ICAO retains Cofely Ineo and Thales to provide and deploy control-tower, approach, and en-route control simulators for ASECNA across Africa

In December 2014, Cofely Ineo, through its Ineo Engineering & Systems unit, and Thales, global leaders in air-traffic management (ATM) solutions, signed a contract with ICAO, commissioned by ASECNA (the Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar).

ASECNA controls the airspace of 17 countries across the continent, all of which are equipped with air traffic management technologies from Cofely Ineo and Thales. In 2013, it managed 510,725 flights over an operations zone 1.5 times the size of European airspace.   

The contract strengthens the technological base of each member state, by providing a common, comprehensive and cost-effective software simulation suite for developing and maintaining air-traffic controllers’ skills.

This simulation environment consists of 3 products: Voice@Net, ScanSim and TopSky-ATC.

Cofely Ineo designs, installs and maintains the Voice@Net tool, the latest generation of IP Voice Communication Switch simulators. The tool is used for training air-traffic controllers and improving their skills in the field of radio and telephone communications between the control tower and aircraft, and between the control tower and the rest of the world.

Thales designs, installs and maintains TopSky-ATC, the world leading air traffic management automation system.

Together, within SIMULAVIA consortium, Cofely Ineo and Thales designs, installs and maintains the ScanSim simulation system, which covers air-traffic controllers training for radar and procedural control services.

Developed with the help of air-traffic control instructors, ScanSim extends to all fields of air-traffic control, from aerodrome control to approach and en-route control. The system is deployed and used for training purposes in Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

The study and testing phase will be completed in October 2015, at which time the simulation tools will be dispatched to the various sites for planned deployment from January 2016.

Altogether, 32 sites will be equipped with Voice@Net developped by Cofely Ineo, 21 of which will have ScanSim and 11 will have TopSky-ATC.

Countries where  ScanSim and Voice@Net will be installed:

Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Togo, Niger, Senegal.