Saab Improves Situational Awareness at San Francisco Airport

Defence and security company Saab, announced that its Airport Surface Surveillance Capability (ASSC) is now operational for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

San Francisco is the 36th airport in the U.S. national airspace system (NAS) to receive the capability. ASSC is delivered by U.S.-based Saab Sensis, which is part of Saab’s business area Surveillance, and it provides air traffic controllers in the tower with situational awareness of the airport surface, helping them to safely guide aircraft and vehicles at the airport.

“Saab is committed to improve aviation safety and efficiency. We view this airport surface surveillance capability milestone at San Francisco as another big step in helping us make that happen and we look forward to continuing the work at more airports within the national airspace system in the U.S.,” says Mike Gerry, head of Saab product area Air Traffic Management.

San Francisco Airport is the first of eight ASSC deployments planned by the FAA that will incorporate Saab’s multilateration, safety logic conflict detection and alerting, air traffic controller working positions, and recording and playback functionality. ASSC processes Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) data along with other sensor sources to provide a single, fused view of the airport runways and taxiways. In addition, the flexible nature of the ASSC system architecture enables future airport surface safety enhancements, such as Runway Status Lights (RWSL), which is currently being deployed at San Francisco International Airport, and airport surface movement data distribution to other approved systems and users.

Saab provides air traffic management solutions for civil aviation, airport and airline customers in more than 40 countries across six continents.