RIAS
Runway Incursion Alerting System
Runway safety is a shared responsibility. QinetiQ North America’s automated runway incursion alerting system, RIAS™, provides pilots, vehicle operators and air traffic controllers with immediate information about potential runway safety issues, allowing them to make faster, more informed, and safer decisions. RIAS is part of an innovative, cost-effective family of safety solutions developed for accurate risk assessment and validation.
RIAS is QinetiQ North America’s highly configurable and adaptable aviation safety system. It can be integrated with existing airport surveillance systems including ASDE-X (Airport Surface Detection Equipment) and RWSL (Runway Status Light) systems to enhance their performance. Scalability and flexibility also allow RIAS to be implemented at airports of all sizes.
RIAS continually monitors runways and taxiways. Using integrated data from fiber optic sensors, enhanced camera surveillance and other surveillance information to activate warning lights, RIAS simultaneously alerts pilots and other personnel when more than one “target” is on a runway at the same time. Targets can range from an aircraft or vehicle to people or wildlife. Real-time alerts allow personnel to make more informed decisions about their safety and airport operations.
The RIAS system uses three components to provide precision detection and rapid alerts. The first, a fiber optic system, uses distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) to convert fiber optic cable into an array of virtual microphones distributed along a fiber up to 30 miles long. The related software is programmed to recognize runway layout and the acoustic signatures of potential obstacles and to use this information to accurately determine the position and speed of any target.
The second component is an enhanced camera system that verifies and validates the positional information from the fiber optic sensors to reduce false alarms and verify the position of targets.
The third component is a millimeterwave, high-resolution radar that performs regular sweeps to automatically identify and validate risks to eliminate false alarms. The high fidelity of this radar provides detection not only of cooperative planes and vehicles but also of non-cooperative targets (those without transponders and communications), including individuals and wildlife. The system uniquely incorporates high-resolution cameras and night vision technology to quickly and accurately identify targets.