Honeywell strengthens NAVITAS software suite to advance airport operations

Honeywell has released the next iteration of its Honeywell NAVITAS software suite platform, a System of Systems (SoS) offering that will assist airport operators and aviation navigation service providers in making more informed and accurate decisions across all airside activities, from approach to gate. The most recent versions enable automation and digitization of air traffic services to aid in effective ground movement, situational awareness, control and monitoring of airside and ATM equipment, information management, and integration. At the 2021 Dubai Airshow, the updated software suite platform was introduced.

“The Honeywell NAVITAS suite helps create more resilient, agile and efficient airports,” said Philipose Jacob, general manager, Global Airports, Honeywell Building Technologies.

He added, “Creating the airport of the future requires a strong operational backbone that prioritizes safety, experience and efficiency to adapt to the daily needs of travelers and employees. The upgrades to the Honeywell NAVITAS software suite support airport operations and help drive decreased operational expenses, all while promoting a higher level of safety, security and uptime and an improved experience for travelers and employees.”

“By unifying air and ground traffic control, airport operations and maintenance with predictive performance analysis, Honeywell has provided Incheon International Airport a true, end-to-end airport management platform,” said Chang-Jun Lee, director, Aeronautical Ground Light Team, Incheon International Airport.

He also said, “Over the past 20 years, we’ve worked with Honeywell to improve our operations and experiences to be one of the world’s most critical travel hubs. We plan the schedule to expand Honeywell NAVITAS by validating it, which allows us to continue to provide our travelers with an unmatched experience while supporting our employees with improved technologies.”

Honeywell NAVITAS is a collection of task-oriented systems that allow airports to more seamlessly digitise, visualize, and automate everyday operations like orchestrating an aircraft’s final approach, landing, taxi-in for arrivals, and turnaround, pushback, taxi-out, line-up, and take-off for departures.

TO FULFILL MODERN AVIATION’S DEMANDING REQUIREMENTS, Honeywell NAVITAS is built with cutting-edge technology, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, cybersecurity, and human-centered design principles. The SoSoffering is made up of nine “managers,” or dedicated systems, that are included in the full suite:

• Engineering Manager: Provides the airport or air traffic engineering team with a more comprehensive insight to communication aids, navigational aids, visual aids and weather aids.
• Surface Manager: Provides airport safety support, routing and guidance services for Air Traffic Control (ATC) to help safely manage clearance services to aircraft and vehicles and expedite and maintain an orderly flow of traffic even during low visibility conditions.
• Surveillance Manager: Provides identification and accurate position information of aircraft, vehicles and unauthorized targets on airport surfaces and in approach.
• Lights Manager:Providesa more comfortable working environment for tower controllers and airfield techniciansthrough a computerized control and monitoring system for airport lighting equipment,which is a distributed and scalable system thatstands out due to its high-speed operation, redundancy, and easier integration with further subsystems.
• Tower Manager: AnIntegrated Tower Working Position (ITWP) that incorporates unique elements, like strip-less ATC workflow automation tool, electronic flight strip, ground situation display, air situation display, airfield ground lighting and voice communication system, and all others in a single display.
• Performance Manager: Creates a repository of all operational information of airport surfaces covering data originating from multiple sources, to show metering and performance metrics of different areas like runways, taxiways, aprons and gates. Provides real-time dashboard supportingAirport Collaborative Decision-Making (A-CDM).
• Turnaround Manager: An automated gate management system delivers higher gate efficiency and optimized throughput to support smoother operation of arrivals and departures at gates.
• Arrival/Departure Manager: Facilitatesmore efficient sequencing and times to promote smooth traffic flow, both arrivals and departures.
• Integration Manager: Receives and transmits data over multiple interfaces through an air traffic management (ATM)-grade integration engine while prioritizing, merging and recording data in a reliable data storage sub-system to help enable system wide information management.

Incheon International Airport in South Korea, one of Asia’s busiest hub airports, implemented an end-to-end Honeywell NAVITAS Platform as an Integrated System, which has greatly improved air traffic management efficiency. Incheon International Airport also implemented a 24-hour “follow the greens” programme, which helped the airport improve situational awareness with precision and consistency across the airfield, increased the level of conflict detection and resolution, and resulted in significant reductions in energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and lamp replacement costs.