WIDE SYSTEM COVERAGE OF TANZANIA BY SITTI

In collaboration with JOTRON, SITTI has been ordered the supply of a large number of Voice Communication Systems (VCS) for the upgrade of the air traffic control infrastructure of Tanzania. These systems will cover all major international airports, plus a number of regional ones, thus allowing the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) to proactively manage all inbound and outbound flights, based on the ultimate technology available on the market.

The order placed to SITTI includes 11 MULTIFONO® M800IP® voice communication systems to be deployed all over the country, in cities like Dodoma (the capital), Mwanza, Aakia, Songwe, Mtwara, Pemba, Arusha, Tanga, Kigoma, Tabora. In addition, the current SITTI’s systems at the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) in Dar-es-Salaam and at the Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) will be upgraded in order to interface the new network architecture. All the 13 systems will now be interconnected among them and with all the JOTRON radios spread over the territory of Tanzania.

All systems are equipped with the capability of interfacing standard EUROCAE ED137-compliant radio links and telephone lines, but also analogue and digital connections. All these different communication technologies are natively managed by SITTI systems, providing final users with a comprehensive environment, where they are seamlessly integrated. ATCOs (Air Traffic Control Officers) is given access to radio, telephone, intercom lines through modern touch screen panels, which are fully and freely configurable according to TCAA needs, national directives and operational scenarios.

The above mentioned VCS systems allow a significant number of ATCOs to interface all communication links. A total of 75 new controller working positions (CWPs) will be added to the ATC global TCAA infrastructure, thus making TCAA one of the best equipped ANSP (Air Navigation Service Provider) in the world. This will contribute to a safer management of aircrafts all over the Nation, already fit for a global scenario where the air traffic is expected to be significantly increasing in the next decades.

SITTI AND SESAR VIRTUAL CENTRE EXERCISES

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.

YANGON SIMULATOR BY SITTI

Myanmar (former Burma) is a strategic country for aircrafts flying between Europe and the Far East and Australia. The modernization of the local infrastructures already saw SITTI in the forefront with the supply of a MULTIFONO® M800IP® Voice Communication System (VCS) to the Air Control Centre (ACC) in Yangon, the capital city (as witnessed here: https://www.sitti.it/sitti-for-the-far-east).

About a year later, another VCS has been delivered to the same premises (please read here: https://www.sitti.it/simulation-in-myanmar-by-sitti), this time for simulation purposes at ACC level. Simulation systems are of fundamental importance to allow controllers to get acquainted with the system they will be using in their daily work. Through them, it is also possible to simulate abnormal conditions that may jeopardize the ordinary Air Traffic Management, thus increasing the situational awareness of the operators.

Through the SAMART Group, a Thai company very active in the region and that already proposed our products for their high reliability, SITTI has been asked to provide a further step in the local air traffic control environment, by supplying another simulation system, this time to the Civil Aviation Training Institute (CATI) under the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) for training both controllers and aviation students.

The VCS that will be installed for simulation purposes belongs to the same MULTIFONO® family and therefore it inherits the same levels of capability and reliability. More specifically, it is a M801IP system equipped with 6 controller working positions (CWP) and a communications dispatching server, also used for configuration purposes.

The combined presence of systems all developed by SITTI, primary VCS manufacturer and supplier worldwide, ensures the customer that all his needs are properly addressed through top edge solutions, both in the Civil and Military fields. The leading edge, redundant, non-blocking architecture of the MULTIFONO® Voice Communication Systems provide flexibility and modularity for easy expansion and addition of further functionalities.