AIRFIELD. In the Winter 2023 issue of Airside International Magazine, William Hallowell speaks to ADB SAFEGATE’s Regardt Willer and Paul Hart about ADB SAFEGATE’s newly launched AXON EQ elevated light and the Airside 4.0 solution that is “virtualizing” the airfield ground lighting (AGL) sector.

This is an excerpt from the original article written by William Hallowell and published in Airside International Magazine, Winter 2023.

Visualizing AGL infrastructure

ADB SAFEGATE is “visualizing” the airfield lighting sector with our new Airside 4.0 smart solution.  The idea is to “take physical assets and add sensors to them in order to collect additional information and push it to the cloud”. The new solution allows airports to react to the analytics recorded on their assets to ensure a seamless operation through improved efficiency.

“We hear a lot of people talking about digital twins, and we´re creating that in the asset world for the docking systems and airfield lighting”, says Regardt Willer, vice president of business development and innovation.

With ALIS, our digital asset tracking and service inspection system, we can virtualize an entire airfield. With Airside 4.o we can show you all your assets and real-time information about how they´re performing. If you have a failure of an asset, you can click on it and get more details about what´s going on there… which takes that intelligence to another level.

Regardt Willer explains that with this new technology, airports can see if operations are running on time across the apron through data indicating whether passenger´s baggage is being loaded and unloaded on time, or if the catering truck is late, for an example.

With the ability to make judgments based on real-time data, airports can act to improve turnaround times for their aircraft and ensure their operations can run more smoothly. We can make predictions based on past events. We can model these and do what is called predictive off-block time – predicting when we´ll actually be able to turn that plane around.

Now airports can be more proactive in taking decisions that planes are landing and need to be moved to another gate and so need to be given heads-up. We´re able to  preemptively know what´s going in an asset before it reaches critical stage.

As a part of the Airside 4.0 concept, ADB SAFEGATE launched its AXON EQ LED elevated light in October at inter airport Europe 2023, describing it is a key building block for digitalization of airfield operations.

Like the AXON EX inset lights previously launched, the elevated light comes with integrated sensors and communication technology, providing situational awareness and fixture status.

At the product unveiling, Paul Hart, project manager for lights and power at ADB SAFEGATE said: “This product is unique in the sense that it´s a new high intensity fixture that covers all high intensity applications, including approach, threshold, runway and stop bar. A single modular platform – that´s the approach. “It has many unique features – we´ve incorporated circling guidance, sensors that allow detection for towing and alignment problems, infrared capability, and on top of that the ability to configure how those work for each airport´s operation.

We´ve really envisaged this as a future proofed product that we´re going to see as the next generation of elevated LED technology that can work and change with an airport as we go.

Paul Hart added that the AXON EQ will be “best in class” in terms of power consumption. Whether they opt for LEDs now or later, or not at all, airports clearly have other choices to make too in terms of their investment in AGL as the industry continues on it´s journey to a ‘smart’ future.

This is an excerpt from the original article written by William Hallowell and published in Airside International Magazine, Winter 2023. Read the full article here.

ADB SAFEGATE is a company that provides integrated solutions to airports, a-irlines, and ANSPs.  We are proud to be leading the way with innovative and smart Airside 4.0 solutions that turn airports into smart airports, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the passenger experience. Solutions include airfield lighting, power and control systems, airport and tower software, docking automation, apron management, and aftermarket services.  With over 1,400 employees and over 2,700 airports in over 175 countries, from the busiest and largest to the fastest-growing airports, ADB SAFEGATE is dedicated to making air travel safe, efficient, and environmentally friendly.