SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, July 21 (EUROPA PRESS) –
ENAIRE, the air navigation manager, has put into service this Thursday a new state-of-the-art radar in Tenerife, at the Taborno site, located in a privileged environment that allows it to provide coverage and surveillance service to flights within the Canary Islands Regional Directorate, both in the Approach Airspace Area and Aerodrome Control.
Given its location, Taborno’s new Mode S radar is capable of controlling the airspace within a radius of approximately 450 kilometers, and can also provide coverage to aircraft taking off and landing from all Canarian airports.
Specifically, the file for the supply in operational state of this new radar that serves the ENAIRE Air Traffic Control Center in the Canary Islands, as well as the Tenerife North Airports -Ciudad de La Laguna, Tenerife South and La Palma, has been executed for an investment amount of 2,249,730 euros.
This radar replaces the previous civil radar, installed in 2005, after the end of its useful life and represents a leap forward in the technology used, going from a secondary monopulse radar to a secondary Mode S radar, which additionally incorporates an Automatic Dependent Surveillance station (ADS-B) at the same location, providing an additional layer of information to the airspace of the Canary Islands.
This new secondary radar is equipped with digital receivers and Mode S technology, which makes it possible to have more information about the aircraft that are flying, manage traffic more fluidly and increase safety.
These types of radars are used for monitoring and surveillance of air traffic since they provide information regarding the position of each aircraft, its identification and the altitude at which it flies, facilitating the location and identification of all flights that operate in its area of reach.
In addition, this radar incorporates a redundant Automatic Dependent Surveillance station (ADS-B), which allows the position of aircraft to be obtained through the information that they disseminate through their on-board sensors. This functionality will allow, in the future, to continue having surveillance information in the event of possible mechanical failures of the radar station. This radar joins the other twenty-four Mode S radars already installed in Spain.
This installation contributes to the international positioning of ENAIRE as an air navigation manager, in the field of surveillance, in line with the European requirements to progressively introduce new technologies that improve air traffic management in Europe.
S-MODE SECONDARY RADARS AND ADS-B STATIONS
The secondary surveillance radar is a system that makes a request for information through a radio signal at a certain frequency that the aircraft receives. Upon receiving this signal, the plane responds through equipment called a transponder, which decodes the signal and sends the information required so that on the ground they can identify, in addition to its position, parameters such as the company it belongs to, the route it takes or the height at which it flies.
The Mode S secondary surveillance radar is an improvement over the monopulse secondary radar, which was the one in use until the development of Mode S technology. This radar uses the same frequencies but has the ability to perform selective interrogations, thereby reducing radio contamination.
Another of the improvements that Mode S technology provides is that it increases the information exchange capacity between the radar and the aircraft, with which the aircraft can provide information on its flight plan, the intention regarding heading and altitude and other parameters of the aircraft’s flight management system.
Of the technologies available to improve the performance of the Spanish surveillance system, Mode S is the most mature and implemented, which will allow for improved operability with different European countries.
The Automatic Dependent Surveillance station (ADS-B) allows obtaining aircraft position data through the information that they automatically transmit from the sensors they carry on board. It is a novel technology that is expected to complement surveillance information from radars in the future, allowing surveillance information to be provided at lower costs and with less environmental impact.
