AVEILLANT RADAR RECEIVES CAA OPERATIONAL APPROVAL AT EAST MIDLANDS AIRPORT
Aveillant, the Cambridge based radar technology company, today announced completion of the safety case and the CAA’s operational approval for its Theia 16A radar at East Midlands Airport. Aveillant is in discussion with a number of major international airports interested in using Aveillant’s unique technology for a range of applications from Primary Surveillance Radar to drone-tracking – East Midlands is the first to received CAA operational approval.
Commenting on the announcement, Aveillant CEO, David Crisp said: “We are delighted to have received the CAA’s approval at East Midlands airport. Given the modular nature of our radar systems, we expect this to give even further confidence to the growing group of airports we are in discussion with. We are very proud of our unique achievements in mitigating wind farm clutter – a tricky technical challenge which has only been properly solved by Aveillant’s technology. ”
Aveillant’s technology remains the only radar in the world capable of intelligently distinguishing between wind turbines and aircraft, thereby removing the Air Traffic Control (ATC) safety concerns associated with wind turbines being sited near airports.
Civil and military radars operate on the principle of detecting the reflected signals from a transmitted radar pulse. To a conventional radar the reflected signals from wind turbines and aircraft are indistinguishable. Consequently, wind turbines show up on an ATC screen and where this ‘clutter’ is displayed prevent aircraft tracks from being seen.
Aveillant combines a different design of radar with the use of cutting edge computer processors and algorithms to analyse the different radar returns, and intelligently characterise them – automatically removing wind turbines from the ATC display, but maintaining all other targets.
Aveillant’s software-led approach to radar grants remarkable flexibility and capability. The same radar technology is now being used to track and identify the small drones which are coming into wide use. Conventional radar technologies struggle to discriminate between these small drones and birds, whereas Aveillant has been able to adapt its radar to the task by updating the software. Aveillant’s technology remains the only radar in the world capable of intelligently distinguishing between wind turbines and aircraft, thereby removing the Air Traffic Control security concerns associated with wind turbines being cited near airports.
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Tom Rayner – +44 7908 001 338
Aveillant Ltd is a leading radar technology company based in Cambridge, UK, specialising in applications of its unique radar platform. Key markets are in security, aviation and defence.
Find out more at www.aveillant.com
In addition to its radar at East Midlands Airport, Aveillant’s Gamekeeper radar is currently being installed in Monaco for use in drone detection, and in initial test flights in May it successfully detected and tracked drones of around 45 cm in size out to ranges of close to 5 km – a world first. Use of drones in commercial applications is growing fast, and the market for drone detection systems is forecast to grow to a value of over $11bn by 2020.
