ENAIRE has implemented a new Last Resort Voice (LRV) Response System at its Seville Air Control Centre, both in its usual operations room and in the contingency room. Sometime this year, it will also be installed in the Palma control centre and its contingency room. In coming years, it will be implemented in the remaining control facilities in the Canary Islands, Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza, Málaga and Madrid.
The LRV system is designed to provide redundancy to the usual voice communications system (VCS) used by air traffic controllers, mainly in response to potential incidents or scheduled outages involving the VCS, thus guaranteeing a very high availability rate for these critical communications. It relies on voice over IP (VoIP) technology provided by the Austrian firm Frequentis.
This system is used for voice communications over both radio, with aircraft, and the telephone, with controllers from other facilities. This new LRV system replaces the previous ones used and, once the programme is fully implemented, will provide the following benefits:
- Increased capacity of the radio and telephone resources available to air traffic controllers.
- New functionalities for processing communications and the information provided to users about their status.
- Improved communications quality.
- Division of airspaces integrated into the Automated Air Traffic Control System (SACTA).
- Greater versatility to establish procedures that trigger a contingency.
- Full integration into ENAIRE's IP communications network, making it easier to migrate to a VoIP environment and phase out older interfaces.
- Increase the technical staff's control capacity and ability to monitor the system's status.
