Eurocat (air traffic control)

The EUROCAT system is a computerised air traffic control and management solution developed by Thales Air Systems (Formerly Thomson CSF).^[1] It utilises a distributed computing architecture and is capable of integrating geographically dispersed air traffic control units within a Flight Information Region (e.g. control towers at different airports and en route control centres) into a single coherent system. During 2012 the Thales marketing name has been changed from Eurocat to TopSky.

Features

TopSky handles a large variety of different functions required for the smooth operation of air traffic control and management. A non-exhaustive list includes:^[2]

• Surveillance data processing and track correlation (radar, ADS-B, ADS-C etc.)
• Flight plan processing
• Communication (CPDLC etc.)
• Aeronautical information data processing (NOTAMs, QNH, wind aloft etc.)
• Flow control and sequencing
• Human-machine interfacing (e.g. correlating data to generate controller's display)
• Data recording
• Controller situational awareness and alerts generation
  • Squawk Emergency (EMG), Radio Failure (RAD), Hyjack (HIJ)
  • Short Term Conflict Alert (STCA), Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW), Danger Area Infringement Warning (DAIW) etc.
  • Non-Transgression Zone (NTZ) alert, DUPE Alerts, FPCF Alerts.

Countries

The software is used in a variety of different countries, including: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece and United Kingdom.

References