ERA to construct new headquarters, building for research and development

ERA announced today that it would construct a brand new headquarters building adjacent to its current factory location in Pardubice, Czech Republic. The company is experiencing increased demand for its products and services which is driving the need for additional development and administrative space. The modern four story building will house as many as 190 people.

“We are delighted that our business is growing at a pace that requires us to expand and modernize our facilities. It is due to the market’s acceptance of both our civilian and military product lines. This new office building will substantially improve our ability to deliver new and enhanced products with better quality in shorter timeframes", stated Viktor Sotona, ERA Managing Director.

Official planning permission has already been received and construction is expected commence during the summer of 2015.

The company increased the volume of job orders in the civil area and managed to complete the contract process with several military customers who have purchased VERA-NG DPET systems. Thus research and development activities were emphasized and the number of ERA employees increased by 20 percent to its current (but non final) 260.



ERA will provide surface surveillance for Pudong airport in Shanghai

ERA Company announced that had been awarded a contract to deploy its surface multilateration system at Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China. The contract was assigned by East China Regional Air Traffic Management Bureau of Civil Aviation of China. ERA will provide the MLAT and ADS-B part of the A-SMGCS system and cooperate on the project with Chinese company Nanjing LES Information Technology, which is supposed to deliver surface movement radar and data fusion and display systems.

Shanghai as well as other important Chinese cities has rapidly ascended in the rankings of the world's busiest airports over the past decade. To accommodate the growing traffic volume and still keep the safety issues up to date in the face of this rapid expansion Chinese ATM officials decided to research systems which could leverage next-generation technologies to provide a complete solution for both parallel runway monitoring and surface surveillance, as well as future-proof their investment in this surveillance infrastructure at Pudong. The precision runway monitoring (PRM) system was necessary due to the three parallel runways there.
 
Within last year East China Regional Air Traffic Management Bureau of Civil Aviation of China evaluated ATC solution providers and selected the team of Nanjing LES Information Technology and ERA as a subcontractor to deliver A-SMGCS system including ERA MLAT system with full ADS-B reception, decoding and transmitting capabilities. The ERA solution is designed to provide surface surveillance as well as precision runway monitoring by utilizing two “NEO by ERA” networks of sensors. “The specific requirements for the surface and PRM systems for Pudong airport were stringent and demanding in terms of accuracy, coverage and redundancy but the solution design proposed by ERA met the end user´s requirements and hence ERA has won the tender,” stated ERA Managing Director Viktor Sotona.

ECRAF selected LES as the prime contractor to deliver the system, based on its track record of success in integrating component technologies to offer a turnkey air traffic control solution, and chose two NEO by ERA composite systems, based on the company´s proven surface and wide area multilateration solutions and built in ADS-B technology. The proposed surveillance system for the Pudong airport surface management is based on central time architecture and should consist of 30 receiving stations, the PRM system consisting of 5 WAM sites will be located out of the airport premises and shall use the distributed time architecture.
The system will provide Shanghai Airport Authority air traffic controllers with uninterrupted identification of aircraft and equipped vehicles and the surface sensors will cover all manoeuvring areas. The project is expected to be completed by 2016 and provide higher accuracy, a greater update rate, better coverage and improved reliability when compared to traditional radar technology, as well as dramatically lower initial and maintenance costs.
Shanghai Pudong International Airport is the primary international airport serving Shanghai area and a major aviation hub for Asia. Pudong airport has two main passenger terminals, flanked on both sides by three parallel runways. It is a fast-growing hub for both passenger and cargo traffic. The airport has been ranked the world's third busiest airport by cargo traffic. It served a total of 52 million passengers in 2014, making it the third busiest airport in mainland China and the 19th busiest in the world.

ERA has signed a new contract to provide surface surveillance for Incheon airport in South Korea

ERA Company was recently awarded a contract for the surface multilateration system at the Incheon International Airport in Seoul, capital of South Korea. The contract was assigned by Incheon International Airport Corporation. ERA will provide the MLAT part of the ASGCM-S system which should cover not only the airport area but also 20 nautical miles of TMA. The company will cooperate on the project with its tested and tried partners INDRA (data fusion), TERMA (Surface Movement Radar) and HITEL (infrastructure).

The Incheon project is also an important milestone in ERA technological development due to its pioneering use of the recently introduced NEO system, an enhanced version of the ERA traditional product MSS (multi-sensor surveillance system). The actual installation will consist of 38 Ground Stations, 3 Central Processing stations and 2 Remote and Monitoring Terminals. The final completion is planned for late summer 2017. The proposed system is designed according to RFT requirements and the ED-117 standard.

The team of ERA experts already carried out a site survey at Incheon Airport at the beginning of the autumn. “The Korean client appreciated the fact that ERA has begun its mission not only by taking part in the official opening ceremony of the Incheon project but also by sending engineers who immediately started the first phase of the project – the site survey of the airport terrain,” stated the ERA project manager Petr Nováček.

On Incheon airport in Seoul

Incheon International Airport is the largest airport in South Korea, the primary airport serving the Seoul Capital Area, and one of the largest and busiest airports in the world. For nine years in a row (2005–present), it was rated the best airport worldwide by Airports Council International.

The airport has a spa, ice skating rink and indoor gardens. Located 48 km west of Seoul, the capital and the largest city in South Korea, Incheon International Airport is the main hub for international civilian air transportation and cargo traffic in East Asia.

Incheon Airport is also currently Asia's fourth busiest airport and the world's ninth busiest airport in terms of international passengers in 2013. Last year 41 million international passengers used the airport.