This was the first Technical Tour arranged by IEEE BRAC University Student Branch in 2010 and the most exciting tour the students have been so far. Through spontaneous participation of the IEEE Student Members, the event was a total success. Under the blazing sun of 29th March, IEEE BRAC University Student Branch Members, under the supervision of Faculty members from School of Engineering and Computer Science, BRAC University and a generous co-operation from Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh, organized a technical tour to Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport to study some of the control operations.

This technical tour comprised of thirty-six IEEE Student Members and five BRAC University Faculty members. A forty minute bus-ride to the airport led us to the highly restricted Control Operations area. Md. Ekhtiar Islam gave us a guided tour and described to us some of the technicalities.

Firstly we were given an idea of how transmitter and receiver units function in producing an image of Bangladesh’s total air space, showing location of any aircrafts within the country’s air territory. The radar data is then provided to the Air Traffic Control Tower who are constantly interacting with the aircrafts over the country’s air space. We were shown some of the equipments used and what their functions are.

Next up was a bus-ride through the taxiway and runway where we got to experience actual aircrafts taxiing, taking off and landing just a few feet away from us. Some experience that was! This amazing bus-ride led us to our next stop: the Nav Aid System. This was a control unit placed quite far away from the runway with radial units that had numerous metal receivers attached on them. Under all this was a small room which consisted of the monitoring devices. These devices monitor and provide navigational data to the aircrafts and other control room s. Information provided by these control units include things such as, how much an aircraft should or should not glide, whether the aircraft is still within the country’s perimeters or not, the horizontal alignment of the runway etc.

Since the inauguration in 2008, the IEEE BRAC University Student Branch has organized a number of educational and technical Seminars and Workshops involving renowned academicians and leaders all around the world. As a proud IEEE member I can say on behalf of my whole community that we enjoyed the day, while learning quite a handful lot of information from such an interesting tour. (By Tasfia Rahman)

Note: This article has been extracted from the old depreciated IEEE website