Work on installing a new Mono-pulse Secondary Surveillance Radar (MSSR), imported from Spain, for the Chennai airport is progressing at Porur.
According to a senior Airports Authority of India (AAI) official, the radar, purchased at a cost of Rs.5.5 crore, will be ready for operation by the third week of December.
It can store code allocation to the tune of 16 million owing to which duplicate code allocation to airlines can be avoided. The existing MSSR has only 4,096 code allocations for the entire country and for Chennai it will be less than 100. Air Traffic Controllers currently have to provide duplicate codes to airlines whenever they cross from one sector to the other. Another advantage in the new radar is that its antenna can scan up to 900 aircraft per rotation.
The data link facility will help reduce the workload of Air Traffic Controllers.
The Controller will be able to get real-time information on altitude, speed and heading changes, which will be automatically passed on to them.
