‘Wolf Pack’ helps NAV CANADA upgrade radar systems
NAV CANADA, the private corporation that has owned and operated Canada’s civil air navigation services (ANS) since 1996, recently partnered with embedded computer and system solution developer Wolf Industrial Systems (www.wolf.ca) to create custom hardware for enhancing Canada’s air traffic control radar processing system.
NAV CANADA coordinates the movement of aircraft in Canadian domestic airspace and international airspace under Canadian control. This includes the provision of air traffic control, flight information, aviation weather, and aeronautical communication, information and radio navigation. It has 5,400 employees and an infrastructure consisting of seven Area Control Centres, 67 Flight Service Stations, 42 Control Towers, six Flight Information Centres, and 51 Community Aerodrome Radio Stations, providing weather information in Canada’s north. Facilities are supported by 44 RADAR sites and 1,400 ground-based navigational aids.
Much of the RADAR surveillance hardware NAV CANADA inherited from Transport Canada consisted of electronic systems that were built in the 1980s using specialized technology. In 2000, NAV CANADA’s Radar Systems Engineering identified numerous upgrades necessary to improve the safety, reliability, flexibility, and cost of processing of radar data, and initiated the RMR (radar data transfer/maintenance data transfer redesign) project.
The first phase of this project required development and deployment of RTIS (Radar Target Information Server), a server-based platform for each Area Control Centre. RTIS would replace single channel, point to point, unmonitored radar data distribution between sites by dual, fully monitored, network based distribution, providing a reliable, scaleable and flexible method for distributing data. It would also convert data from all NAV CANADA radars for compatibility with existing and new radar data processing systems and reduce the number of leased lines required for distributing radar data.
Specific requirements for the RTIS server included:
- Interface to 64 serial devices
- Dual redundant WAN and LAN
- Ability to process up to 100 logical radars
- Ability to exchange at least 64 radars across a WAN network
- Ability to communicate with RAMP (Standard NAV CANADA radar), NRS (Northern Radar Sites), and eventually FAA and DND radars
- Ability to provide data filtering and translation
- Provision of 32 modems to connect legacy modems at 16 dual feed direct connect (lease line) radars
Radar Systems Engineering selected the CompactPCI/Intel® architecture for its broad hardware support and the QNX 4.25 operating system, which provided the best approach for their software.
Then they approached Wolf Industrial Systems Inc. and requested suitable products for testing and evaluation. Wolf supplied a CompactPCI system that met most of NAV CANADA’s requirements.
In January 2001, NAV CANADA issued a tender for system solutions produced to their specifications. Subsequently, the company was intrigued by Wolf’s proposal consisting of an MPS-800 shelf solution, a rack that housed up to sixteen 1U serial multiplexers mounted in pairs using an innovative hinged rack-slide mechanism that allowed them to be easily removed from the chassis or rotated down for simple rear I/O access.
A number of modifications were necessary to meet NAV CANADA requirements, however, and as Craig McLaren, president of Wolf Industrial Systems, says, “This is where Wolf’s unique ‘Wolf Pack’ engineering strategy kicked in. We put together a team of experts consisting of Wolf hardware designers, technicians, project managers, and mechanical designers to work with NAV CANADA’s engineers.”
In a yearlong collaboration, this group designed and implemented solutions for every item on the original ‘wish list’ and additional requests as the system design evolved. NAV CANADA’s engineers describe this process as “We stated what we wanted to see, we worked out the details with Wolf, and then they built it. Wolf was very responsive, several times acting on suggestions that were made by submitting options and solutions, complete with 3D drawings.”
Some of the results of this iterative process were:
- Each system required one master CPCI processor card and up to six peripheral cards. NAV CANADA wanted clear indication that boards had booted properly and a status monitor. Wolf created a PMC processor diagnostic card that displays Hex value post-codes, LEDs for power supply voltage monitoring, and a watchdog timer indicator for processor card or program failures.
- For chassis uniformity and to minimize rack space, NAV CANADA required that each cabinet contain a power bar with ten U-ground switched receptacles, 30A master switch, individual 15A circuit breakers, and EMI/RFI filtering. Further, the company wanted front access protection and two-handed operation. Wolf reviewed the available products but ultimately developed a custom product to meet these requirements.
- Diagnosing and servicing 96 serial I/O cables connecting the multiplexers in each rack proved to be a problem. NAV CANADA needed redundancy, diagnostic access ports, automatic serial protocol switching, and the ability to quickly isolate and repair communication problems. Serial switching was necessary to protect individual MPS-800 units when communicating to common interface ports. Wolf designed and manufactured a two-port switch with all of these capabilities.