[Avionics Today 12-3-2014] The Civil Aviation Department (CAD) of Hong Kong is approaching operational status for a new network of eight Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) ground stations in the Hong Kong flight region. CAD approved Thales to provide its ADS-B ground solutions following a series of stringent acceptance and flight checks to support the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) regional plan to implement ADS-B throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
According to a spokesperson for Thales, the French aerospace manufacturer’s ground station is designed around a Central Data Processor (CDP) that will fuse data not only from the local ADS-B ground station network, but also from foreign stations. Among the foreign stations that will provide data, those in Taiwan and Indonesia, among others, already have Thales ADS-B stations deployed.
"This is achieved by means of a remote data connection between the countries that feeds data into the Thales CDP. The CDP then merges all the data so as to provide a continuous plot for arrival/departures/over flying airplanes or helicopters," a spokesperson for Thales told Avionics Magazine. "The system not only provides another sensor to their ATC system but it also fills in the gap for some areas not covered by radars as well as very low-level altitudes. It also increases the update rate of [aircraft] plots from one in four to five seconds to one per second."
The Hong Kong International Airport — among other local general aviation airports — will see the biggest surveillance benefits from the new ground stations.
Hong Kong will soon join the United States in requiring aircraft flying within its airspace to become equipped with mandatory ADS-B avionics, according to Thales.
Thales is now awaiting Hong Kong’s civil aviation department to complete their internal procedures regarding the operation of the new ground stations. The ground stations are expected to become operational by the end of Spring 2015.