My understanding is that it's possibly a new surface movement type radar, but I don't believe it's necessarily for aircraft.
There has been talk over the past couple of years that they will be fitting vehicles with a transponder type device. The vehicles that are of primary interest would be those that frequent the taxiway and runway complex, such as ARFF Tenders, aircraft tugs, airline staff training vehicles and SACL Airport Operations cars. I presume that most vehicles would transmit their own identity, which may be useful during periods of low visibility
I believe some, if not all, of the ARFF tenders have the devices fitted already, with callsigns appearing on ASD-B(?) transmissions as 'TENDA5' for Tender 5 etc.
I'll see if I can find out more next week.
|