Airport surveillance radar systems are capable of reliably detecting and tracking aircraft at altitudes below 25,000 feet (7,620 metres) and within 40 to 60 nautical miles (75 to 110 km) of their airport. Systems of this type have been installed at more than 100 major airports throughout the United States. One such system, the ASR-9, is designed to be operable at least 99.9 percent of the time, which means that the system is down less than 10 hours per year. This high availability is attributable to reliable electronic components, a “built-in test” to search for failures, remote monitoring, and redundancy (i.e., the system has two complete channels except for the antenna; when one channel must be shut down for repair, the other continues to operate). The ASR-9 is designed to operate unattended, with no maintenance personnel at the radar site. A number of radar units can be monitored and controlled from a single location. When trouble occurs, the fault is identified and a maintenance person dispatched for repair.
Echoes from rain that mask the detection of aircraft are reduced by the use of Doppler filtering and other techniques devised to separate moving aircraft from undesired clutter. It is important, however, for air traffic controllers to recognize areas of severe weather so that they can direct aircraft safely around, rather than through, rough or hazardous conditions. The ASR-9 has a separate receiving channel that recognizes weather echoes and provides their location to air traffic controllers. Six different levels of precipitation intensity can be displayed, with or without the aircraft targets superimposed.
The ASR-9 system operates at frequencies from 2.7 to 2.9 GHz (within the S band). Its klystron transmitter has a peak power of 1.3 megawatts, a pulse width of 1 microsecond, and an antenna with a horizontal beamwidth of 1.4 degrees that rotates at 12.5 revolutions per minute (4.8-second rotation period).
The reflector antenna shown in the is a section of a paraboloid. It is 16.5 feet (5 metres) wide and 9 feet (2.75 metres) high. Atop the radar antenna (riding piggyback) is a lightweight planar-array antenna for the air-traffic-control radar-beacon system (ATCRBS). Its dimensions are 26 feet (8 metres) by 5.2 feet (1.6 metres). ATCRBS is the primary means for detecting and identifying aircraft equipped with a transponder that can reply to the ATCRBS interrogation. The ATCRBS transmitter, which is independent of the radar system and operates at a different frequency, radiates a coded interrogation signal. Aircraft equipped with a suitable transponder can recognize the interrogation and send a coded reply at a frequency different from the interrogation frequency. The interrogator might then ask the aircraft, by means of other coded signals, to automatically identify itself and to report its altitude. ATCRBS works only with cooperative targets (i.e., those with an operational transponder).
The ASR-11 and ASR-12 are airport surveillance radars that utilize a solid-state (transistor) transmitter and long pulses rather than a klystron transmitter and short pulses.
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