Air Surveillance for Smart Landing Facilities in the Small Aircraft Transportation System

The Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) is a partnership among various organizations including NASA, the FAA, US aviation industry, state and local aviation officials, and universities. The program objectives are intend to reduce travel times by providing high-speed, safe travel alternatives by making use of small aircraft and underused small airports throughout the nation. A major component of the SATS program is the Smart Landing Facility (SLF). The SLF is a small airport that has been upgraded to handle SATS traffic. One of the services needed at SLFs is air surveillance of the airspace surrounding it.

This thesis researches the different surveillance techniques available for use at the SLFs. The main focuses of this paper are an evaluation of the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) when used as a ground sensor at SLFs and the design of a Position and Identification Reporting Beacon (PIRB). The use of the TCAS ground sensor is modeled in Matlab and the results of that model are discussed. The PIRB is a new system that can be used in conjunction with the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system or independently to provide position information for all aircraft using GPS based positioning.