Reducing Operational Cost of Air Traffic Control Radar by Parameter Calibration and/or Bias Measurement Using Commercial ADS-B Signal

An antenna calibration system e.g. for Air Traffic Control radar antennae, the system comprising:

• a search functionality for finding a correct phase and/or amplitude and/or AI-based functionality for calibrating phase and/or amplitude;
• and
• a hardware processor which receives data via a (commercial) ADS-B system serving (typically commercial or civilian) aircraft passing through the radar's range which are equipped with an ADS-B transponder (typically, GPS is used to enable the commercial aircraft to determine and broadcast its self-position) wherein the hardware processor is typically configured to select at least one best target, from among said aircraft, for training the system's functionalities.

A computer program product, comprising a non-transitory tangible computer readable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein, said computer readable program code adapted to be executed to implement a method for reducing cost of airflight, the method comprising:

• reducing cost of Air Traffic Control (ATC) by reducing maintenance cost of the Air Traffic Control (ATC)'s radar system, said reducing of said maintenance cost including:
• reducing operational cost of estimation, based on data, of bias in said Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar system including
• at least once, basing said estimation of bias at least partly on data from at least one commercial aircraft, to reduce or eliminate need for flying dedicated calibration aircraft to provide a source of data for said estimation of bias.