Patuxent River Naval Air Station Deploys Sensis Multilateration System for Wide Area Surveillance

DEWITT, NY – June 30, 2003 – Sensis Corporation today announced that the U.S. Navy’s Naval Air Warfare Center is deploying Sensis’ surveillance system, Multistatic Dependent Surveillance (MDS), to monitor and track aircraft in the 1,800 square miles of airspace over the Patuxent River Atlantic Test Range (PAX River), MD. By using MDS for wide area surveillance, the test range will receive surveillance with an accuracy and system availability that significantly improves the cooperative radar surveillance picture, substantially impacting range safety through improved situational awareness of aircraft operations during test maneuvers. Furthermore, the precision and adaptability of the technology will enable the test range to identify non-military aircraft entering the airspace, reducing the risk of incursions and allowing for potential future use of the airspace for both civil and military aviation. The company also announced that the MDS system concluded Factory Acceptance Testing, marking the successful integration and testing of all system hardware and software.

“The project at PAX River demonstrates the innovative way Sensis works with customers to understand and solve their needs,” said Marc Viggiano, president of Sensis Corporation’s Air Traffic Systems Division. “In this case, we leveraged our technology developed for the civil aviation market and applied it to the needs of a military test range. The project is an important proof-point in our ability to provide scalable and interoperable solutions for special use airspace.”

The Patuxent River Atlantic Test Range supports land-based and maritime aircraft and associated operations through research, development, test and evaluation, engineering and fleet support. Its location at the mouth of the Patuxent River, resulting in high humidity, frequent fog, and liberal rain and snow fall, is critical for producing the test conditions necessary for naval aviation technology development.

To capture the high-speed tactical maneuvers of aircraft at the facility, and to ensure precision surveillance in all weather conditions, Sensis, under contract to DynCorp, a prime technical support contractor for the test range, is deploying Sensis’ sensor-based technology, MDS. The system’s surveillance will span 1,800 square miles of airspace at an altitude of 3,500' to 50,000'. With the deployment, PAX River will receive aircraft positional information at a rate of once per second – far exceeding the update rate of traditional rotating radar. Further, the MDS sensors will provide an accuracy and system availability that is equivalent to or better than traditional radar, regardless of weather conditions.

“The Navy has identified PAX River as one of their most vital shore installations,” said Viggiano. “The dynamic nature of activity at the facility requires an advanced surveillance system that can provide concise situational awareness today and adapt to address the Navy’s needs tomorrow.”

MDS, a transponder multilateration system, interacts with an aircraft transponder to determine position and identity. The system uses low-cost, non-rotating sensors to triangulate and track the movement of an aircraft based on its transponder signals. Through its compatibility with developing concepts such as Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B), multilateration provides a bridge to future technologies.

The Naval Air Warfare Center’s selection of MDS was the result of a successful proof of concept system that that was deployed in August 2001 under the Airspace Management System Improvement Program. The focus of the program is to improve airspace management through the precision tracking of airborne aircraft for range safety and FAA interoperability.

The PAX River MDS system will be operational in October of 2003. In addition to the wide area deployment at PAX River, Innsbruck Airport, Austria, and Frankfurt Airport, Germany are leveraging MDS for wide area surveillance. At Innsbruck Airport, Austro Control, the Austrian Air Navigation Service Provider, is deploying MDS to address the unique separation requirements of the narrow valley in which the airport is located (see February 18, 2003 press release). At Frankfurt Airport, Fraport AG Frankfurt Airport Services Worldwide (Fraport), owner and operator of the airport, is expanding its MDS implementation – now being used for surface surveillance – to include evaluation of MDS for precision runway monitoring (see March 31, 2003 press release). Additionally, in conjunction with NASA and the U.S. Department of Transportation Research and Special Program Administration/Volpe Center, Sensis is using MDS to conduct aviation surveillance research in the Gulf of Mexico, focused on improving safety, capacity and efficiency in the U.S.’ National Airspace System.