Shannon Airport initially approached Navtech Radar with the challenge of keeping protestors out of the perimeter. The airport is the third busiest in Ireland, and its site is both busy and complex. As well as an airport and associated buildings, the site also contains engineering works and it is used by the US military.

Future-proof, scalable detection inside and outside the perimeter

By working closely together, both Navtech Radar and Shannon Airport learn and grow continuously. The airport has a flexible, future-proof solution while Navtech innovates and extends its product’s capability and potential.

The original installation was set up to surveil the airport grounds and around 10 metres beyond the perimeter. This required just three radars and immediately provided highly effective perimeter protection and a comprehensive overview of site activity. However, the system has since been extended as, over the years, continuous communication between Navtech and Shannon Airport revealed further potential benefits.

Among the first additions was Advanceguard’s ‘friend or foe’ capability. This uses a tagging system to tell Advanceguard whether an activity or vehicle is legitimate or not, and to trigger an alarm (or not) accordingly. Later, the airport installed Advanceguard’s integrated ADS-B capability to identify and track aircraft.

Shannon Airport’s use of Navtech Radar’s Advanceguard enables the airport to continuously monitor both inside and outside its perimeter, get advanced warnings of any potential incursions, receive instant notifications as breaches occur and immediately identify the type of threat.

The airport’s Chief Security Offer explains how the system not only monitors breaches but can track intruders in all weather conditions. This speeds up response times to intrusions and also helps to reduce the number of false alarms. And according to the company, the Chief Security Officer suggests that Advanceguard should become the dashboard for all air-side security operators.

‘The precision and scope of Navtech Radar’s Advanceguard system, with its ability to spot and track intruders with pinpoint accuracy, to reduce nuisance alarms from wildlife and to distinguish between friend and foe, has greatly improved the security of our perimeter and the situational awareness of our security operators. Our working relationship with Navtech, which dates from 2016, has been very productive and we look forward to doing more great work with them in the years ahead,’ said John Francis, Head of Security at Shannon Airport