Press Release: Largest multilaterated ADLS cluster in the world continues to grow

Light:Guard GmbH, a leading provider of Aircraft Detection Lighting Systems (ADLS) for wind turbines, announces that the world’s first and largest contiguous ADLS-MLAT cluster is operational and growing.

Aircraft Detection Lighting System (ADLS) is a technology that minimizes the flashing of wind turbines by monitoring the airspace around a wind farm. In this case, a cluster is an area in which the detection of flying objects in this airspace is carried out in a coherent manner using multilateration. Multilateration (MLAT) means that the ADLS system receives data from all receivers simultaneously and thus achieves a higher network coverage and signal quality than a single receiver.

The “Hamburg Cluster” of Light:Guard covers an area of approx. 10,000 km² between Bremen and Kiel and comprises a total of 24 Light:Guard receivers, which serve as receivers for the transponder signals of the flying objects. To date, 31 wind farms with a total of 152 wind turbines have been successfully integrated. Acceptance and functional confirmation were carried out by the type approval authority DFS Aviation Services (DAS).

Despite some turbines still being in the conversion phase, the cluster is already operational. The continuous addition of new systems is helping to further improve signal quality. An impressive “lights-out” rate of up to 100% per night has been achieved at some wind farms in the cluster.

The next step in the cluster’s development is already imminent. The MLAT area is being expanded towards Lübeck, Kiel and Flensburg by acquiring further new customers and installing new systems for existing customers. Preparations for expansion in the direction of Oldenburg and Varel are already in full swing.

“We are proud to see the area grow continuously in the ongoing process alongside our actual installations and commissioning. With each additional receiver, the network becomes larger, denser and the signal quality improves,” says Willi Lehmann, Managing Director of Light:Guard. “At the same time, the effort for surveying, documentation and approval decreases.”

The results of the ADLS design approach with multilateration are a milestone for the industry. Although the more complex system architecture, in which all receivers together send signals to a data center, entails higher costs and longer processes, the result is impressive: in areas covered by multilateration, the lights of the wind turbines remain switched off almost all night.

Light:Guard thus sets a new standard in the efficient and safe monitoring of wind turbines and underlines its position as a pioneer in the industry.