MEP is launching a completely new Voice Communication System GTW995. This fully digital system is developed specifically for critical communication environments such as air traffic and maritime traffic control.
It is developed according to the EUROCAE ED-153 standard and is compliant with ED-137. The system is in line with SWAL level three.
MEP has a very reliable market reputation due to its robust, user friendly systems, and with the GTW995 generation it has taken this a step further. Like always, MEP has chosen to develop the hardware and software of this new generation in house to ensure that every choice made contributes to high availability and reduces any potential latency in the system design and architecture. Due to these choices, the quality and availability can be guaranteed for many, many years to come.
Capacity
Each Gateway can support at least 500 radio or telephone connections. Adding more gateways simply increases the Voice Communication System capacity to infinity.
Operator Working Positions
MEP will introduce a new range of Operator Working positions with screen sizes of seven inches and 12 inches, complete with accessories. This new range will ensure high availability and low latency, and above all, a very user friendly user interface, which can be adapted to the customers’ needs.
Management and configuration tool
A completely new management and configuration tool will be introduced to ensure that the set up and maintenance of the VCS is easy and adaptive to developing needs, not only now, but also 15 years from now.
Hardware
The GTW995 is a 1U high 19 inch sub rack. The front has a display for indicating the status and some test functions in maintenance mode. A global status LED indicates the status of the GTW995.
The rear of the GTW995 has two power slots, each containing an AC or DC power supply. The power supplies are hot swappable and no cover needs to be removed to change them.
Four LAN ports are available so the gateway can be redundantly connected to multiple networks. Which network interface is used for which function is fully configurable from the management system.
Three general purpose outputs and one general purpose input are available. The functionality can be configured from the management system.
Internally, the GTW995 runs on a 64-bit Quad Core ARM SoC, with ECC error detection and recovery on all internal and external memories.
Safety
The software is designed from the ground up for safety. All safety critical tasks run on seL4, a high-assurance, formally verified microkernel, with mixed criticality real-time support. Failure in one task will not affect others and will be quickly recovered from. Non-critical tasks run in a contained Linux virtual machine.
The GTW995 will support hot-standby. If one gateway goes down, another will seamlessly take over its functionality, without closing active connections and with minimal audio interruption.
Virtualisation
As an addition to the GTW995, the new Voice Communication System can also run in a virtual environment. Whether it is the best choice to choose the MEP Gateway or to run the Voice Communication System on generic hardware depends on the customer wishes and infrastructure. MEP can advise on this matter.
Official launch at World ATM show Madrid Stand 460
MEP will demonstrate the Voice Communication System GTW995 at the ATM show, in Madrid, which will be held from the 21-23 June 2022.
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