Airport surface vehicle identification
AssigneeNorden Systems, Inc.
InventorLee A. Owen
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An airport vehicle identification system includes a ground surveillance radar system which radiates both a conventional radar signal and a beacon interrogation signal. The radar receives i) a backscatter signal from the skin returns of a target and ii) an encoded ID signal indicative of the target identity. The encoded ID signal is transmitted by a vehicle (e.g., an aircraft) mounted transponder in response to receiving the beacon interrogation signal. The transponder can be located within an external vehicle light housing such as an aircraft collision avoidance light. This invention fills the critical void in airport traffic control of providing ground controllers with electronic airport surface surveillance data which includes both vehicle position and identity.
Claims15
An airport vehicle identification system for detecting and identifying vehicles on the surface of an airport, comprising:
- a ground surveillance radar system which multiplexes and radiates both a conventional radar signal for detecting vehicles on the surface of the airport and a beacon interrogation signal, and which receives both a reflected skin return signal from a detected vehicle indicative of the vehicle's position and an encoded ID signal indicative of the vehicle's identity;
- and
- a vehicle mounted transponder for receiving and processing said beacon interrogation signal and for radiating said encoded ID signal when said beacon interrogation signal is valid.
An airport ground surveillance radar system which detects and determines the position of an aircraft on the surface of the airport, and receives ID information from the aircraft and provides an operator with indicia indicative of vehicle position and identity, the radar system comprising:
- means for generating i) a conventional radar signal having a carrier frequency value f.sub.c for detecting vehicles on the surface of the airport, and ii) a beacon interrogation signal having a carrier frequency signal f.sub.2 which interrogates the aircraft for ID information;
- means for multiplexing said conventional radar signal and said beacon interrogation signal and for providing a multiplexed signal;
- RF means for transmitting and radiating said multiplexed signal;
- means for receiving both a reflected aircraft skin return signal indicative of the aircraft position and an aircraft ID signal indicative of the aircraft identity;
- means for signal processing said aircraft ID signal to decode the aircraft identity and for providing a decoded ID signal indicative thereof;
- means for processing said reflected aircraft skin return signal to determine the aircraft position and for providing an aircraft position signal indicative thereof;
- and
- means responsive to said decoded ID signal and said aircraft position signal for providing indicia indicative of aircraft position and identity.
An integrated aircraft collision avoidance/transponder unit which receives a beacon interrogation signal from a ground surveillance radar and transmits an aircraft ID signal to the ground surveillance radar in response thereto, said integrated unit comprising:
- a non-opaque housing;
- a flash tube mounted within said non-opaque housing which emits light through said non-opaque housing;
- and
- an aircraft transponder having an omni-directional antenna mounted within said non-opaque housing, means for receiving a beacon interrogation signal and for decoding said beacon interrogation signal, and means for transmitting and radiating said aircraft ID signal in response to a valid beacon interrogation signal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.