Categoria: Europe

AIR TECH ITALY is the Italian Association representing Italian companies specialized in supplying products, technologies and services for airports and air-traffic control. SITTI is a founding member of this association and contributes with its active presence in the governing board.

As we mark the 100th anniversary of the Italian Air Force, we at SITTI are filled with immense pride and gratitude. We wish to extend our heartfelt congratulations to a force representing courage, dedication, and exceptional service to our nation.

For decades, we’ve had the privilege of being a trusted supplier, supporting the Air Force’s mission with our advanced systems. This collaboration is not just about providing technology — it’s about sharing a vision for a safer, stronger Italy. Our journey together has been one of mutual respect, innovation, and progress.

Today, as we honor the Italian Air Force’s centennial, we reaffirm our commitment to serving our nation’s guardians of the sky. We look forward to soaring higher and exploring new frontiers together in the years to come.

Thank you, Italian Air Force, for a hundred years of safeguarding our skies and fostering unity. Here’s to many more years of strength, innovation, and success. Ad maiora!

SITTI is proud to announce that the Ministry of Transportation has recently awarded SITTI a big contract for the supply of Voice Communication Systems (VCS) and ancillary equipment to the 19 major airports in Greece. This contract will allow the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority (HCAA) to make use of the most recent and advanced systems for air traffic control in the central Mediterranean area.

The contract is divided into two lots:

• Larger Airports, including Thessaloniki, Kerkyra, Kos, Rhodes, Heraklion
• Regional Airports, like Chios, Kalamata, Paros, Samos, Milos, Skiathos, and many others

All these airports will receive a brand new MULTIFONO M800IP system, in full compliance with the international standards issued by the major standardisation bodies, with particular attention to the EUROCAE ED137 documents that define the use of VoIP (Voice over IP) in ATC/ATM (Air Traffic Control and Management). Main and backup VCS systems are envisaged for the larger airports.

The M800IP VCS will be complemented by a dual Digital Voice and Navigational Data Recording and Reproduction System (DVRRS), capable of recording and replaying detailed information about the information exchanged between controllers and pilots. A dedicated Time Reference and Display Systems (TRS) allows precise synchronisation between all pieces of equipment and permits perfect reproduction of recorded data.

Last but not least, SITTI will be providing the National Greek Air Traffic Control with 122 controller working positions (CWP) at the larger airports, plus another 44 positions for the regional ones. The controller working positions that are going to be supplied belong to renowned families of consoles manufactured by SITTI; they give controllers comfortable access to all communication devices, with optimal ergonomic solutions.

“The contract that has been signed between Greece and SITTI” – Massimo Crovato, SITTI CEO, states – “is a great confirmation of the outstanding capability of SITTI to cope with large programs covering entire Nations. It is also a further demonstration of the ductility of M800IP VCS systems and recorders that can be used in large as well as small airports and ACCs worldwide”.

Many different emergency situations may occur at airports. Most of them involve aircrafts having problems in landing, taxiing, maneuvering, taking off require the intervention of specialized and qualified teams to tackle the issue and solve it, trying to minimize the overall effects of the abnormal situation, with special attention to human lives. This is the main task of the firefighting staff operating at the airports.

They are constantly monitoring all radio frequencies used for airport services, including ground and air traffic control, to be able to immediately react in case of any real or potential risk. Besides them, other radio frequencies are listened to, to receive indications and orders from the area and regional firefighters commands. Telephone connections to all other emergency services inside and outside the airport are used to coordinate possible interventions.

Since end of last December, 2022, SITTI completed the setup of a new MULTIFONO® M800IP® system at the Malpensa firefighters tower, thus allowing operators to benefit of all the modern features provided by this new VOIP-based system. In particular, radio and telephone connections of different kinds (e.g. both analogue and VOIP) are seamlessly integrated to give operative staff immediate, efficient, quick access to all communication features.

The installation and setup of the new system has been carried out by SITTI specialised personnel, that has been coordinated by SEA, the airport managing company, and supported by the local firefighter station, to guarantee a smooth transition from the previous system based on TDM technology to the new VOIP one.

The extremely good relationship between firefighting brigades all over the National territory and SITTI, permits this vital emergency service to take full advantage of the constant research and development activities carried out by SITTI and to get full support in case of any possible issue or expansion request that can arise from the field.

AIRSPACE WORLD is the world’s largest international Air Traffic Control and Air Traffic Management (ATC/ATM) exhibition, taking place in Geneva from 8th to 10th March. This unique venue is attracting industry market leaders and Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) from all around the globe. Product developers, experts and end users gather for three days to share the latest products and achievements.

The participation at AIRSPACE WORLD is the natural prosecution of the continuous presence of SITTI at the major exhibitions on ATC/ATM that have taken place in the past. Last year a similar event (called World ATM Congress) too place in Madrid in the second half of June.

This is the right place where Air Traffic Control stakeholders meet and make things happen. It is a very important event, where SITTI has the opportunity to show its latest developments in this field and to meet the interest of many customers, both those that are new to us and those who have been knowing us since long.

Following its vocation and commitment to present its Innovative Products to the international audience, SITTI will be participating in this first edition of the Airspace World exhibition (https://airspaceworld.com). New ideas and product concepts will be shown, with special and particular attention to Integrated Solutions, combining data and voice.

Voice Communication Systems (VCS), VoIP gateways, recorders, integrated information solutions, consoles are the main products developed by SITTI to provide customers with a comprehensive solution to their needs.

Come and visit us at booth G17.

On November 11, 2022, ENAV (the Italian ANSP) (Air Navigation Service Provider) organized an Open Day for celebrating the conclusion of the campaign aimed at validating the Virtual Centre Architectures in the frame of SESAR 2020 W2.

The execution of the various exercises validated the concept of “Delegation of ATM services provision among ATSUs”, together with contingency use cases. For the purpose of the campaign, one ADSP (ATM Data Service Provider) and two ATSUs (ATM Service Units) were involved in a simulated environment, focusing on the coordination between Rome and Brindisi ACCs (Area Control Centres), also including Civil-Military operations.

The exercises were carried out at ENAV National Test Facility in Rome using COFLIGHT Cloud Services (CCS), LEONARDO radar stations and SITTI Voice Communication System (VCS) touchscreens, taking into due consideration the specific requirements to support the service interfaces with the Virtual Centre architectures defined by EUROCAE Working Group 122.

SITTI actively contributed to the success of the planned exercises through a simulated VCS environment. The VCS facility make it possible to ATCOs (air traffic control operators) working at the (simulated) site of Brindisi to interact with their colleagues in Rome and some (simulated) pilots to run all foreseen tests and positively terminate the validation campaign. The following operational use cases have been addressed from an operational perspective at different traffic load conditions:

• Delegation of ATM services provision at night
• Delegation of ATM services provision at fixed time
• Delegation of ATM services provision on-demand
• Delegation of ATM services provision between Civil and Military ATSUs

The SITTI system showed its native flexibility, by allowing the definition of many different independent operational scenarios, through which all communication aspects involved in the delegation process could be successfully assessed.

On November 9, 2022, at 6:20 am, an earthquake hit the Adriatic coast, near the cities of Pesaro and Ancona, Central Italy. The earthquake magnitude was not devastating, however it understandably created apprehension in the population that felt its tremors and was scared of possible serious consequences that, thanks God, did not occur.

On that day, the local fire brigades received about 1000 calls asking for help and requests of site inspections for making sure infrastructures and buildings and houses were safe to use, work or live in. The Pesaro operative room is equipped with SITTI MULTIFONO® M800IP® voice communication system (VCS) with 3 VoIP (voice over IP) operator working positions that were able to cope with all incoming calls and properly dispatch orders to the fire brigades patrols on the territory.

The VCS system has been under stress for many hours, representing the focal point for the communications between the operative command and the firefighters operating in the area. The reliability and continuous availability of the system, its capability of queuing calls and properly connecting operators, allowed it to provide an excellent service, so that all emergency calls have been duly managed and processed, even during the following days when more than 2000 further calls have been received for the same reasons.

The operative and control room in Ancona thanked SITTI for the unparalleled good quality of the system they have been using. His words are the best advertisement for our products. “This further encourages us to enhance and improve our products” – Mr. Federico Di Guida, head of SITTI maintenance department said – “to continue providing our customer with top-edge systems and services.”

Following a safety requirement from the Italian aviation regulator (ENAC), the national Air Navigation Service Provider (ENAV) asked SITTI to implement a radio override feature between the Malpensa airport and the Linate ACC.

The safety requirement applies to airports with two parallel runways. It states that parallel operations can be carried out, provided a higher level management entity (the ACC) is possibly capable (e.g. in case of emergency) of taking control of the radios used at the airport.

The implementation of this feature was greatly facilitated by the native flexibility and integrated solution provided by the MULTIFONO® Voice Communication Systems (VCS) by SITTI.

The technical, system, functional maintenance contract between the Italian military air force (Aeronautica Militare) and SITTI has been renewed. The renewal will be covering the next three years, thus guaranteeing the customer a complete assistance service covering a long observation time, with operative continuity with the current ongoing similar service.

The maintenance activities included in the contract will be covering all 58 air bases and defence centres scattered over the Italian peninsula for the management of the military air traffic, with more than 120 systems installed.

SITTI VCS systems have been running for many years, thus proving their outstanding reliability that made unit replacement and fault repair activities quite infrequent. The maintenance and assistance contract that has been signed between AM and SITTI is intended to provide the customer with technical, functional and system assistance to cope with any possible degradation or disruption.

The maintenance contract envisages the continuous possibility of accessing phone assistance during working hours 5 days a week, with constant 24/7 availability on call in case of any urgency. Should anything serious occur that cannot be solved over the phone, a qualified engineer is guaranteed to be on site within 48 hours.

Programmed maintenance activities are scheduled to be executed daily, weekly or monthly, according to the system parts to be supervised. This allows to preventively recognize possible degradations and also issue early warnings for the replacement of any unit or the identification of throughput bottlenecks.

“The Italian air force is a demanding customer. Their task is to provide Italy with an efficient and reliable air defence system” – Mr. Di Guida, SITTI Technical Assistance Manager, stated – “that needs an effective, quick and always accessible support from the industry. The renewal of this contract once more testifies the capability of SITTI to provide such an important support service.”