…into the National Airspace System (NAS). VoIP is an essential enabler of the agency’s evolution toward NextGen, a wide-ranging transformation of the entire U.S. air transport system. The Harris Liberty Radio Control Equipment (RCE) is operational at the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) Air Route Traffic Control Center in Houston, which provides air/ground radio communications for the Gulf of Mexico, including remote oil platforms.
Liberty RCE can emulate virtually any radio link and offers radio control over a variety of transmission mediums, making it ideal for communications to isolated areas where digital services compatible with satellite communications are sparse, and reliance on legacy links and older analog technology is often the norm. Liberty RCE was selected as an interim solution after the FAA encountered technical issues operating legacy RCE while deploying a remote air/ground communications facility on the oil platform Independence Hub in the Gulf of Mexico.
Liberty RCE is a Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) gateway product that provides remote radio control over a variety of transmission mediums, including analog, T-1/E-1 and Ethernet/IP. It was designed to multiplex voice and data signals transmitted between ATC facilities and local or remote radios over standard telecommunications links. Liberty RCE can be used with any voice communication and control system, and with all ATM radios. This gateway provides interfaces for digital voice, legacy analog voice, SATCOM, datalink, ADS-B, TIS-B, FIS-B, and other data services.
