In our day to day life, we have to depend on the means of transportation such as road, air ways, water ways etc. But we mainly depend on airways for long journey since it takes comparatively less time. Behind the smooth journey of an aircraft the decisions taken by the Air Traffic Controllers in the ground station are very crucial. It is said that to the error is human, to forgive divine. But that is not valid for Air traffic controllers. The duty of Air traffic controllers is considered as an out and out zero-error profession. Right from the time a plane switches on, to time it lands and is parked, its movement is constantly controlled by the Air Traffic Controllers.

Our project, Runway Navigation System is an embedded system that helps the Air traffic controllers in many ways. Runway Navigation system is mainly used for location tracking, temperature and fuel level sensing and moreover the safe landing of the aircraft. This project is developed using Embedded Technology.

RUNWAY NAVIGATION SYSTEM is an on-vehicle GPS-based navigation and alert system designed to provide airport vehicle operators with real-time situational awareness—regardless of external conditions—to help avoid runway incursions. Runway Navigation system establishes the communication between the aircraft and ground station control room.

The project includes three segments. First segment is Air Traffic Controller having Zigbee transceivers and PC with VB front End. Second segment is Runway vehicle segment with identification no. having PIC, LCD, and Zigbee transceiver. Third is Airplane segment having various sensors for monitoring parameters like speed, collision etc, LCD, PIC, GPS and Zigbee transceiver

A runway incursion occurs any time an airplane, vehicle, person or object on the ground creates a collision hazard with an airplane that is taking off or landing at an airport under the supervision of Air Traffic Control (ATC). Traditionally, pilots have relied on visual aids such as airfield markings, signs, and lighting, in conjunction with a paper chart of the airport to navigate from point to point on the surface. Pilots use a radio channel to obtain from ATC a route to follow while on the surface. The traditional procedures have worked well in the past as airport surfaces have not been congested and visibility is usually good. However, as the traffic volume has increased the airport surfaces have become more and more congested even in clear weather. This congestion has led to a need to perform more operations in low visibility and at night. Further, the ever increasing demand has led to increasingly complex airport layouts.

The project designs a wireless Vehicle Management System that provides a wide range of airport vehicle safety, security, and operational functions, including: automatic on-vehicle driver authentication and access control; speed monitoring; impact sensing; and remote location tracking. ATC transmits the information about the next arriving flight, runway number and time to all Runway vehicle segments. According to the information from ATC Runway vehicles will clear off from the runway and transmits their status to ATC with the help of GPS and Zigbee. If they didn’t clear off, then ATC will inform the airplane in order to avoid catastrophe. In ATC we can monitor the speed, position etc of the airplane Independent of line-of-sight communication. Low power consumption with battery life ranging from months to years. Highly reliable, cost effective and compact in size are its features.

Block Diagram of Runway Navigation System:

ATC

Air Traffic Control (ATC)

Runway Vehicle Segment   airplane segment

 

                                   Runway Vehicle Segment                                                                                                            Airplane Segment

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