Thousands of aircraft use Schiphol Airport’s dual ring of taxiways every day. This system was recently extended to improve overviews for air traffic controllers and shorten waiting times for aircraft. Runway lighting, which is essential to these taxiways, can fail in  the event of power consumption and capacity fluctuations. To make the situation on site even safer, and prevent malfunctions and failure of equipment, we mapped out possible effects of unforeseen power outages on taxiway lighting.
Of course, Schiphol does everything it can to ensure the reliability of the lighting so that air traffic safety is never compromised. When you are on board of a plane, such a runway seems quite simple, but the technology used turned out to be quite complicated. The challenging and fun part of this project was the fact that we were working with very complex technology, in a very complex environment, in which we also had to implement complex measurement plans.
We conducted a variety of measurement studies and deployed active filters. In this way, we not only help ensure the reliability and continuity of power. Power quality analyzers were used to measure the transformer power supply and the emergency generator power supply. The measurement results were tested against Netcode limits for normal and islanding operation. Thanks to our measurements, power quality improved, and the proper operation of the installation was safeguarded, ensuring the safety of all employees.
