Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System is a system at airports having a surveillance infrastructure consisting of a Non-Cooperative Surveillance (e.g. SMR, Microwave Sensors, Optical Sensors etc.) and Cooperative Surveillance (e.g. Multilateration systems). A-SMGCS has 4 levels, [1] level 1 and 2 have been validated by EUROCONTROL Airport Operations and Environment division in Eurocontrol located in Brussels, Belgium and work is ongoing to verify requirements for further implementation levels in coordination with ICAO, FAA etc.
ICAO Doc 9830 defines A-SMGCS as follows:
Advanced surface movement guidance and control system (A-SMGCS). A system providing routing, guidance and surveillance for the control of aircraft and vehicles in order to maintain the declared surface movement rate under all weather conditions within the aerodrome visibility operational level (AVOL) while maintaining the required level of safety.
U.S. Airports with FAA Approved Low Visibility Operations / | ||||
Surface Movement Guidance and Control Systems | ||||
(LVO/SMGCS) Operations | ||||
OpSpec/Mspec/LOA C056/C078/C079 | Updated November 19, 2015 | May 24, 2016 | ||
Airport ID | Airport | City | State | Region |
ANC | Ted Stevens Anchorage International | Anchorage | AK | AAL |
FAI | Fairbanks International | Fairbanks | AK | AAL |
LIT | Bill and Hillary Clinton National / Adams Field | Little Rock | AR | ASW |
FAT | Fresno Yosemite International | Fresno | CA | AWP |
BFL | Meadows Field Airport | Bakersfield | CA | AWP |
LAX | Los Angeles International | Los Angeles | CA | AWP |
ONT | Ontario International | Ontario | CA | AWP |
SFO | San Francisco International | San Francisco | CA | AWP |
DEN | Denver International | Denver | CO | ANM |
BDL | Bradley International | Windsor Locks | CT | AEA |
IAD | Washington Dulles International | Washington | DC | AEA |
TPA | Tampa International | Tampa | FL | ASO |
ATL | Hartsfield - Jackson / Atlanta International | Atlanta | GA | ASO |
DSM | Des Moines International | Des Moines | IA | ACE |
BOI | Boise Air Terminal / Gowen Field | Boise | ID | ANM |
ORD | Chicago O'Hare International | Chicago | IL | AGL |
RFD | Chicago / Rockford International | Rockford | IL | AGL |
FWA | Fort Wayne International | Fort Wayne | IN | AGL |
IND | Indianapolis International | Indianapolis | IN | AGL |
SDF | Louisville International - Standiford Field | Louisville | KY | ACE |
MSY | Louis Armstrong New Orleans International | New Orleans | LA | ASW |
BOS | General Edward Lawrence Logan International | Boston | MA | AEA |
ACK | Nantucket Memorial | Nantucket | MA | AEA |
ORH | Worcester Regional | Worcester | MA | AEA |
BWI | Baltimore / Washington International Thurgood Marshall | Baltimore | MD | AEA |
BGR | Bangor International | Bangor | ME | AEA |
PWM | Portland International Jetport | Portland | ME | AEA |
DTW | Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County | Detroit | MI | AGL |
MSP | Minneapolis - St. Paul International / World-Chamberlain | Minneapolis | MN | AGL |
MCI | Kansas City International | Kansas City | MO | ACE |
STL | St. Louis Lambert International | Saint Louis | MO | ACE |
GTF | Great Falls International | Great Falls | MT | ANM |
CLT | Charlotte / Douglas International | Charlotte | NC | AEA |
GSO | Piedmont Triad International | Greensboro | NC | AEA |
RDU | Raleigh-Durham International | Raleigh | NC | AEA |
OMA | Eppley Airfield | Omaha | NE | ACE |
MHT | Manchester | Manchester | NH | AEA |
EWR | Newark Liberty International | Newark | NJ | AEA |
SWF | Stewart International | Newburgh | NY | AEA |
CLE | Cleveland Hopkins International | Cleveland | OH | AGL |
DAY | James M Cox Dayton International | Dayton | OH | AGL |
ILN | Wilmington Air Park | Wilmington | OH | AGL |
EUG | Mahlon Sweet Field | Eugene | OR | ANM |
PDX | Portland International | Portland | OR | ANM |
MDT | Harrisburg International | Harrisburg | PA | AEA |
PHL | Philadelphia International | Philadelphia | PA | AEA |
PIT | Pittsburgh International | Pittsburgh | PA | AEA |
PVD | Theodore Francis Green State | Providence | RI | AEA |
GSP | Greenville Spartanburg International | Greer | SC | ASO |
FSD | Joe Foss Field | Sioux Falls | SD | AGL |
TYS | McGhee Tyson | Knoxville | TN | ACE |
MEM | Memphis International | Memphis | TN | ACE |
BNA | Nashville International | Nashville | TN | ACE |
AUS | Austin-Bergstrom International | Austin | TX | ASW |
DFW | Dallas / Fort Worth International | Dallas | TX | ASW |
AFW | Fort Worth Alliance | Fort Worth | TX | ASW |
HOU | William P Hobby | Houston | TX | ASW |
IAH | George Bush Intercontental / Houston | Houston | TX | ASW |
SLC | Salt Lake City International | Salt Lake City | UT | ANM |
RIC | Richmond International | Richmond | VA | AEA |
SEA | Seattle-Tacoma International | Seattle | WA | ANM |
GEG | Spokane International | Spokane | WA | ANM |
MSN | Dane County Regional - Truax Field | Madison | WI | AGL |
MKE | General Mitchell International | Milwaukee | WI | AGL |
Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airspace. The primary purpose of ATC worldwide is to prevent collisions, organize and expedite the flow of air traffic, and provide information and other support for pilots.
A traffic collision avoidance system, also known as a traffic alert and collision avoidance system, is an aircraft collision avoidance system designed to reduce the incidence of mid-air collision (MAC) between aircraft. It monitors the airspace around an aircraft for other aircraft equipped with a corresponding active transponder, independent of air traffic control, and warns pilots of the presence of other transponder-equipped aircraft which may present a threat of MAC. It is a type of airborne collision avoidance system mandated by the International Civil Aviation Organization to be fitted to all aircraft with a maximum take-off mass (MTOM) of over 5,700 kg (12,600 lb) or authorized to carry more than 19 passengers. CFR 14, Ch I, part 135 requires that TCAS I be installed for aircraft with 10-30 passengers and TCAS II for aircraft with more than 30 passengers. ACAS/TCAS is based on secondary surveillance radar (SSR) transponder signals, but operates independently of ground-based equipment to provide advice to the pilot on potentially conflicting aircraft.
In aviation, an instrument approach or instrument approach procedure (IAP) is a series of predetermined maneuvers for the orderly transfer of an aircraft operating under instrument flight rules from the beginning of the initial approach to a landing, or to a point from which a landing may be made visually. These approaches are approved in the European Union by EASA and the respective country authorities and in the United States by the FAA or the United States Department of Defense for the military. The ICAO defines an instrument approach as "a series of predetermined maneuvers by reference to flight instruments with specific protection from obstacles from the initial approach fix, or where applicable, from the beginning of a defined arrival route to a point from which a landing can be completed and thereafter, if landing is not completed, to a position at which holding or en route obstacle clearance criteria apply."
The European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, commonly known as Eurocontrol, is an international organisation working to achieve safe and seamless air traffic management across Europe. Founded in 1960, Eurocontrol currently has 41 member states with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. It has several local sites as well, including an Innovation Hub in Brétigny-sur-Orge, France, the Aviation Learning Centre (ALC) in Luxembourg, and the Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre (MUAC) in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The organisation employs approximately two thousand people, and operates with an annual budget in excess of half a billion Euro.
Secondary surveillance radar (SSR) is a radar system used in air traffic control (ATC), that unlike primary radar systems that measure the bearing and distance of targets using the detected reflections of radio signals, relies on targets equipped with a radar transponder, that reply to each interrogation signal by transmitting encoded data such as an identity code, the aircraft's altitude and further information depending on its chosen mode. SSR is based on the military identification friend or foe (IFF) technology originally developed during World War II; therefore, the two systems are still compatible. Monopulse secondary surveillance radar (MSSR), Mode S, TCAS and ADS-B are similar modern methods of secondary surveillance.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is a statutory body under the ownership of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India. It is responsible for creating, upgrading, maintaining, and managing civil aviation infrastructure in India. It provides Communication Navigation Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) services over the Indian airspace and adjoining oceanic areas. AAI currently manages a total of 137 airports, including 34 international airports, 10 Customs Airports, 81 domestic airports, and 23 Civil enclaves at Defence airfields. AAI also has ground installations at all airports and 25 other locations to ensure the safety of aircraft operations. AAI covers all major air routes over the Indian landmass via 29 Radar installations at 11 locations along with 700 VOR/DVOR installations co-located with Distance Measuring Equipment (DME). 52 runways are provided with Instrument landing system (ILS) installations with Night Landing Facilities at most of these airports and an Automatic Message Switching System at 15 Airports.
Required navigation performance (RNP) is a type of performance-based navigation (PBN) that allows an aircraft to fly a specific path between two 3D-defined points in space.
For air traffic control, SASS-C is an acronym for "Surveillance Analysis Support System for ATC-Centre". SASS-C Service is part of Eurocontrol Communications, navigation and surveillance.
The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) is an ongoing United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) project to modernize the National Airspace System (NAS). The FAA began work on NextGen improvements in 2007 and plans to finish the final implementation segment by 2030. The goals of the modernization include using new technologies and procedures to increase the safety, efficiency, capacity, access, flexibility, predictability, and resilience of the NAS while reducing the environmental impact of aviation.
DMAN, also known as Departure Manager is a planning tool developed to improve the departure flows at airports and increase the predictability. DMAN calculates the Target Take Off Times (TTOT) and the Target Startup Approval Times (TSAT) taking multiple constraints and preferences into account. As a result, the DMAN provides a planned departure flow with the goal to maintain an optimal throughput at the runway, reduce queuing at holding point and distribute the information to various stakeholders at the airport. EUROCONTROL have defined DMAN as follows:
The International Cooperation on Airport ATM Systems (ICAS) is a group of Airports, Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) and EUROCONTROL.
ICAO performance-based navigation (PBN) specifies that aircraft required navigation performance (RNP) and area navigation (RNAV) systems performance requirements be defined in terms of accuracy, integrity, availability, continuity, and functionality required for the proposed operations in the context of a particular airspace, when supported by the appropriate navigation infrastructure.
PHOENIX is a multipurpose Radar Data Processing System(RDPS) / Surveillance Data Processing System (SDPS) - a.k.a. tracker - used for many ATC applications in the Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS), and is continuously extended and maintained ever since. PHOENIX is also foreseen as a fundamental component for all future ATM systems in the DFS into the 2020s and part of the DFS initiative for “ATS componentware” in the European SESAR programme.
ARTAS is a system designed by Eurocontrol to operationally support Aerial surveillance and Air traffic control by establishing an accurate Air Situation Picture of all traffic over a pre-defined geographical area and then distributing the relevant surveillance information to a community of user systems.
RMCDE is the name of a system designed to distribute the surveillance information to a community of user systems.
Airport Collaborative Decision Making is the implementation of the CDM process for enhancing the airport turnaround and fostering collaboration between the stakeholders. Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as a process applied to support other activities such as demand/capacity balancing. CDM can be applied across the timeline of activities from strategic planning to real-time operations. CDM is not an objective but a way to reach the performance objectives of the processes it supports. The various industry stakeholders are supporting A-CDM optimization, such as ACI World, CANSO, and IATA.
CIMACT is EUROCONTROL's Civil-Military Air Traffic Management Co-ordination Tool.
Wide area multilateration (WAM) is a cooperative aircraft surveillance technology based on the same time difference of arrival principle that is used on an airport surface. WAM is a technique where several ground receiving stations listen to signals transmitted from an aircraft; then the aircraft's location is mathematically calculated -- typically in two dimensions, with the aircraft providing its altitude. Aircraft position, altitude and other data are ultimately transmitted, through an Air Traffic Control automation system, to screens viewed by air traffic controllers for separation of aircraft. It can and has been interfaced to terminal or en-route automation systems.
Remote and virtual tower (RVT) is a modern concept where the air traffic service (ATS) at an airport is performed somewhere other than in the local control tower. Although it was initially developed for airports with low traffic levels, in 2021 it was implemented at a major international airport, London City Airport.
Airport surveillance and broadcast systems are a set of runway-safety tools that display aircraft on and near an airport.