Advanced radar techniques for the air transport system: the surface movement miniradar concept

Aerodromes are becoming a bottleneck in the crowded air transport system; better safety, efficiency as well as the maintenance or increase of the aerodrome capacity (even in adverse weather conditions) call for better performance and enhanced architectures for the surface movements guidance and control systems, needed to overcome the limitations of today´s (basically manual) systems. Advanced functions include an enhanced surveillance sub-system using new radar systems. The paper contains: description of the environment, surveillance requirements, radar requirements and finally the description of an advanced solution based on millimeter-wave “miniradars”