Passive Surveillance System for Air Traffic Control

In the paper the Passive Surveillance System (PSS) VERA is described. The PSS is dedicated for Air Surveillance and Air Traffic Control (ATC) purposes. The system is based on multilateral reception of aircraft Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) transponder replies in mode 3/A, C. The aircraft position is evaluated using time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA) method. In the first part of the paper the system design and basic technical parameters of the system are presented. In the second part of the paper fully new achievements in development of 3D version of the PSS VERA system which provides (x,y,z) location and tracking of aircraft, Mode S processing and TDOA multilateration based on signals of other airborne emitters are presented and possible applications - height monitoring, airport surface surveillance, ground based complement of ADS-B system - are discussed.