Israel Airports Authority launches Xsight Systems’ FODetect

Xsight’s FODetect system

The Israel Airports Authority (IAA) and Xsight Systems, a provider of advanced runway sensor solutions, are proud to announce that the FODetect, an automated Foreign Object Debris (FOD) detection system, is declared fully operational at the Tel-Aviv Ben-Gurion International Airport.

Xsight’s FODetect system

Declaring the FODetect system as operational followed a rigorous evaluation process and soft launch testing at the airport’s primary runway.

Mr. Yair Gannot, Director of Aviation Safety, Israel Airports Authority, says: “During the system operation and over the past nine months an average of 6 items per month were collected from the runway. More so, we had no case of FOD found by our manual inspectors that was not earlier detected and visualized by the automated FOD detection system.

The FOD detection system is maintained by our airfield  lighting maintenance team during standard night time maintenance windows. The system requires an average of less than one hour maintenance per a period of two weeks.”

“We’ve found the FOD detection system to be of great value to our goal of safety and most efficiently operating our runway”, Gannot states.

Mr. Alon Nitzan President and CEO of Xsight Systems says: “We are delighted to collaborate with IAA and are proud that our system contributes to the heightened safety and increased capacity of TLV’s runways.The selection of Xsight’s FODetect, places TLV among the leading airports to have adopted an automatic FOD detection solution, demonstrating its utmost commitment for safety. We trust FODetect will provide a highly reliable and efficient solution, which in addition to improving runway safety, will enable increased operational efficiency”.

FODetect is a comprehensive automatic FOD detection solution, uniquely embedded in Surface Detection Units (SDUs) that are collocated with the runway edge lights. FODetect provides close-up view of the entire runway during both day and night, including inclement weather conditions. The system’s capabilities are based on a hybrid radar-optical sensing technology utilizing optimized algorithms, advanced image processing software and close range detection.

Scanning between each aircraft movement, FODetect not only markedly enhances safety, but also increases operational efficiency and runway capacity. Xsight’s FODetect system is fully compliant with the FAA’s regulation for FOD detection, as it meets or exceeds thehighest performance levels in every parameter required by the FAA.

In May 2011, following a two year evaluation period, the IAA selected and began the FODetect project deployment. In June 2012, the FODetect system successfully passed site acceptance testing, a procedure conducted according to FAA regulations for FOD detection equipment.

The FODetect system is installed on the airport’s primary 0826 runway, the first of three runways planned to be equipped with a FOD detection system.

In Feb 2013, Xsight’s patented technology concept was acknowledged in “The Most Innovative Companies” Report by ‘Fast Company’, a US business magazine annually ranking top innovative companies from around the world. Xsight Systems, crowned among Israel’s top 10 innovative companies for 2013, ranked number 2 in the list.