Enhanced processing to discriminate between ADS B traffic/tracks with duplicate aircraft addresses

A method of enhanced processing to discriminate between Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (“ADS-B”) messages, the method comprising:

• receiving ADS-B messages on a receiver, wherein messages from at least two targets share the same announced address;
• attempting to associate messages having the same announced address with one of the at least two targets using at least a first method of discrimination, a second method of discrimination, and an Nth method of discrimination, where Nis an integer;
• generating a scoring system for each method of discrimination;
• applying a weighting factor to each method of discrimination;
• summing the weighted scores;
• and
• when the summed, weighted scores exceed a threshold value, associating the messages with a particular target and displaying data conveyed by the ADS-B messages now associated with the particular target on a display of traffic information.

A computer program product including one or more non-transitory machine-readable mediums encoded with instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause a process to be carried out for enhanced processing to discriminate between Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (“ADS-B”) messages, the process comprising:

• receiving ADS-B messages on a receiver, wherein messages from at least two targets share an announced address;
• attempting to associate messages having the same announced address with one of the at least two targets using at least a first method of discrimination, a second method of discrimination, and an Nth method of discrimination, where N is an integer;
• assigning a score to a result of each method of discrimination;
• applying a weighting factor to each method of discrimination;
• summing the weighted scores;
• and
• where the summed, weighted score exceeds a predetermined threshold value, considering the ADS-B messages that were subject to each method of discrimination as being discriminated messages associated with a single target;
• and
• displaying data provided by the discriminated messages on a display of traffic information module as if they had been initially associated with only one of the at least two targets.