For supporting safe airport operations, Government of India Monday installed and made operational an Indigenous Visibility Measuring System called as Drishti at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi.
The sophisticated instruments is designed and developed by CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR-NAL), Bengaluru.
Official spokesman of Ministry of Science and Technology said Drishti will be used for reporting the runway visual range, which is a critical parameter for safe landing and take-off of aircraft in poor visibility conditions (<25 to >2000 meters).
“Drishti Transmissometers have been installed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi recently, as a part of the first phase installation of 20 such systems in 10 airports across the country,” the spokesman said.
The CAT III B IGI Airport, New Delhi, is now the first Airport in India to have 10 indigenous systems operating in all its three runways.
Earlier, a milestone was achieved in the field of aviation safety, when CSIR-NAL and India Meteorological Department (IMD) signed a partnership agreement to jointly execute a mega project for installation of nearly 70 Drishti systems, at various Airports of the country.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp Channel
The Drishti field site system is completely designed and fabricated at CSIR-NAL. IMD has established the dual mode “Landline” and “Wi-Fi” communication along with multiple displays at Air Traffic Control Room and Approach Radar Room. The development of ‘Drishti Integrated Visibility Software’ by CSIR-NAL, wherein the data from all the Drishti systems of all the runways of IGI Airport can be viewed on a single screen at ATC has eased out computer and instruments congestion at ATC and would aid the MET officer to easily report visibility data to pilots.
The Drishti system is very cost-effective and is a mandatory system required at all airports as per International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). The complete system is engineered in such a way to enable easy installation and maintenance.
Another advantage of this indigenous system is that CSIR-NAL can do the health monitoring of the system through web enabling from Bengaluru itself. This drastically reduces the cost of maintenance, which is exorbitant in case of imported systems.