A novel noncooperative near-range radar network for traffic guidance and control on airport surfaces

The concept of a novel modular structured near-range primary radar network (NRN) for guidance and control of airport surface traffic is presented. Several autonomously operating modules comprising of four radar stations cover all relevant airport areas or, alternatively, are integrated in a complex structured surveillance system by data fusion; then only selected areas have to be covered. Each sensor of a single module illuminates a common area of surveillance by a fixed, non-rotating antenna and measures range echo profiles. For the utilization within a planning and alert system the target locations inside a module are derived from multilateration of echo ranges, measured by multiple distributed sensors. Target velocity vectors are evaluated from the time history of several range echo profiles at least at two stations; target classification is obtained from microwave imaging techniques. In order to demonstrate the performance of the location technique and its flexibility in adapting to different airport scenarios, simulation results are presented. The location simulations are based on high-resolution radar cross-section measurements of a downscaled A-310 aircraft model