Tanzania CAA choose COMSOFT for tandem delivery of ADS-B and AMHS

- Karlsruhe, Germany

TCAA will run an ambitious project to improve their air navigation and communication equipment, in order to increase flight safety in the region.

Mount Kilimanjaro, in North Eastern Tanzania, provides thousands of tourists to the country every year and the TCAA’s decision to update both their surveillance infrastructure and their message handling system is a commendable one, in order to meet future operational challenges.

COMSOFT’s proven track record in these domains led to their election to supply the two major technologies, with the AMHS hub of market-leading product AIDA-NG and the central portion of the ADS-B surveillance equipment installed at TCAA’s ATC centre in Dar Es Salaam. These will be complemented by easy to use flight planning CADAS terminals and ADS-B Quadrant sensors distributed countrywide at remote locations.

With the state-of-the-art ADS-B technology Tanzania will become one of the first few African countries to implement this highly accurate and simultaneously cost effective surveillance solution - a product ICAO note as a key element for future ATM surveillance.

With aviation safety and efficiency the motto of TCAA, Senior Engineer Flora Alphonce expressed the importance of the project for the country stating: “The continuous growth of air travel has called for the modernisation of the ATM systems. In selecting the two solutions offered by COMSOFT we envisage bringing Tanzania in harmony with latest ATC standards. The first phase of the ADS-B implementation that will be carried out by COMSOFT will bring about a significant reduction in the maintenance costs of old radar systems and, in the same front, AIDA-NG will bring revolution to the way we transmit data.”

This is an important milestone in the ANSP’s history and also marks a first for COMSOFT, as the pair of products will be delivered in unison for the East African country.

COMSOFT’s Quadrant ADS-B sensors are the German expert’s lightweight and cost-efficient alternative to conventional radar surveillance and is perfectly suited for the African country due to its limited maintenance requirements and proven robustness under extreme environmental conditions, which they have demonstrated with installations from glacial Iceland to the Arabian Desert. Its low power consumption, low bandwidth and compact design allow for it to be set up anywhere.

Challenges for Africa as a whole were highlighted at the Airspace user Seminar in Zanzibar, Tanzania, in May 2013, and included insufficient funds for acquisitions and inadequate surveillance and communication systems, among other adversities – confirming the benefit that modern, non-radar based surveillance systems can have for the country.

TCAA will benefit from the excellent and accurate air surveillance system, with an extraordinary range, allowing Tanzania to provide precise tracking over landscape including highlands, a central plateau, mountainous areas – with Mount Kilimanjaro its highest peak, swamps and the archipelago of Zanzibar.

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