Air Traffic Control
The VSATPlus 3® product from PolarSat provides a perfect fit for implementing an Air Traffic Control network by integrating voice an data service into one network. The VSATPlus® family of terminals have been deployed all around the world by multiple civil aviation authorities, including the largest VSAT ATC network in the world with over 400 Sites running strong. These ATC networks have a variety of traffic that need to supported. PolarSat integrates a system that supports user IP traffic IP and for older equipment there analog interface (e.g, V.35 for Radar and 4W E&M for VHF radio) . This allows the network to support existing user equipment and migrate to newer, IP based equipment in the future.
Some of the traffic currently supported over PolarSat works include:
Extended Range VHF (conforms to EUROCAE WG67 ED-137)
Tower to Tower, and Airport to Airport voice communications
Primary and Secondary Radar Data (point to point and multicast)
ADS-B
ATIS
AMHS
AFTN
These services also require redundant transport systems to insure communications continuity in the event of primary network failure. These backup systems are defined under ICAO Annex 10 guidelines.
PolarSat has implemented networks where the primary links use a dedicated geostationary (GEO) satellite VSATPlus 3 IP network. Then the redundancy for these links is provided via terrestrial infrastructure; fiber, microwave and/or copper using either dedicated or PTT services. Or the reverse where the primary network is terrestrial and the back up is over satellite. For both solutions the switching is dynamic and by using the StreamView® Open NMS you can gather key performance indicators for up-time and availability for both the active network as well as the backup. This way you can tell if there is a problem with the backup network before you switch over .
