Aircraft Noise and Flight Track Monitoring

Despite using the most sophisticated security technology, each connection of an external flight noise monitoring terminal with the central airport network means a potential safety risk. Aircraft noise monitoring terminals are usually positioned outside the airport perimeter in freely-accessible areas. Data links are generally installed as GSM or ISDN connections. Although these are protected by secret telephone numbers, passwords and state-of-the-art network security technology, some airport operators are still rightly concerned about security issues.

In close partnership with the Cologne-Bonn Airport in Germany, Topsonic has developed a new concept for reducing the number of necessary direct data lines for an airport to a single connection. In addition to this, the new connection structure offers additional advanced safety features.

With the new structure, the link to the individual gauging stations is achieved using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) which offers significantly improved safety mechanisms compared to telephone line connections. Furthermore, monitoring terminals are connected direct to a special server computer hosted at the Topsonic company, which is equipped with an additional security installation (e.g. a firewall). This server can then be contacted direct from the aircraft noise server at the airport via a secure DSL connection in order to access the monitoring data.

In addition to the increase in safety, both the basic costs for data and/or telephone lines and net communication expenses are reduced significantly through this new concept.