ERA has signed a new contract to provide ADS-B coverage of airspace in Bhutan
ERA announced that it had been awarded a contract to deliver an ADS-B system monitoring air traffic over the Kingdom of Bhutan. The contract was assigned by Department of Air Transport (DoAT) of Ministry of Information & Communications of Royal Government of Bhutan, as a result of an international tender which ERA recently won. ERA is proud to add Bhutan as the 67th country to the list of its partners using ERA surveillance technologies.
ERA will supply a network of seven ADS-B stations as a Wide Area Surveillance solution covering almost the entire airspace of the mountainous country of Bhutan and partly as the Air Traffic Control solution for all four of the Bhutan airports: Paro, Bumthang, Gelephu, Yonphula.
“ERA scored the highest on the defined evaluation criteria within the tendering process especially thanks to its experience in the deployment of a similar surveillance system in Nepal in 2019. The references for the systems functioning successfully in neighbouring states India and China were also one of the key factors in selecting us for this project”, stated Ondřej Chlost, ERA Sales Director.
One of the priorities of DoAT has been to cover a major part of their air space with up-to-date technology to provide surveillance coverage throughout the country (roughly half of its area) and obtain control of air traffic in TMAs of the four important airports including the Paro International Airport serving the Bhutan capital Thimphu. To meet this challenge, ERA will deliver its multi-sensor surveillance system NEO by ERA and will cooperate with the local company SAI TRADING PARTNER, which will be responsible for the process of system installation.
The ERA-Bhutan team chooses the suitable locations for the ADS-B ground stations, with most of them planned to be installed as high as 2500 - 3500 metres above sea level and the one on the mountain pass Chelela to be placed at 4100 m. The final completion, followed by the Site Acceptance Tests, is planned to be done by the end of this year.
About Bhutan
The Kingdom of Bhutan is a landlocked country in the Eastern Himalayas with Mahayana Buddhism as the state religion. It is bordered by China (Tibet) to the north and India to the south. Nepal and Bangladesh are in proximity to Bhutan but do not share a land border. The country has a population of over 754,000 citizens and a territory of 38,394 square kilometres.
Paro International Airport is the sole international airport of the four airports in Bhutan. It is located in a deep valley on the bank of the river Paro Chhu and with surrounding peaks as high as 5,500 m it is considered one of the world's most challenging airports - fewer than two dozen pilots are certified to land at the airport.
On ADS-B technology
ADS-B represents dependent information on data from the aircraft's navigation system, ADS-B equipped aircraft broadcast their GNSS positions once per second. The information received by the ADS-B ground station includes the aircraft's identification, altitude, speed, velocity, etc.
