The airport control tower required surveillance systems installing around the airport in order to make sure that there are no blind sides. It is especially crucial for airport to fully monitor surrounding area as activities such as trespassing of vehicles and pedestrian, and birds flying could jeopardize the safety of airplanes.
Requirements and challenges:
The airport control tower required surveillance systems installing around the airport in order to make sure that there are no blind sides. It is especially crucial for airport to fully monitor surrounding area as activities such as trespassing of vehicles and pedestrian, and birds flying could jeopardize the safety of airplanes.
As the airport must keep working 24-7, the system integrator cannot block certain areas for cabling construction. And if they select a wireless solution, it must not interfere the frequencies that used by the airport.
Solution:
It is very important that the wireless system cannot interfere the control tower. Otherwise, there could be severe accidents. Thus, ALCON proposed model called ALINK-5801a which supports a unique function *DFS (Dynamic Frequency selection). DFS is a spectrum-sharing mechanism that allows wireless LANs (WLANs) to coexist with radar systems. It automatically selects a frequency that does not interfere with certain radar systems while operating in the 5GHz band. This function will automatically select a clean channel for the wireless connection.
A secured, point-to-multipoint deployment and an expendable network will be needed to achieve the goal. The ALINK-5801a could setup in an operation mode known as Bridge Mode that the wireless connection is secured by MAC addresses and no other wireless device could connect to them. In addition, setting up the point-to-multipoint groups to ensure the system covers all corners.
Performance feedback:
The system integrator met ALCON at an exhibition in Sydney in 2006. This project kicked off immediately after the CEO talked to our representative. As the integrator is inexperienced on wireless technology and related deployment plan, ALCON helped them to build the system from the very beginning. The system integrator provided a floor plan which shows the installation sites and distances, and ALCON kept up with the rest of the wireless transmission plan.
ALCON also helped them to pre-configure all the wireless devices so they could install them by following an easy instruction after receiving the goods. “It was a fast, interesting and wonderful experience to work with ALCON. I had never thought a project like this could be done so easily,” said the CEO.