, air traffic controllers need to know an airplane’s position at all times to prevent collisions from happening.
This already held true 50 years ago when Secondary Surveillance Radars (SSR) were first installed; yet today, with increasingly busy airports and skies, every second makes even more of a difference in air traffic management.
The RSM NG breaks the boundaries of what secondary radars can do, combining key technologies that allow air traffic controllers to interrogate the skies at all times and in complete confidence.
Make every second count
A Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radar (MSSR) antenna rotates once every 4 to 12 seconds, depending on the set-up chosen by the operator. This means that between each scan of the MSSR, there are a few seconds during which the radar is not interrogating the skies, leaving the aircraft’s position unknown. When air passenger security is at stake, 4 to 12 seconds can represent a very long period of uncertainty where much can happen.
To address this critical gap, Thales introduces its latest digital secondary radar, the RSM NG. Leveraging 50 years of experience, the RSM NG goes beyond MSSR architecture by including Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) technologies within the same sensor. Because the ADS-B receives the information emitted by aircraft once per second (e.g. Identification, altitude, speed, velocity, projected path, etc), it provides air traffic controllers with accurate aircraft information from push back to parking.