COMSOFT hosted important African Technology Seminar and revealed ATC advances for Africa

German Air Traffic Management (ATM) expert COMSOFT hosted a significant Technology Seminar in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with the support of Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA), in order to highlight the benefit the latest technologies will have for the region.

The programme covered technical and operational aspects of new developments in ATM technology, and attendees showed particular interest in COMSOFT’s Quadrant ADS-B solution with many enquiries about its technical specifications. Presentations on advanced ATM automation concepts, modern ADS-B and MLAT (Multilateration) surveillance, aeronautical communications, including VSAT operations, and concepts to efficiently facilitate the ICAO roadmap AIS to AIM were valuable additions to the agenda.

Prior to the seminar, TCAA and COMSOFT had inaugurated TCAA’s new Aeronautical Message Handling System (AMHS) as well as a country-wide ADS-B surveillance system. The introduction of both technologies marks a huge milestone for Tanzania’s aviation as it becomes one of the still few African countries to initiate this accurate yet cost effective surveillance solution, while simultaneously introducing the most modern messaging terminals for utmost error-free data-entry and state-of-the-art aeronautical data transmissions with AMHS.

Speaking at the event, COMSOFT CEO, Manfred Schmid addressed over 40 attendees from seven countries, announcing that he hoped this project would kick start a new era of ATM in Africa. He went on to praise TCAA for their ambitions vision for improved safety and efficiency stating: “TCAA have been expertly preparing themselves for future air traffic management demands and we are thankful that last year they chose COMSOFT for the parallel delivery of our superior Quadrant ADS-B surveillance solution and market-leading AMHS system, AIDA-NG.”

Dr. Günter Hellstern, COMSOFT’s Director of Project Management, summed up the ambitious project in his seminar presentation, confirming: “Applying the latest ADS-B surveillance technologies helped Tanzania to avoid high investments for deployment and maintenance of surveillance equipment compared to conventional radar technology. This goes hand in hand with the high accuracy of ADS-B surveillance throughout the major part of the country and utmost fault-tolerance of the fully redundant ADS-B system.”