Background
In February 1998, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) signed an Agreement to develop and implement an Advanced Operational Aviation Weather System (AOAWS) in Taiwan. The AOAWS is a cooperative effort between the TECRO, through its designated representative, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) of Taiwan, and AIT, through its designated representative, UCAR
Within UCAR, RAL and MMM are in partnership to develop the AOAWS. RAL’s major roles are to provide project management and engineering efforts, while MMM provides support on the AOAWS numerical modeling sub-system. The Institute for Information Industry (III) in Taiwan provides local technical support for UCAR on issues related to the AOAWS operation and maintenance with particular focus on network and data communication performance, data availability, and display and data server performance.
The current AOAWS system (hereinafter refereed to as the AOAWS-I) was completed and accepted in June 2002. The AOAWS-I has been the operational system for the CAA since then. AOAWS-I provides CAA, the airlines and the flying public on Taiwan with state-of-the-art aviation weather technology for 1) hazardous weather phenomena that affect aviation operations, 2) weather phenomena that affect airspace capacity and safety at Taiwan’s major hub airports, and 3) weather phenomena that affect overall efficiency of aviation operations. Since 2002, UCAR has provided maintenance and support for the system through consultancy agreements. AOAWS-1 officially ends on December 31, 2005.
Major components of the AOAWS include:
- Low-Level Windshear Alert System (LLWAS) which was procured (by the CAA) and installed at two major airports (CKS and Sungshan).
- MM5 model which provides regularly-updated forecasts on four domains (in 5km, 15km, 45km, and 135km resolutions). It provides data for the most outer domain which covers a large area over Asia and Western Pacific, while providing detailed information on weather conditions over the Taipei FIR.
- Multi-dimensional Display System (MDS), which is a CIDD based display system that integrates all available near-real-time observational data and display the information automatically.
- WMDS which is a web based display system that displays most of the data available on the MDS on a CAA website for users to view the AOAWS weather products remotely. According to the CAA’s record, there are at least 29 aviation related governmental agencies using the system regularly.
- System monitor provides system activity information, alerts users if any one of the sub-systems is not running smoothly.
Plans for 2006 and Beyond
Taiwan's domestic and international air transportation industry will continue to expand for the foreseeable future, and the CAA is committed to meeting their needs with modern aviation weather systems. During 2004, the CAA approved and provided funding for the AOAWS Enhancement and Support (hereinafter referred to as the AOAWS-ES) Project. This is a five-year project, which starts in January 2006, to provide enhancement, support, and maintenance services for the AOAWS-I system. Major tasks include:
- System Implementation, Support and Maintenance Services
- Creation of an advanced Java-based Multi-dimensional Display System (JMDS)
- Incorporation of the Thunderstorm Identification, Tracking and Nowcasting (TITAN) System into AOAWS
- Assessment and design of techniques for moving data between AOAWS and the World Area Forecast System to improve en-route guidance for international aircraft operations
- Mesoscale Model Forecast System Enhancement and Upgrade (MM5/WRF)
- Server and Display Host Hardware Upgrade
- Project Management and on-going training of CAA personnel