EMACS - Electromagnetic Airport Control and Survey

A professional solution for inspecting electromagnetic performances of radio-navigation aids

Electromagnetic Airport Control and Survey is a modular analysis tool devoted to inspect and model radio electrical features and the installed or proposed navaids. EMACS is based on a set of numerical formulae totally developed in the IDS Laboratory in order to solve the Maxwell equations in complex environments such as airport scenarios. The numerical tools of EMACS cover the whole aeronautical frequency band, and are based on the most sophisticated and widely known computational electromagnetic techniques, such as:

• Geometric Theory of Diffraction (GTD/UTD);
• Physical Optics (PO/PTD/ITD);
• Method of Moments (MOM);
• Deygout Method;
• Parabolic Equations (PE).

The EMACS commitment is to enable the user to calculate and simulate the same parameters that are typically inspected during commissioning or periodic flight checks. The modelling functionality (including terrain models, obstacles, interfering system, ground and airborne navaid equipment characteristics etc.) allows an expert user to model the real propagation phenomena in a complex electromagnetic airport scenario where signals (VOR, DME, ILS, ATC Radar, GPS systems) are interfered with by artificial or natural obstructions.

The system is based on a layer of graphical and geographical functions:

• Graphical utilities (CAD) for the construction and visualisation of 3D elements;
• Geographical utilities (GIS) for locating elements on a geographic continuum using almost all known types of datum and projections including most obviously WGS84.

EMACS is composed of 8 modules:

• Basic Coverage
• DME 
• ILS 
• VOR 
• Air/Ground TLC 
• Radar 
• EMI 
• MLAT

IDS Engineering Services

IDS supports CAAs and ANSPs with the electromagnetic modelling of airport scenario and navaid systems, for overall aerodrome operations assessment (procedures and system performance), with radar and navaid system siting within airport and navigation site areas, including assessment of natural and artificial obstructions.
IDS can conduct feasibility analyses of new airports (runway location and navaids system) with an analysis of the impact of airport category upgrade on navaid system siting and performance.
IDS also supports these organisations by evaluating new obstructions (under planning permission) impact on navaid system performance (Annex 14 and Annex 10), with differential GPS ground siting from the point of view of multi-path mitigation and in-band and out-band interference, and PSR/SSR coverage and radar maps.