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Power |
Telecom |
Transport |
Others
Abstract
Passive Coherent Location as a Low Cost
Alternative Air Traffic Control Radar
Michael Inggs*, Richard Lord*, Norman Morrison*
*Department of Electrical
Engineering,
University of Cape Town
South Africa
Chris Baker*, Karl Woodbridge *
*Department of Electronic
and Electrical Engineering
University College London
United Kingdom
Abstract
Air traffic growth is a feature of all developing nations, and the installation of a
sophisticated air traffic control system, with conventional radar sensors is a major
expense. At present, most African countries cannot afford this investment. The ongoing
maintenance of these systems and their sensors is a major drain on skilled
technician manpower.
Africa has a low frequency of air traffic accidents, but this must be seen in the light of
the relatively few flying hours. A recent passenger aircraft accident was only located
after a few days, as there was not information as to the flight path. The aircraft was
eventually found just a few kilometres from the end of the runway. Passive Coherent
Location (PCL) utilises the emissions of other systems, such as broadcast transmitter
for TV and Radio to detect and track aircraft. These signals are reflected by the
moving targets. The receivers for the PCL network can be collocated with Mobile
Phone towers, using them to telemeter partially processed data to a central tracking
hub. The tracking hub integrates the data from multiple sensors, to produce a consistent
air picture. Even in developing nations, the broadcast and mobile phone networks
are maintained with reasonable availability, which means that the parasitic PCL
network should similarly provide a high quality of service. Moves to digital terrestrial
broadcast systems provide signals that are even more useful for PCL. Upgrades to
broadcast infrastructure in these nations for education will thus have a dual benefit
of also supporting the air traffic control network.
This paper presents a more detailed description of the capabilities of PCL systems,
and some insight into the developments at University College London and University
of Cape Town based on many years of cooperation in receivers and tracking algorithms.
We believe that industrialisation of this technology will allow for an infrastructure
leap in developing nations, similar to the skipping of copper telecommunications
and the move directly to Cell Technology seen in Africa.
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