Solutions

NetSys success lies in its niche offering for selected Weather and Aviation industry segments, its integration skills and superior customer support world-wide. It has accumulated expertise over many years and it is this unique and in-depth knowledge that gives us the edge. No two customer requirements are the same, especially true for the larger sites that necessitate extensive integration of services. NetSys has the ability to adapt its offerings for the closest match possible so as to provide a cost effective solution. Our products can be found successfully addressing the diverse needs of many users such as those at:

Meteorological Communication Centres/Regional Telecommunication Hubs

NetSys has a number of users that fall into this category. These users are typically responsible for the collection and dissemination of weather data. They provide a service to their clients by selectively distributing data based on routing tables. The routing tables are based on the WMO headers, file names or AFTN send groups and addresses. Such a communication centre normally has a number of data sources and destinations which may support a variety of protocols. The product that was traditionally used is WeatherMan but more recent deployments use the nsMHS with the modern NSWS Control Centre. The NetSys software does an excellent job in fulfilling the needs of Data Collection or Production Centres (DCPCs) and National Centres (NCs) as defined for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Information System (WIS) strategy. Falling in this category are customers in countries such as South Africa (Pretoria), India (Delhi) and Switzerland (Zurich). Another sub-category of these users are those responsible for message communication under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO). These users are typically connected to the AFTN for the reception and transmission of MET data. The Belgocontrol MET system at Brussels airport and the CoreMet system of UK National Air Traffic Services (NATS) at their Swanwick communication centre are examples of such deployments. The CoreMet system is also responsible for the data quality and the uplink of all OPMET data disseminated over the SADIS satellite broadcast. In this regard, WeatherMan is used extensively to automatically correct systematic errors and rejected messages are sent to the NSWS Control Centre for manual correction with the aid of system provided diagnostics and hints. Another category of software used by NATS is the NSWS Met Data Monitor. It is used to monitor the timely arrival of data from different locations. Late arrivals are displayed on a dynamic map and with this functionality NATS can very quickly identify regional communication breakdowns around the globe. It also broadcasts reports of late arrivals as administrative messages to SADIS users, thus applying some peer pressure for performance improvement. Worth mentioning is the Auto Correction Tool developed for MeteoSwiss to streamline the customary laborious process of fixing erroneous OPMET messages. Borrowing practices and methods from the realm of Artificial Intelligence and providing a self-learning advanced Editor facility, most syntactic and format errors are rectified automatically whereas content exceptions are attended to by applying a combination of stochastic and procedural methods before presenting the corrected reports for confirmation to a human operator. One more specialised field that we are involved in with the SAWS is providing the data communication and collection software for use by their proprietary Automatic Weather Stations deployed on a GPRS based TCP/IP private network from a South African mobile network operator.

Data banks

It might be required by international organizations that some countries provide international and local data banks of OPMET or NOTAM information. Examples of which are the European OPMET databanks in Brussels, Toulouse and Vienna, and EAD at Eurocontrol. NetSys systems at BelgoControl and SAWS are responsible for providing the Brussels and Pretoria OPMET databanks for Europe (EUROPMET) and Africa (AFIOPMET).

Flight Information Services/Flight Planning Centres

Certain civil aviation authorities place a high value on quality and personalized pre-flight briefing. They require a system that will automatically deliver pre-flight bulletins where it is needed: e-mailed, faxed or delivered on paper. Each bulletin is tailor made from the flight route derived from the flight plan. A typical requirement is to provide the most recent essential information, not to overload the cockpit with unnecessary paper and irrelevant data. For this purpose, these types of users normally require a narrow route briefing where only information that touches or overlaps a flight corridor is included. An example of an excellent flight briefing service is the FPC at Arlanda in Sweden. A perfect product for such a customer is nsBRIEF with the necessary NSSRV components added as required, e.g. fax drivers. Legal records of all delivered flight briefings are also kept to provide an exact history that may be crucial during an accident investigation.

Large Airports

Many airports require a larger and integrated system. Normally this involves connecting a number of fringe systems and centralizing data collection and distribution, the consolidated display of MET, RADAR and SAT information in control towers, processing of runway instrumentation output (e.g. RVR and wind) and much more. Here NetSys has the ability to use its nsMHS to centralize the collection of data and distribute it in a controlled manner to all client systems and to provide a consolidated archiving facility. NetSys can also integrate many data formats and massage them to fit the clients needs. An example is the special message format requirements for ATIS or VOLMET systems as implemented in Belgium and India for example.

Remote Airports

There are many airports that do not have their own forecasters or a proper infrastructure to link them with forecasting centres but that need to present pilots with weather briefings. This is a potential larger market but with relatively low margin and project costs. nsWAFS together with a satellite received for SADIS or ISCS is the ideal product. NetSys has many such small sites with some of them sponsored by IATA or managed by ICAO. Examples of current sites include Saudi Arabia, Oman, Ecuador, Mongolia, Uganda and China. nsWAFS displays the WAFS data and allows the user to produce Meteorological briefings.

Aviation Forecasting

Some civil aviation authorities have a meteorological department that provide local weather forecasting. An example is BelgoControl in Belgium, where the organization has a number of forecasters that produce local forecasts specifically for aviation customers such as airlines, freight operators and private pilots. NetSys also maintains a climate database for BelgoControl in which SYNOP, METAR and TAF reports for selected stations are decoded up to element level and stored for research and quality control purposes. TAMC in Taiwan is another example of a user that produces its own SIGWX charts with nsFORECASTER. The new nsGIB product is an excellent addition addressing the needs of the aviation forecaster.

Flight Information Centres/NOTAM Offices

There are many NOTAM offices in the world that still use a paper system to manage NOTAMs. The lack of computerization can be attributed to the wide deviation from NOTAM standards, as well as the high importance of this data. In contrast to Met data, NOTAM data volumes are low but each is of high importance. Carefully assigned sequence numbers guard the integrity of the data base. Integration with an AIP is essential should one want to fully utilize FPL routes. The NetSys nsNOTAM product is used at the ANWS NOF in the Taipei FIC for maintaining the Taiwan NOTAM databank.