Novel Surveillance Technologies for Airport Ramp Area Operations

The objective of the current research is to develop the concept, algorithms and software necessary for enabling a novel surveillance system for airports ramp areas. The proposed technology can overcome the deficiencies of some of current-day surveillance systems especially in the ramp area. It is expected to aid in both Safety and Efficiency improvements in ramp area operations. Phase I research developed the concept and requirements and demonstrated the core algorithms of technology. Using a 1:400 scale realistic airport ramp area model the following features were demonstrated: (i) detection of aircraft in the ramp area and (iii) 3D localization of aircraft 3D inertial frame of reference to an accuracy of 40 ft. Phase II research seeks to refine and extend the detection algorithms to include ground vehicles; identify aircraft type; and even determine the orientation of the aircraft. The localization algorithms will be extended to decipher the 3D geometry of the aircraft. Data fusion algorithms will be developed to track aircraft as they move through the ramp area. A significant portion of Phase II research involves development of the complete software and testing it using realistic airport data.