Upgrade of Air Force Base by SITTI

Pratica di Mare is an important military airfield close to Rome. This military air base hosts several services and functions used by the Italian Air Force (AM-Aeronautica Militare), and for this reason it accommodates a number of communication systems devoted to the interface to other remote military sites and remote radio stations.

The Pratica di Mare air force base is currently undergoing a renewal project with the aim at the modernisation of its infrastructure, especially for what concerns the management of the voice for air traffic control and coordination activities. The objective is to integrate all features and services into a single VCS (Voice Communication System) that guarantees proper response to present and future operational needs for air/ground and ground/ ground communications.

Leveraging on the long lasting and successful relationship with Aeronautica Militare, SITTI is giving its proactive contribution to this project that involves all services based in Pratica di Mare, from area air traffic control to the local airfield tower.

More specifically, SITTI will be providing the air base with server-based VCS solutions, belonging to the MULTIFONO® M800IP® family. This family of products is already installed at other air force bases and has proven its outstanding reliability and high performance characteristics. The positive return from other installations paved the way to the new supply. The new system provides the Customer with the same features and extremely high availability figures as the other similar systems deployed in Italy.

The system being installed at Pratica di Mare is based on a quad-based server installation, where all message handling, computation, signalling and voice switching are carried out by duplicated COTS servers dealing with radio and telephone connections. This innovative approach to integration of services permits having a system that can seamlessly switch from main to standby machines without affecting ongoing communications, while at the same time complying with all standard ED-137 VoIP (Voice over IP) requirements.

A further integration step is represented by MFT800 multi-functional terminals, which are being used by controllers to quickly acquire the information they require for getting situational awareness and promptly access the communication and service options made available to them.