COMSOFT Aeronautical User Group (CAUG) unites its global users for a seventh year

Seven was the magic number as a record amount of COMSOFT’s AIDA-NG customers joined the German expert’s seventh annual user group in Karlsruhe Germany, where the company are based.

Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) from 20 countries gathered again for the two-day seminar to address new developments for AMHS, including gateways, new features of COMSOFT's AIDA-NG and CADAS products, as well as developments for the anticipated European Directory Service (EDS).

The profound attention the annual CAUG event enjoys was further highlighted with the announcement that 80 per cent of the worldwide operationally used AMHS connections involve COMSOFT systems. Last year COMSOFT had pointed out that AMHS systems were vastly in use and how important their interconnection would be. This year it could be reported that in Europe alone nine new connections have been established, with NATS and EUROCONTROL being particularly focused on the task. This represents a considerable increase and success, and a sign of a breakthrough for AMHS connections.

The European Directory Service (EDS) was another focus this year and COMSOFT’s Florian Schmid labelled the intended AMHS user address book as a yellow pages directory that does not only include addresses, but also provides information on the communication partners defining their properties and capabilities, this making the exchange of information much more efficient. EDS is being predicted to play a cardinal part in the future.

The conclusion of the EDS validation phase also allowed DFS participant Kolja Wabra to share the views of DFS, and emphasised that EDS is just around the corner. ANSPs were further invited by him to take part in the bigger picture by sharing their use cases.

New functionalities and improvements to COMSOFT's Aeronautical Data Access System (CADAS) gave way to a well-received presentation on COMSOFT’s Roadmap to AIM with many milestones already achieved, but still in full swing. An example to this end was the interconnection with COMSOFT’s PRISMA Automation System, where finally the ATM side can benefit from the seamless access to a fully integrated AIXM5 database.