Era ADS-B System Operation Training

Part 1
Richard Xie

March 2009
Training Plan

 Introduction to ADS-B Technology:

• Traditional radar technology
• Multilateration and ADS-B
• Pros and Cons of ADS-B
 Introduction to ADS-B 1090 MHz Ex Squitter
• Mode S and 1090 MHz ADS-B
• Principle of Mode S transmission
• 1090 MHz extended squitter
 Introduciton to Era ADS-B System Architecture:
• Overall Architecture
• Hardware architecture
• Data flow
• Communications

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Traditional Radar Technology

 Primary Surveillance Radar

R = C*t/2

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Primary Radar

 Angular determination determined by

directivity of antenna
 Echo signal strength varies in
amplitude

Variation of echo signal strength

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Secondary Surveillance Radar

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Pros and Cons of PSR and SSR

 PSR
• Pros: indep. of avionics
• Cons: data processing, no id, expensive, LOS

 SSR
• Pros: id, attitude
• Cons: dep. on avionics, LOS, mantenance,
expensive

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 How Multilateration Works

Rx3

(x3, y3)

(xa, ya)

airplane
Rx1 Rx2
(x2, y2) airplane
(x1, y1) M

Rx1 F F2
Rx2
{Rx1-Airplane} –{Rx2-Airplane} = c*(t1-t2) + s12

{Rx3-Airplane} –{Rx2-Airplane} = c*(t3-t2) + s23

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Why Use Multilateration

 Advantages compared with traditional radar：

• Better accuracy
• Higher update rate
• Detect Mode A/C/S and ASD-B targets
• More flexible and larger coverage area
• Distributed deployment, better redundancy and expandability
• Immune to adverse weather
• More cost-efficient to deploy and maintain

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 ADS-B to the future

Technology:
 improved situation awareness
 improved traffic information for pilots
 improved communication between aircraft-controller,
and among aircraft
Benefit:
 Improved safety
 Improved capacity

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Scope of a 1090 MHz ADS-B System

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1090 MHz ADS-B Transmitting sub-System

 transponder based
 non-transponder based

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1090 MHz ADS-B Receiving sub-System

 Receiver message exchange function

• Receiving antenna
• Radio equipment

 Report assembly function

• Message decoding
• Report assembly
Type 1 report (application specific)
Type 2 report (generic)

• Output interface

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ADS-B Report Content

 State Vector report

• Kinematic state
• Measure of accuracy
• Frequent update

 Mode Status report

• Operational information about the tx participant

 Target State report

• Required from only certain classes of ads-b aircraft

 Air Referenced Velocity report

• Required from only certain classes of ads-b aircraft

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Message Types and Transmission Rate

Name Overview Average Interval

Airborne Position Position of aircraft 0.5 sec

transmitted while
airborne
Surface Position Position and velocity of 0.5 sec (5 sec if
aircraft; transmitted on stationary)
ground
Aircraft Identification and Aircraft identification and 5 sec (10 sec if
Type category stationary)

Airborne Velocity Velocity of aircraft, 0.5 sec

transmitted while
airborne

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 Operational Applications

 General support for surveillance

 Cockpit Display of Traffic Information
• Air to visual acquisition
• Enhanced situation awareness

 Improvement to aircraft-based collision avoidance

 Conflict management and airspace de-conflication
 ATS conformance monitoring
• Simultaneous approaches
• Incursion monitoring

 and more…

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Pros and Cons of ADS-B

 Pros:
• Low cost
• Very high accuracy and update rate on large airspace
• Simple ground station design

 Cons:
• Dependent on avionics equipage
• Confidence in reported messages needs to be enhanced
• Might not be suitable in dense areas as sole means.

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Introduction to 1090 MHz Ex Squitter

Mode S and 1090 MHz ADS-B

Principle of Mode S transmission
1090 MHz extended squitter

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Mode S and 1090 MHz ADS-B

 Mode S SSR was developed to overcome

limitations of classical SSR including:
• Problems of interference (FRUIT & garbling)
• Mode A code shortage
• Provide a datalink capability

 Mode S functionality also supports:

• ACAS/TCAS
• Mode A/C SSR transition
• ADS-B 1090 MHz ex squitter

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Principle of Mode S Transmission

 Mode S transponder has a unique address to

provide discrete identification of an aircraft
 Interrogation can be
• Unaddressed (all-call), or
• Selective (roll-call) interrogations

 Techniques to improve performance:

• Selective interrogations (reducing garbling and FRUIT)
• Error detection/correction (improve data integrity)

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Definition of Squitter

 Unsolicited transmission
 Regular but random broadcasts on 1090 MHz
, sent on Mode S tx antenna
 Used for:
• TCAS/ACAS (short squitter)
• ADS-B (long or extended squitter)
• both enable MLAT concept

 24-bit ICAO address for tech identification

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Extended Squitter Concept

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Extended Squitter Message Structure

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Era ADS-B System Architecture

 Overall Architecture
 Hardware architecture
 Data flow
 Communications

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 Overall Architecture

RCMS
VAT
Network

LCMS LCMS LCMS LCMS

VAT router VAT router VAT router

VAT router

Rack router Rack router Rack router Rack router ADS-B

antenna

Gps
Site monitor Site monitor antenna

Ground Ground Ground Ground

station station station station

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Hardware Architecture

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Rack Components

Cisco router

RPU Unit

Power Unit

RPU Unit

Power Unit

UPS

UPS

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Data Flow

GPS
RGU UTC
~
UTC time „WHEN“
Corrective data PC Time mark
104
ADS-B report via CAT 21
1 sec
Time mark
Time mark through
nominal clock
LCMS
Data stamped by
/
MU clock (TOA)
TOA
RCMS
1090MHz MU ~
RX
card „WHERE“

Nominal time MU
Oscil

RXS

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Communications

Remote computer
192.168.2.23

LAN or VSAT LAN or VSAT

Csico 2801 Csico 2801 Csico 2801

172.20.24.11 172.20.24.21 172.20.24.31

172.20.24.12 172.20.24.22 172.20.24.32

Era Era Era

rack rack rack

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Questions?

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