Next-generation landing system based on combined passive radar

The paper presents a newly-created aircraft landing system based on passive radar positioning principles and proposed to enhance the performance of existing systems of traffic control at local airport areas. The proposed system is built as a distributed one consisting of central processing station and several receiving stations equipped with complex three-dimensional phased array antenna which possible configuration of eight concentric rings with heptagonal allocation of antenna elements is discussed. The accurate estimation of landing aircraft position is achieved by joint digital processing of signal acquired from all the receiving station by means of one-stage angle of arrival (AOA) and combined AOA/TDOA (time difference of arrival) maximum likelihood estimators. The potential accuracy is evaluated as simulation results obtained for the deployed prototype of the system for the case of the particular stations allocation along a runway and some assumption made about the form of transmitted signal spectra and noise level.