Polaris 2.0 Portable Airfield Lighting System

The Polaris 2.0 is Signalight's flagship portable airfield lighting platform and the winner of the Inter Airport Europe Innovation Award 2023. It is a self-contained, battery-operated lighting system covering the full runway lighting envelope — approach, runway edge, runway end, threshold, threshold end, threshold wing-bar — with each unit running on an internal 12 V / 12 Ah Lead Acid or optional LiFePO4 battery. The system targets any scenario where mains-powered permanent lighting is absent, impractical, or inoperative: temporary grass strip activation, frozen-lake or roadway operations, emergency backup at commercial aerodromes, and military or humanitarian deployments requiring rapid airfield establishment. What distinguishes Polaris 2.0 from a generic portable light is its integrated radio control architecture. Units can be commanded locally via front-panel switches, by handheld remote, by pilot-activated ARCAL / PAL, or through a base-station PC application showing each unit's GPS position on a map. The LoRa radio network operates on 868 MHz (Europe) or 915 MHz (USA) with direct — not mesh — communication and covers 10 km line-of-sight, enough to span any non-precision approach runway. Each unit is housed in powder-coated aviation-yellow aluminium (RAL 1004) with a hardened glass disperser and an anti-condensation valve, rated IP67 and qualified across −20 °C to +55 °C — an operating envelope that directly covers GCC ramp temperatures in summer. Optional external 4 × 5 W solar panels allow semi-permanent deployment without recharging logistics. The system meets ICAO Annex 14 and IEC TS 61827 for non-precision approach environments, with power consumption ranging from 1.75 W (runway end) to 15 W (approach) at full brightness.