Tyco Traffic & Transportation of Cambridge, part of Tyco Fire & Integrated Solutions, has recently completed another successful installation of a radio re-broadcast communications system, this time for Warsaw airport's new Terminal 2 building. The new system is designed to support Warsaw airport's expansion - traffic has already increased from 3.5 million passengers in 1992 when the first Terminal was built to over 7 million in 2006. The new Terminal 2 allows the airport to handle an additional 6.5 million passengers.
Tyco Traffic & Transportation worked closely with M/A-Com's operation in Poland, also part of Tyco, to complete this technically challenging project from design through installation and commissioning in only 1 month - in time for the official opening in December 2006 and to a tight budget. Both companies also recently successfully completed another major contract for radio re-broadcast facilities in the Katowice Road Tunnel in Poland for police, fire and emergency services.
According to Tyco, radio re-broadcast is increasingly being used in large buildings such as airports to extend communications to areas difficult to reach by other means. Emergency messaging is becoming mandatory for many of the road tunnels in the EU.
The innovative solution developed by Tyco and M/A-Com for Warsaw airport was based on Tyco's radio re-broadcast technology, already used in tunnels and large buildings in the UK, to simplify installation and reduce costs.
This solution involved extending the existing EDACS multi-channel trunk radio system, originally provided by M/A-Com for Terminal 1, to include the new Terminal 2 building. The system picks up radio transmissions from the Terminal 1 system and transmits them to Terminal 2 where they are re-broadcast internally via antennas or radiating cables (leaky feeders). Similarly Terminal 2 radio broadcasts are re-transmitted back to the old terminal, allowing personnel in either building to talk to any other user in either building.
According to Tyco Traffic & Transportation, radio re-broadcast has several key advantages. It eliminates the need for duplication of the central radio equipment and additional cabling between the buildings and was therefore easier and less expensive to install. It was also much quicker to implement and met the airport's tight timescale for its opening in December 2006. Further expansion to new areas or buildings is also very much simplified.
The technical challenge was to deliver reliable radio communication throughout the large and complex multi-floor Terminal 2 building especially with large numbers of concrete pillars and floors, steel reinforcing, lots of metal structures including large networks of conveyors and baggage handling equipment on the baggage handling floor, plant etc. As a major airport building, the terminal is also a high security risk environment requiring secure and reliable communications at all times.
Commenting on the contract, David Nobel, Business Development Manager for Tyco Traffic & Transportation, said Tyco's close co-operation with sister company M/A-Com in Poland played an important role in the success of the project.
"As with the Katowice road tunnel project, we were able to concentrate on the design, supply and commissioning of the advanced radio re-broadcast system while M/A-Com's Polish operation provided all the local on-site installation and project management services including local sub-contracting and customer contact, making the entire project very smooth and efficient," he said.
"Having successfully established our radio broadcast solutions in tunnels and buildings in the UK, we are now able to offer the same service to customers across Europe."
In the UK, Tyco Traffic & Transportation has already supplied radio re-broadcast systems into various tunnels, including Rotherhithe, Blackwall, Baldock and Limehouse Link.