Aireon Alert Launched at Shannon

Sterling Archer

A new satellite-based air traffic surveillance system - the first of its kind in the world - which will accurately pinpoint the location of any aircraft in distress, has been launched at the Irish Aviation Authority's control centre at Ballygirreen near Shannon in Co Clare.

The new 'Aireon Alert' technology is the first global aircraft tracking service providing real time aircraft visibility anywhere in the world.

https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2019/0709/1060947-aireon-alert-shannon/

plodder

Presumably this system will make wild goose chases like the MH370 search a thing of the past. It seems that airlines, rescue agencies etc will be able to call the IAA centre in Clare any time and provide the details of a missing flight; the IAA will look it up on their system and provide the last known location. Quite a coup for the IAA to be at the centre of it.

It seems to be based on the Iridium satellite system, which I did some work on, many years ago, in a previous job.

https://aireonalert.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aireon

FreshCoffee

Seems to be based on ADS-B transmissions from the aircraft. According to this BBC article it would not have helped with MH370 as the ADS-B transmissions were (deliberately?) lost when the aircraft vanished.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-39637974

plodder

Just speculating but apparently, the system (will) support a form of Wide area multi-lateration such that even without all the ADS-B data, aircraft can still be located so long as aircraft identity is being sent. Which sounds like the same kind of data that Inmarsat tried to make use of with MH370. So, I guess it depends on whether ADS-B (or related system) is always sending something, even when switched off deliberately.

arccosh

plodder wrote: »

It seems to be based on the Iridium satellite system, which I did some work on, many years ago, in a previous job.

https://aireonalert.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aireon

Same idea as Iridium years ago, but a newer constillation, better connectivity and higher throughput. Shouldn't go bust and need to be saved like it's predecessor.

plodder wrote: »

Just speculating but apparently, the system (will) support a form of Wide area multi-lateration such that even without all the ADS-B data, aircraft can still be located so long as aircraft identity is being sent. Which sounds like the same kind of data that Inmarsat tried to make use of with MH370. So, I guess it depends on whether ADS-B (or related system) is always sending something, even when switched off deliberately.

The system design would inherently make this possible, if an ADSB message is received by 2 satellitles, they could corrolate receive time stamps, do the math and come up with a location. As it's low earth orbit also (LEO is continuosly moving around the earth) the foot print is smaller and hence search area is smaller to begin with. Even with one satellite you could take a sample of the satellite location, time stamp and signal strenght to come up with a rather close area of interest (even closer if you could corrolate with other satellites).



This is similar to what was done with MH370, but as that was from a geostationary satellelite (stays in one place and I'm not sure if it was also picked up from a secondary satellite) but its satellite foot print stretches from 81 degrees north to 81 degrees south (pretty much Arctic to Antarctic), so even though they were come up with a "curve of interest", that curve was massive.



Then if you add in fuel on board, general direction of travel and speed, that's how they came up with the area of interest in the Indian ocean.

plodder

arccosh wrote: »

Same idea as Iridium years ago, but a newer constillation, better connectivity and higher throughput. Shouldn't go bust and need to be saved like it's predecessor.

Indeed. The original Iridium used the GSM signalling protocols and the (Irish) company I worked for then, was quite big in that space. So, we got the gig for one or two important components of the telecom side of it. The problem was, Iridium was conceived long before mobile phone roaming really took off because the technical standards of terrestrial networks varied too much around the world, and their business model was partly an (expensive) solution to that roaming problem.

Ironically, it was GSM that began to solve the roaming problem in a much more economic way through convergence of technical standards and the ability of handsets to switch between the different systems more easily. Iridium was then stuck with these ancient looking clunky handsets and a very expensive service that few people wanted. After they were rescued and minus the massive debt burden, they were able to target the system at much more niche applications where global coverage was the critical feature more than roaming per-se.