An air traffic control console is more than its display. The touch layer, the video and power switching, and the recording each need their own line on the specification. Two of those parts already have their own Seatronx guides: the display and the recorder. The touch layer and the switching are the ones a shortlist can skip.
That gap shows up at order time. A refresh planned around the screen can leave the touch layer, the switching or the recording unspecified until late. Guess wrong and you may be re-specifying parts and placing a second order.
It helps to read a console position as a chain. Sources feed a switch. The switch feeds the displays. A touch layer sends the controller’s touches back to the computer, and a recorder keeps what happened. Each link can carry its own line on the list. A part that suits one link may not suit the next.
What Parts Make Up an Air Traffic Control Console?
Seatronx’s ATC page names five lines, and the display is one of them. Read the five as a parts list for a single position rather than one product. They sit together on Seatronx’s air traffic control console products page, next to the Thruput touch screen replacement and several named display and recorder products.
- ATC Console Displays.
- ATC Console Recording.
- Radar Clutter Processing.
- ATC Console Management.
- ATC Radar Processing.
The display is the part you can see, so it can lead a shortlist by itself. It’s also covered already. Seatronx’s article on what an air traffic control display needs to run around the clock takes on the controller-position display: burn-in, round-the-clock duty, availability and modernizing a legacy console. Use it for the screen itself, and keep your list going for the parts around it.
Recording has its own article too. Seatronx covers what an ATC recorder should capture besides the screen, where to tap the video and what a training review needs. The planning point is simple. As a general rule a recorder is only as useful as the signals it can reach. So you can list the video, audio and data signals a position produces before you choose where to record.
Why Does the Touch Layer Need Its Own Line on the Specification?
Because the touch layer speaks to your computer in a data format, and that format can decide whether a part fits at all. The touch layer is the part of the screen that senses a finger and tells the computer where it touched. As a general rule a replacement has to report touches in the format your computer already expects.
So write that format down first. Seatronx is the U.S. distributor for Thruput, and the Thruput touch screen replacement page lists GP9, RS232 and HID as current legacy formats. It says the output is configurable and reports touch inputs from finger or thin gloves using “the existing data format of the customers computer systems”. So the question isn’t whether a screen senses touch. It’s which format it reports in.
The page calls that replacement a direct form, fit and function replacement for the legacy sonic digitizers and touch screens, and it points at a legacy monitor series. Form, fit and function means, in general, that a replacement matches the shape and mounting of the old part and does the same job. The page doesn’t name your console. So you can ask Seatronx to confirm the match against the real part and the real cabinet.
Touch behavior deserves a question of its own. Seatronx’s ATC displays page lists multi touch with palm rejection among its features, and that can matter at a position where a hand rests near the glass. The pages give no test results, so you can ask for the evidence. The same displays page lists optional remote access via Telnet. Whether remote access belongs at a controller position is a call your own program makes.
The Thruput page also lists a plug and play replacement and an easy-to-clean, no wear surface. Several things it doesn’t state are worth a question. It gives no response time and no calibration method. It names no screen size and no lifetime, and it doesn’t say what the no wear surface is made of.
How Does Signal Switching Sit Between the Sources and the Screens?
Signal switching means routing video, power or data from several sources to the screens that need them. It sits in the middle of the chain. So, as a general rule, the console specification can carry a channel count and a resolution for the switch, plus the data types it has to carry. That isn’t an afterthought once the screens are picked.
Seatronx’s ATC console management page describes built-to-order power and video switching that can switch channels without any interruption of service or any loss or degradation to the video quality. The full list is on Seatronx’s ATC console management page. It doesn’t give a channel count for any product.
What the page does list is scale and kind. The systems are built to order, it says, and can support any combinations of power, video and data channels on input and output. Its feature list runs from one to unlimited channels and claims support for 4K x 2K resolution, without any loss, delay or degradation. Switching without interruption is the supplier’s statement, so you can ask how it’s verified for the channels you’re planning.
The page leaves other numbers out, and each one turns into a question. It gives no latency figure. It says nothing about redundancy or failover behavior. It does list support for data combination and integration between systems with different data sets or different security levels, without saying which levels those are. Data crossing security levels is, in general, a design question your own program owns. So ask what that support covers before it reaches a drawing.
Two More Lines Work With Radar Data
Radar data can also need to arrive in a form the console can use. Two of the five lines work with it: radar clutter processing and radar processing. Seatronx’s clutter processing page lists all inbound and outbound data, video and radar, as recorded. Its radar processing page lists compatibility with ASTERIX radar data formats in its own feature list.
ASTERIX itself comes from outside any product page. EUROCONTROL’s ASTERIX page describes it as a data format used for exchanging surveillance-related information, which is all it means here: a defined way to pass surveillance data between systems. The line on the radar processing page is Seatronx’s own statement, not an approval from anyone else. Both point the same direction, though. Ask which data formats your existing console already uses, and which ones new parts would have to speak.
Ask Which Requirements Your Program Has Adopted
Requirements are the other half of a parts list, and as a general rule they’re a program decision rather than a product one. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration publishes the FAA’s Human Factors Design Standard as a single source of human factors design criteria, oriented to the needs of its own mission and systems. The page says the resulting set of standards can be tailored to meet the needs of the system or program at hand. These are standards, not guidelines.
Tailoring is the part that matters to your list. Because the standard can be tailored, a console program can ask which of its requirements that program has adopted. This article doesn’t say which ones apply to yours. It’s general planning guidance, not engineering or regulatory advice. Then you can put the same question to your supplier: which of those requirements do the data sheets address?
Frequently Asked Questions About ATC Consoles
What does form, fit and function mean for a touch screen replacement?
In general it means the replacement matches the shape and mounting of the old part and does the same job in the position. The Thruput touch screen replacement page uses that phrase for the legacy sonic digitizers and touch screens it replaces. It doesn’t name your console, so ask Seatronx to confirm the match against the real part and the real cabinet.
Which touch data format should I write down before comparing parts?
The one your existing computer systems already expect. The Thruput page lists GP9, RS232 and HID as current legacy formats, and says the output is configurable and reports touches using the existing data format of the customers computer systems. Write your format on the specification, then ask Seatronx whether a replacement can report in it.
Does palm rejection matter at a controller position?
It can, at a position where a hand rests near the glass. Seatronx’s ATC displays page lists multi touch with palm rejection among its features. The pages give no test data for it, so you can ask what the evidence is.
Does the console management page give a channel count?
No. Its feature list runs from one to unlimited channels and claims support for 4K x 2K resolution, without any loss, delay or degradation, but it gives no channel count for a product. The systems are built to order. So ask what the count, the resolution and the data types would be for the positions you’re planning.
What should I ask about data between different security levels?
Ask what the support covers. The console management page lists support for data combination and integration between systems with different data sets or different security levels, and it doesn’t say which levels those are. In general that’s a design question your own program owns, so settle it there as well as with a supplier.
One List for the Whole Console, Then One Conversation
The useful move is boring. Write the whole position down before you shop: the display, the touch layer, the switching and the recording, with the interface formats of your existing console beside them. Video connectors and resolution, touch format, data channels. Those are the details that decide whether a part fits, and listing them first lets a supplier answer the real question.
A handful of questions go with it.
- Which touch data format a replacement reports, which legacy part it replaces, and confirmation of form, fit and function against your real console.
- The response and the calibration of the touch layer.
- The channel count, the resolution and the data types of the switch for the positions you’re planning.
- How switching without interruption is verified for those channels.
- What combining data between different security levels covers.
- Which signals the recorder can tap at your positions.
- Which of your program’s requirements the data sheets address.
With that in hand, send Seatronx your position list and the interface formats of your existing console. The parts that don’t reach the list are the ones that can come back as a second order, and an air traffic control console has more parts than the one you can see.
