Description

A voice communication system (VCS) integrates multiple means of communication into one system. While some ATS units (e.g. an AFIS or a Tower unit at a small airport) may find a simple telephone to be sufficient for their purposes, this is not usually the case with large ATC centres accommodating varying number of sectors or when several ATS units are located in the same facility (e.g. a Tower, Approach and Area control units).

Typical Features

While there is no standard about what a VCS should look like, what features are to be incorporated or how the human-machine interface should look like, the following is a list of commonalities found in most systems:

• A touch-screen interface
• Part of the screed dedicated to frequency management (frequency selection and adjustment, coupling, etc.).
• Part of the screen (normally the largest) dedicated to phone shortcuts (phones that can be dialed using a single button). These may be placed on multiple pages in some systems.
• Additional phone options, e.g. a dial pad, a phone directory, etc.
• A control panel, containing options for e.g. volume adjustment, selection of output devices (e.g. headset or speakers), incoming call sound selection, etc.
• Functional buttons, e.g. for transferring calls, conference calls, push-to-talk feature, etc.
• Definition of roles and corresponding layouts. For example, different ACC sectors may have different phone shortcuts or different frequencies available, while an assistant panel may lack the frequency section.

A generic example of a VCS layout is shown below: