Muscat International Airport installs world’s first fully working drone detection system

The Government of Oman has approved German company Aaronia AG (Germany) in partnership with R & N Khimji LLC to offer drone detection at Oman Airports. The solution is able to detect drones and other devices using radio frequency with range of up to 50 km depending on the specifications. The system can detect multiple drones at various frequencies simultaneously and comes equipped with sophisticated long-range cameras for additional verification. Aaronia has been working with high end RF and Microwave systems for over 15 years with all software and hardware being developed in Germany.
Drone detection in airports has become a vital requirement with several instances causing disruption of airport services around the world. Most notably, over the past month at Heathrow and Gatwick Airports in the UK. Oman Airports has been searching for an optimal solution for some time and the limitation of most systems using Radar technology is that they cause interference with existing airport systems, have a low detection rate and by nature produce lots of false alarms.
Aaronia’s solution uses the latest AI-based RF detection instead and even emits no signals, therefore it does not interfere with other systems running in Oman’s airports. Additionally, it can detect the location of the operator of the drone. Aaronia´s situation awareness software “RTSA SUITE PRO” incl. 3D map, camera control and real time air traffic display offers a new level of airport security.
Procurement of the system for Muscat International Airport has been confirmed and it will be the first International Airport in the World to have an operational Drone Detection System.
Various government agencies rely on Aaronia’s AARTOS DDS systems, most notably police and military forces. AARTOS is used for the protection of high-profile personnel, national infrastructure or strategically important sites, namely power plants, correctional facilities, borders, political or VIP events as well as military airports and airbases.
The AARTOS detect-identify-track-and-defeat C-UAV system was released to the market in 2015, and is currently in its third generation. The 4th generation is scheduled for market release in summer 2019.
Over 50 AARTOS systems were installed in 2017, while Aaronia has already received more than 300 new orders in 2018.