Fraport AG Frankfurt Airport Services Worldwide has chosen Era, a subsidiary of SRA International (News - Alert), to provide the latest Squid vehicle tracking units at Frankfurt Airport (FRA).

Frankfurt Airport is Germany’s busiest airport and had reportedly handled over 53 million passengers in 2008. Fraport was looking for vehicle tracking units that would enhance air traffic controllers’ surface situational awareness for the purpose of improving security.

In a release, Era claims its Squid minimizes the risk of ground vehicle incursions into safety areas by using a fully standards compliant, vehicle-mounted ADS-B transponder that continually broadcasts a vehicle’s location. The transponder can be permanently or magnetically mounted to all airside vehicles, including tugs, fire and rescue vehicles and de-icing equipment. Every vehicle can be uniquely tracked and identified which offers an essential addition to any Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (A-SMGCS).

Era integrates cooperative surveillance technologies, like multilateration (MLAT) and automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B), into the airport’s A-SMGCS infrastructure to give controllers superior coverage and reliability, more precise vehicle identification and increased weather resilience when compared to surface movement radar (SMR) alone. The company claims the technologies that form the basis of the Squid product line are compatible with any vendor’s A-SMGCS.

The latest generation Squid features a new area management function that allows users to define boundaries in and around an airport where the units will automatically turn on and off transmissions. This allows for busy airports to limit the amount of non-essential surface transmissions.

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