Multi-Sensor Intranet Solutions at Sofia and Kuweit International Airports

Today it is recognized that the efficiency of the meteorological services for the aviation industry depends on the extent of using the most recent technology implemented in equipment as meteorological radar, low level wind shear alert systems, automated weather observation stations, fast Internet/Intranet based communication backbones, etc. The GEMATRONIK Doppler Weather Radar System METEOR® is one of the most important type of equipment of this kind. The user of weather radar information are the airport meteorological observers, forecasters and air traffic controllers at different ATC units (control tower, approach unit). In order to meet different requirements of different user profiles it was necessary to add more sophisticated features and products to the data processing and visualization software Rainbow®. This paper briefly explains GEMATRONIK`s approach for meteorological Internet/Intranet solutions for both airports. The meteorological (multi-sensor) networks will be described. Key components are fast interactive radar products, ASTERIX conversion, AWOS integration, LLWAS sensor integration (WeatherWeb® product family) as well as warning and severe weather detection products. Furthermore GEMATRONIK's new concept for a Web based information system will be shown. There is a growing demand for more detailed, accurate and timely meteorological data, including radar and satellite images, numerical products, real-time data from sensors along the runways, airport reports, etc. The new system has been designed in order to reflect two tendencies that rapidly become standards for any meteorological and aviation applications: The first tendency is to integrate all information sources on one platform. The second is to provide information sharing between a number of different aviation users - meteorologists, controllers, airlines, airport authorities. All these users take part in the air traffic management (ATM) and air traffic services (ATS) and therefore the meteorological information plays important role in the ATM and ATS decision making.