Sky Light Aircraft Sensor

Sky Light Aircraft Sensor is a wireless sensor for determining whether an aircraft parking stand is vacant or occupied. The sensors monitor parking stands continuously and register the exact time when an aircraft arrives and leaves a parking stand.

In fact, one of the biggest challenges to face is that airports don’t have automatic systems to detect the in-block and off-block time of aircraft assigned to remote stands.

Undoubtedly, managing airport operations is usually very challenging. When an aircraft arrives at the airport, a coordinated approach is needed to accomplish all the necessary tasks, such as guiding the aircraft towards the parking stand assigned to it, refuelling, luggage handling and so on, until the aircraft leaves the airport to its new destinations. The effectiveness of these operations is strongly dependent on the amount of data available to the airport management system.

This is why Sky Light Aircraft Sensor can be an important help for planning and managing airport operations. The sensors collect data in real-time and send it to a LoRaWAN network server. This communication is automatic, so to eliminate possible controversies between what is reported by airlines and handling companies.

Data coming from the sensors can be used in the airport operational database to get useful information to manage and organise airport activities more effectively.

The tests have been carried out at Milano Malpensa Airport. Typically, four to six sensors are installed in each stand to detect different airplanes with the best accuracy.

Sky Light Aircraft Sensor has advanced features that make it unique and effective. Even though it is an in-ground sensor, it has an external box that is placed in the hole drilled which has been drilled in the pavement. The sensor is fixed inside this box with security screws. This special feature makes it easy to replace a sensor in case of maintenance works. Besides, Sky Light Aircraft Sensor can be refurbished at the end of its battery life, so to extend the product’s life cycle.

Sky Light Aircraft Sensor may also have a BLE module inside. The sensor broadcasts iBeacon messages that can be picked up by nearby devices of airport operators for many purposes, to simplify the coordination and control of operations.

AIRPORT PROJECTS

Aircraft stand monitoring in Milano Malpensa Airport
Aircraft parking monitoring

Sky Light Aircraft System was born in July 2015…

Gate access control
Taxi access at MXP Airport

A test to integrate sensors into the access management system …