Malaysia's KLIA to Test Runway Surveillance and Safety Technology

SEPANG (Selangor, Malaysia), Jan 10 (Bernama) -- The Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) is currently testing foreign object debris (FOD) radar detection system, which is based on radio-over-fibre technology, at its runway. Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) Chief Strategy Officer, Azli Mohamed, said the Linear-Cell Radar over Fibre FOD Detection System had been installed at KLIA's Runway 2. "Currently, our runway inspection activities we are more on corrective and preventive measures but by having this system, it can give us the real-time preventive measures to ensure the runway is safer by the enhanced detection of foreign objects,” he said. The field trial, made possible via a tripartite collaborative effort by Hitachi Kokusai Electric (HiKE), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM, a Malaysian public university) and MAHB, was funded by Japan's Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry from January this year until December 2020, he said. He said KLIA had been selected as the first field trial site outside of Japan for the world's latest runway surveillance and safety technology, developed by the research group at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan. Speaking to reporters after the signing ceremony for the Linear-Cell Radar over Fibre FOD detection system among MAHB, HiKE and UTM at KLIA here Wednesday, Azli said, KLIA was the second airport after Narita International Airport, Japan to test the effectiveness of the FOD detection system. He said the UTM's innovative team, which had been part of the research group in Japan, had convinced the Japanese partners on KLIA’s suitability to test the robustness and accuracy of the system on the airport's four-kilometre runway and varied tropical weather. -- BERNAMA