Since September 2001 a new installed service for European administrations is available. COMSOFT from Germany was selected by EUROCONTROL as industry partner to support the states with their existing and forthcoming ARTAS installations.

ARTAS, the ATM SuRveillance Tracker And Server, was developed during the past decade by EUROCONTROL and its member states. It represents today one of the most advanced general-purpose surveillance data processing system in the world. Making use of PSR, SSR, MSSR and Mode S elementary surveillance sources, ARTAS uses latest tracking technologies, including Interactive Multiple Model Kalman filtering (IMM) and Joint Probabilistic Data Association (JPDA). In the future ARTAS will be used by the majority of the European countries as the cornerstone of their national ATM systems.

In early 2001 EUROCONTROL launched a call for tender to select an industry focal point for services around ARTAS. After a long tender period, COMSOFT from Germany was awarded the five year CAMOS contract in August 2001. On September 1st service commenced and since then renders support to a large number of ARTAS users in Europe. As part of the CAMOS contract COMSOFT was also entitled to perform turnkey supply of ARTAS systems, including system procurement, integration, training and tuning at the administration's premises.

Among others COMSOFT was selected because of their large background in surveillance data communication and processing. COMSOFT's RMCDE (Radar Message Conversion and Distribution Equipment) and their RRR (Radar Recording and Replay System) are EUROCONTROL deliverables and the company can draw back on a long experience with integration projects on multi-national European level.

CAMOS support is organised around a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the ARTAS users and EUROCONTROL. The SLA defines scope and volume of work as well as response times for user requests. ARTAS users maintain a LAMOS (Local ARTAS Maintenance and Operational Support) team which addresses the EUROCONROL CAMOS team (ECAMOS), located in Maastricht and Brussels. ECAMOS is responsible for initial analysis of requests, and assignment of priorities. COMSOFT's CAMOS team (CCAMOS) will then perform required actions, which may be trouble-shooting, problem resolution or implementation of ARTAS change requests. Particularly the latter is leading into a continuous development and extension of ARTAS functionality for the user community.

Above all CAMOS activities reigns the ARTAS User Group (AUG), which is a representative body of EUROCONTROL member states interested in the ARTAS development. The AUG meets 4 times a year and decides on a global level about future developments and strategic decisions around ARTAS. CAMOS reports to the AUG in regular intervals.

ARTAS and CAMOS belong to the best breed of successful European ATM projects. A powerful application and an efficient support structure are available free of charge to the ECAC administrations and are likely to render an unseen return of investment. In the future, ARTAS will dominate European surveillance data processing and the related harmonisation effects will by themselves contribute in a boost of efficiency and safety for European skies.