Information Rates in Remoted Radar Systems

Air traffic information collected by long range radars is available to the CAA at the radar sites. This information will be remoted to the air route traffic control center. A theoretical study is made here of resolving power and the information rate inherent in the air traffic, radar video signals, displays, and various transmission techniques. Air traffic provides the basic information and radar video establishes the maximum information rate for the system. On the other hand, a display can show only a limited amount of this information. But if the display magnifies a small area, it can show all the information the radar collects. Between the radar and the presentation, the information may be transmitted by a wide band communication channel that transmits all the radar video information or it may be compressed by analog, digital or manual methods so that it can be transmitted over a much narrower communication channel. The final choice of system components will be decided by the requirements of the basic problem for resolution, off-centered displays and the needs of the traffic controller.