Sensis Corporation and Honeywell Receive 2008 ATC Global Award for Future Systems
Cockpit Safety Alerting Technology Recognized
ATC GLOBAL, AMSTERDAM – March 12, 2008 – Sensis Corporation and Honeywell received a Future Systems award at the 18th annual ATC Global 2008 Exhibition and Conference in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, for their contributions of next-generation technology for safe and efficient airspace management. The award recognizes the companies’ demonstrated solution to detect and communicate potential runway incursions directly to an aircraft cockpit, alerting the flight crew of a potential incident.
“This award is recognition of the effort by both companies to create a system that is vitally important to reducing runway incursions and increasing safety at airports around the world,” said Tony Lo Brutto, Vice President and General Manager of Sensis Air Traffic Systems. “This successful demonstration, leveraging currently deployed systems, proves that the technology exists today to help address runway incursions.”
Sensis Corporation and Honeywell International developed a solution that sends potential ground, arrival or departure conflicts directly to pilots as an audible alert leveraging technology available today – a Mode-S data link and Honeywell TCAS unit in the aircraft. The audible alert in the cockpit is triggered by Sensis’ advanced conflict detection and alerting technology, Safety Logic, and is provided to pilots at the same time the Sensis A-SMGCS transmits the information to air traffic controllers. The project was successfully demonstrated with the assistance of the FAA in the fall of 2007 at Hancock International Airport, Syracuse, New York.
“The ability to detect and communicate potential runway incursions directly to an aircraft cockpit, alerting the flight crew of a potential incident – saving valuable time and potentially lives – is critical to the global aviation industry,” said Chris Benich, Dir. of Regulatory Affairs, Honeywell Inc. “Honeywell and Sensis’ objective was to help define an open standard which could be adopted by all airport surface management systems worldwide.”
In addition to being a primary concern to air navigation service providers in Europe and Asia, in the U.S., the ability to communicate potential runway incursions directly to an aircraft cockpit has been on the National Transportation Safety Board’s “Most Wanted” list since 1990.
Six ATC Global awards are presented each year to highlight contributions made toward safer skies, capacity enhancements and increases in efficiency within the airspace management industry. The winners are selected by a panel of senior representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration, Eurocontrol, IATA, CANSO and Jane’s Information Group.
