Sara
environmental monitoring.
SARA is Softech’s solution to monitor and analyze the environment in airports and urban areas. Launched in 1999, SARA is now used in most Italian airports and it is recognized as a reliable and innovative product also abroad. Scalable, modular and with an intuitive graphical interface, SARA continually collects noise and air quality data from monitoring control units. SARA correlates all these information with aeronautical activities to calculate quality indexes, as determined by current regulations, and the ground footprint of noise and air quality impact.
SARA’s adaptability starts in the monitoring station: here, noise events are filtered by duration and sound pressure to remove ambient disturbance and background noise.
With SARA in the central system, all parameters and correlation criteria between noise events/air quality and aeronautical activities can be customized.
In the airport:
- SARA uses radar tracks, when available, or flight planning data to correlate noise events and air pollution trends with aeronautical activities.
- It allows to view and analyze radar tracks to ensure compliance with local takeoff/arrival procedures.
- It provides functionalities to recalculate the events, reset their thresholds and change the frequencies to filter out specific disturbances, starting from a detailed analysis of each parameter’s time history and of the frequency spectrum for one or more days.
- SARA features Web based, multi-airport architecture with fully customizable interface profiles and languages.
- It interfaces with airport equipment and is compatible with sound level meters from major international manufacturers.
- Softech offers qualified technical support to customers (econoise office) to process data, produce technical reports and periodic system status reports.
- Softech provides training and regular software updates, as well as scheduled prevention maintenance and fault management to ensure continuity of service.
sara also features:
• Meteo data collection: Measurement stations can be equipped with meteorologic sensors, which provide the data to be used during automatic and manual data validation.
• Audio and video: Measurement stations can be equipped with IP color videocameras, able to record audio/video during sound events.
• Environment pollution: Stations can be equipped with air pollution measurement equipment for particulates, CO, NOx, BTX and others. Data are viewed and correlated with airport traffic levels.
• Access control: Permissions are granted for each user to access, view or edit data, in full or in part. Custom languages are available for the system GUI.
• Connectivity: Control units can connect to the central server via a number of connection modes, including LAN, WiFi, ADSL, 3G/4G, GPRS, GSM.
• Automatic daily calibration: On SARA’s noise monitoring stations, several calibration checks can be configured for each day to make sure that the measurement chain is working properly.
• Equal-loudness contour: SARA uses INM/AEDT models to extract equal-loudness contour data and evaluate the ground footprint of noise impact and air quality.
Softech internally developed the following equipment:
- THOR: A high-performance sound level meter for unattended noise monitoring in airports.
- SARA-ADSB: an ADS-B receiver for the continuous evaluation of data on the position of aircrafts, in flight and on the ground. Fully integrated with SARA, this receiver can be interfaced with third-party tools, such as Google Earth, to easily provide on-the-spot views of traffic to and around the airport.
SARA’s environmental stations provide the following features:
- Custom configuration, based on customer needs and technical requirements.
- Solar-power operation and wireless connectivity, to simplify installation and optimize environmental protection while minimizing operation costs.
- Backup battery to ensure continuity of service during power failures, and sensors able to pick up anomalous situations and emergencies (electrical supply failures, open door alarms, high temperatures, and others).
