The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has awarded Northrop Grumman a contract for the Low-Cost Ground Surveillance (LCGS) programme to heighten situational awareness of airport surface traffic.
The contract is for the installation of the LCGS system at Reno Airport in Nevada and includes options for installation at additional airports.
LCGS will provide surface surveillance at US airports to significantly upgrade efficiency and safety. This is especially critical at small and medium-size airports where air traffic controllers currently rely only on their "out-of-the-window" view of surface traffic as the primary means for avoiding conflicts and maintaining operational capacity and safety. That view can be severely hampered by adverse weather conditions, compromising safety for travellers.
Northrop Grumman's solution features the NOVA 9000 developed by Northrop Grumman Park Air Systems. The NOVA 9000 processes and integrates radar and related data to give graphical views of aircraft and vehicles in the airport movement area on display screens to controllers in the tower.
The system offers integrated and efficient airport ground surveillance to the world's airports and has been installed in more than 40 airports throughout more than 20 countries.
The NOVA 9000 is cost-effective and easy to install and operate, and its scalability allows suitability for installation at small airports as well as some of the world's largest and busiest airports such as London Heathrow and Paris-Charles de Gaulle.
"We are pleased the FAA has chosen our solution that is based on the most widely installed and trusted ground surveillance system in the world," said Roger Fujii, vice-president of Network Communication Systems for Northrop Grumman's Information Systems sector. "We look forward to working with the FAA and furthering the safety of traffic on airport runways and taxiways."
Northrop Grumman Park Air Systems, based in Peterborough, UK, and Oslo and Horten, Norway, supplies communication, navigation and surveillance systems for airspace operations worldwide.
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