OREANDA-NEWS. Hitachi, Ltd. announced it was selected as a testbed system equipment vendor by Electronic Navigation Research Institute through a tender for AeroMACS prototype development. This award recognizes Hitachi's significant experience and technological capability that is demonstrated by commercial deployments of nation-wide and highly stable mobile broadband networks throughout Asia.

The testbed system is planned to be installed at Iwanuma Branch, ENRI branch laboratory, adjacent to Sendai International Airport and used for the first AeroMACS field test in Asia.

Associated with global growth of air traffic density these days, air traffic communication, in particular around airports has become heavily congested, and limited network bandwidth is a global concern today. AeroMACS, based on ICAO recommendation, is expected to be a technology solution to provide airport areas with next generation airport surface mobile broadband networks. International standardization to cover all the airports world-wide has been discussed for several years, and a number of R&D programs for actual deployment have been conducted. ENRI is one of the international leaders and contributors to develop AeroMACS standards and conduct R&D for its proto-typing and technology evaluation.

AeroMACS uses OFDMA signal processing based on the WiMAX technology standard, with ICAO's recommendation for its use for next generation airport surface mobile communication systems. AeroMACS seamlessly covers the entire airport surface and all the facilities on it, and it can provide airport operators, airlines, pilots and air traffic controllers with a mobile broadband service. With AeroMACS, next generation airport services and enhanced air traffic control procedures on an airport surface will continue to assure safe, secure and efficient air traffic service and airport operation.

Hitachi's AeroMACS system fully complies with AeroMACS standards, offers a choice of MIMO Matrix-A and MIMO Matrix-B, and implements enhanced QoS features to provide high through-put and secure network operations. In order to achieve a multi-km coverage radius with high-speed stable data transmission, the system implements a centralized base-station monitor, a gate-way to handover any data from airplanes and vehicles moving on an airport surface, and a security function to authenticate all devices connected to the AeroMACS network.

Hitachi is a principal member of WiMAX Forum and serves on the Forum's Board of Directors. Through the Forum, as a technical liaison, Hitachi has been contributing to ICAO, RTCA and EUROCAE to develop international AeroMACS standards to support their plans to deploy next generation airport infrastructures.

Hitachi will continue to be an active participant in international standardization and promotion and further contribute to building global next generation civil aviation infrastructures, in particular communication networks, through technology and solution development.