Indigenously designed and developed by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and SIR-National Aerospace laboratories (CSIR-NAl), Bengaluru, sophisticated gadagets called Drishti have now been made fully operational at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in the national capital.
Used for reporting the runway visual range, a critical parameter for safe landing and take-off of aircraft in poor visibility conditions, Drishti have been installed at the airport recently, as a part of the first phase installation of 20 such systems in 10 airports across the country.
A statement from the Union Science and Technology Ministry said that the highly sophisticated devices can measure the runway visual range in poor visibility conditions ie less than 25 to more than 2000 meters.
The CAT III B IGI Airport, New Delhi, is now the first airport in the country to have 10 indigenous systems operating in all its three runways.
Earlier, a milestone was achieved in the field of aviation safety, when CSIR-NAl and India Meteorological Department (IMD) inked a pact to jointly execute a mega project for installation of nearly 70 Drishti systems, at various airports of the country.
The development of ‘Drishti Integrated Visibility Software’ by CSIR-NAl, wherein the data from all the Drishti systems of all the runways of IGI airport can be viewed on a single screen at (air traffic control) ATC has eased out computer and instruments congestion at ATC and would aid the MET official to easily report visibility data to pilots, the statement added.
The Drishti system is very cost-effective and is a mandatory system required at all airports as per International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
The CSIR-NAl can also do the health monitoring of the system through web enabling from Bengaluru itself. This drastically reduces the cost of maintenance, which is exorbitant in case of imported systems, said the statement.