Week Three: Airport Surface Detection Equipment

    A piece of technology used by Air Traffic Controllers that has had a massive impact on aircraft safety and airport effiencey is Airport Surface Detection Equipment (ASDE). This system is impoyed at 30 of the busiest airports in the United States to aid the ground controller in their job of safety moving the aircraft from their parking locations to the runways and back (United States Department of Transportation, 2020). Its does this by using ASDE to give the ground controller a live view of all the aircraft moving on their airport, it is a radar for the ground. This is important being at large airports the ability to view where any aircraft is at any point in time reduces the amount of radio calls that need to be made and reduces the overall workload of the controller. As you can see below on the airport diagram for JFK International Airport, there are over 40 miles of taxiways and it is very easy to loss track of individual aircraft. ASDE alowes for more aircraft to arrive and depart of major airports in a given time increasing the amount of people served without needing to expand operating hours or building more infrastructor. 

(John F Kennedy Intl Airport map & diagram,n.d.)


John F Kennedy Intl Airport map & diagram (New York, NY) [KJFK/JFK]. FlightAware. (n.d.). Retrieved January 30, 2022, from https://flightaware.com/resources/airport/KJFK/map

United States Department of Transportation. (2020, December 15). Airport surface detection equipment, Model X (ASDE-X). Federal Aviation Administration. Retrieved January 28, 2022, from https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/asde-x/

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 31, 2022 at 4:35 PM

    ASDE sounds very good. Have you had the opportunity to use the equipment?

    ReplyDelete

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