Japan to Develop New Airport Radar to Detect
Runway Debris x10 Greater Effectively
2 August 2016
New Debris Detecting Radar for Demonstration at Tokyo Narita Airport
PHOTO Sunkei Business Eye
Debris on a runway may lead to a fatal accident of aircraft. The government of Japan with private sector led by Hitachi, Ltd., is developing a new advanced radar system to detect even a bolt of just 3cm. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) is requesting JPY100-200 million in the FY2017 budget for further technological polishing-up.
The new radar system employs 90 GHz band to detect smaller objects explicitly by installing the units at both side of a runway with interval of 500 meters; each unit is networked by optical fiber cable for faster and comprehensive controlling.
Israel and U.K. are also developing debris-detecting radar system but the Japanese system can detect as early as 10 seconds, that is 10 times faster. While the new radar from Japan can detect smallest piece of 3 cm, showing 10 times greater sensitivity, the officials say.
MIC started its study since 2012 and now it reached a practical level in the first stage of development and installed prototype units at Narita Airport to see how effectively it works under different weathers such as rain or snow.
Previous demonstration showed its shortage of effectiveness at an airport like Haneda of Tokyo where several runways are built in a complex manner. The next stage of study will focus on how to enhance its accuracy at such complicated airports.
According to MIC, debris on runways are causing 5 to 10 minutes delay of aircraft or temporary closure of runways at airports in the world, resulting direct cost of JPY120 billion for malfunction and repair of aircraft as well as indirect cost of JPY1.2 trillion including delay or divert of aircraft.
Overlooked debris on runway may lead to a big disaster and this calls for a system to detect even smaller debris on the spot.
MIC and participating private sector plan to established a full fledged system after demonstration at Narita and further research work and will sell the high-performance system to airports around the world.
