Editor's Note

Sensis in ADS-B Contract

By Tish Drake | February 14, 2007
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Sensis Corp., said Canada plans to award it an automatic automatic dependent surveillance – bBroadcast (ADS-B) and multistatic dependent surveillance (MDS) for wide area multilateration (WAM) surveillance. Financial details were not disclosed. Under the contract with NAV Canada, the country’s civil air navigation services provider, Sensis ADS-B will provide surveillance of the 250,000 square nautical miles of airspace over Hudson Bay where there is currently no air traffic surveillance coverage, launching the country’s nationwide ADS-B deployment. Sensis MDS will initially be deployed in two locations – Vancouver Harbour including approaches to Vancouver International Airport, to enable surveillance and tracking of low-altitude sea plane traffic in the mountainous terrain; and the “Oil Sands” area of Ft. St. John to enable surveillance of commercial, general aviation, and helicopter air traffic. “These deployments mark the beginning of our evolution from conventional radar to the next generation of air traffic surveillance,” said John Crichton, NAV CANADA President and CEO. The Sensis ADS-B 1090 ground-based transceivers will provide aircraft position information with sufficient accuracy and reliability to allow for five nautical miles of lateral separation. NAV CANADA anticipates that the Hudson Bay ADS-B deployment will save customers $200 million in fuel costs over 15 years through more flexible and fuel-efficient flight routes. Sensis said its MDS, a transponder multilateration system, uses low-maintenance, non-rotating. The system provides precision comparable to GPS, a higher update rate than traditional airport surveillance radar. Further, the system is compatible with ADS-B. Sensis said MDS provides NAV CANADA with an excellent surveillance solution for areas not easily served by traditional radar and a transitional vehicle to ADS-B.

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