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Your challengeTo optimize air navigation service provider’s (ANSP) cost structures, Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) and EUROCAE defined remote tower concepts that allow remote towers to be fully controlled from central locations while safety remains at the level of local tower operation.

The changed operational concept for remote tower instal-lations calls for a new type of flexibility that is different than today’s static configuration of air traffic control (ATC) equipment in local towers. In addition, voice communica-tions systems (VCS) must provide solutions that support the operational needs of remote tower operations: flexible and dynamic connectivity to remote locations several hun-dred kilometers away, ensuring reliable and high quality communications.

Rohde & Schwarz solutionThe challenges faced for such remote tower installations will be well addressed by an IP-based communications in-frastructure, such as the R&S®VCS-4G.

Flexible and dynamic connectivityThe ED-137 standard issued by EUROCAE specifies the use of IP for voice communications in ATC environments. Taking advantage of this standard and the underlying IP infrastructure, IP VCSs are able to dynamically connect to relevant air-ground and ground-ground resources at differ-ent airports, providing safe and secure simultaneous ATC operations at multiple remote towers from a single central VCS. This also increases flexibility in airport operation, im-proving overall service to airport users.

Reliable communicationsIn the past, reliable communications were ensured at each airport via redundant and costly traditional VCSs. With the latest remote tower concept, one redundant IP-based VCS is deployed at one central location and connects to differ-ent remote airports. This star-topology approach covering several airports justifies the necessary investment in equip-ment and infrastructure to ensure highly reliable commu-nications. Installing a VoIP system with the intelligence distributed over various devices results in even higher reli-ability and availability, since a failure in one part of the sys-tem will not affect operation in the rest of the system.

Cost effectivenessInvesting in one central IP-based VCS instead of several VCSs dramatically reduces investment and operational costs. Further, sharing the underlying IP infrastructure for all applications (including voice, video and radar) creates synergies in procurement, operation and maintenance – all of which lead to significant cost savings. The latest remote towers can be easily added to the existing IP infrastruc-ture, keeping costs for extensions to a minimum.

Due to its full IP system architecture and distributed in-frastructure, the R&S®VCS-4G is ideal for remote tower applications.

R&S®VCS-4G for remote tower applications

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Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG

Europe, Africa, Middle East | +49 89 4129 12345

North America | 1 888 TEST RSA (1 888 837 87 72)

Latin America | +1 410 910 79 88

Asia Pacifi c | +65 65 13 04 88

China | +86 800 810 8228 | +86 400 650 5896

www.rohde-schwarz.com

customersupport@rohde-schwarz.com

R&S® is a registered trademark of Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG

Trade names are trademarks of the owners

PD 3607.1088.92 | Version 01.00 | December 2014 (fi )

R&S®VCS-4G VoIP for air traffi c control

Data without tolerance limits is not binding | Subject to change

© 2014 Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG | 81671 Munich, Germany

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DeploymentAn air navigation service provider wants to deploy a re-mote tower application for three remote towers that are operated from one central location with another tower. All four towers are to share the same voice communications infrastructure.

To meet customer needs, Rohde & Schwarz provides one R&S®VCS-4G voice communications system at the central location. Due to its full-IP system design and distributed architecture, R&S®VCS-4G supports access to local and remote radios and telephony resources, making it pos-sible to operate several remote towers from one central location. The R&S®VCS-4G system provides the common air-ground and ground-ground communications services for the tower at the central location and also for the re-mote towers.

Since the R&S®VCS-4G follows the EUROCAE ED-137 standard, it supports integration of ED-137 compliant radi-os at the local and remote tower locations. Due to budget-ary constraints, existing radios with analog/digital audio in-terfaces at the remote locations will not be replaced. They will be integrated into the communications systems via

gateways. The gateways convert EUROCAE ED-137 signal-ing and audio from the IP VCS to analog/E1 signals/audio for the existing radios, and vice versa. As soon as the end-of-life of the analog radios has been reached, they can be replaced by EUROCAE ED-137 compliant radios without the need to update or add R&S®VCS-4G components.

A redundant engineered IP network capable of providing service levels relevant for VoIP communications accord-ing EUROCAE ED standards interconnects the central and remote locations. The same IP infrastructure will be shared with other media, e.g. video or radar data.

System overview: ❙ R&S®VCS-4G controller working positions ❙ R&S®VCS-4G server infrastructure ❙ Interconnection to analog and VoIP radios from different suppliers at the central and remote tower locations

❙ Interconnection to analog and digital telephone lines at the central and remote tower locations

❙ Integration with ATM applications for advanced role selection mechanisms, video feeds integration, etc.

R&S®VCS-4G deployment for a remote tower solution

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