ABSTRACT
Air Traffic Control (ATC) surveillance aims at identifying an aircraft’s or vehicle’s three dimensional position in space; which (identification), where (position) and when (time), in addition to providing other essential data (e.g. intent, velocity) to various Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems. This chapter describes the need for surveillance systems to support ATM, highlighting various current surveillance sensors, and their performance parameters and characteristics. It also describes ground and airborne applications supported by the particular surveillance technologies. The chapter also provides a brief discussion on the integration between the various surveillance sensors. Finally the chapter describes how the surveillance sensors are used for aircraft separation management and the constraints to do so.
