Portable avionics test suite design and operation

Optimization and acceptance testing of an airport surface surveillance system requires a comparison be performed between the data collected by the system and the truth data (known, precise data provided by the vehicle being tracked by the sensor). Truth data systems can be costly and difficult to transport. The Volpe Center was tasked with rapidly designing and developing a portable suite of equipment to simulate a taxiing, takeoff roll or landing rollout aircraft and provide truth data. The design concept for the portable airport surveillance verification system (PASVS) required that the unit be portable, easily deployed in a government or rental vehicle, and intuitive to operate. A modular design was selected for the PASVS consisting primarily of an integrated aircraft VHF radio, a differential global positioning system receiver, two aviation transponders (an air traffic control radar beacon system-only transponder and a mode S transponder) and a computer with data logging software. The PASVS has shown to be a capable platform for simulating a taxiing, takeoff or landing rollout aircraft and for providing ground truth data to evaluate airport surface surveillance systems. PASVS also demonstrated its ability to be easily and quickly shipped to various continental U.S. and overseas locations and be rapidly installed and easily operated from any ground vehicle by a single operator with minimal training. In this paper, the requirements and design processes are described and PASVS performance data is presented along with collected sample truth data.