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. 2021 Jun 4;21(11):3890.
doi: 10.3390/s21113890.

Voice Multilateration System

Robert Burczyk  1 , Krzysztof Cwalina  1 , Malgorzata Gajewska  1 , Jaroslaw Magiera  1 , Piotr Rajchowski  1 , Jaroslaw Sadowski  1 , Jacek Stefanski  1
Affiliations

Voice Multilateration System

Robert Burczyk et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

This paper presents an innovative method of locating airplanes, which uses only voice communication between an air traffic controller and the pilot of an aircraft. The proposed method is described in detail along with its practical implementation in the form of a technology demonstrator (proof of concept), included in the voice communication system (VCS). A complete analysis of the performance of the developed method is presented, including the results of simulation and measurement tests in real conditions. The obtained results are very optimistic and indicate that the proposed solution may constitute an alternative method of locating aircraft in emergency conditions, i.e., a backup solution in the case of failure of other positioning systems.

Keywords: MLAT; VCS; aircraft navigation; radio navigation; wireless sensor networks.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Technology demonstrator for testing the new method of locating aircraft in the VCS system.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Interior of the radio station (RS).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Map with marked locations of radio stations (RS) (map background from Google Maps).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Arrangement of reference stations (‘o’ symbol) and analyzed positions (‘x’ symbol).
Figure 5
Figure 5
The RMSE of 2D position estimation in (m) for the SI algorithm (TDoA error is ±2 µs).
Figure 6
Figure 6
The RMSE of 2D position estimation in (m) for the Foy algorithm (TDoA error is ±2 µs).
Figure 7
Figure 7
The RMSE of 2D position estimation in (m) for the SI algorithm (TDoA error is ±5 µs).
Figure 8
Figure 8
The RMSE of 2D position estimation in (m) for the Foy algorithm (TDoA error is ±5 µs).
Figure 9
Figure 9
Accuracy fields (PDoP) of MLAT consisting of five stations.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Block diagrams of signal processing in the radio station.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Block diagrams of signal processing in the central server.
Figure 12
Figure 12
An example spectrogram of an audio file.
Figure 13
Figure 13
An example of the signal from envelope detector in squelch unit after smoothing and normalization.
Figure 14
Figure 14
Scheme for computing a generalized cross-correlation function.
Figure 15
Figure 15
Comparison of the waveforms of the normal and generalized correlation function of the audio signal from an aviation radio.
Figure 16
Figure 16
Comparison of the generalized correlation function before and after interpolation.
Figure 17
Figure 17
Scatter distribution of timestamps in voice data sets.
Figure 18
Figure 18
TDoA values from the ground transmitter recorded by radio stations no. 3 and no. 5.
Figure 19
Figure 19
Distribution of TDoA estimation error from collected data over a one-month period.
Figure 20
Figure 20
Cumulative distribution function of horizontal position estimation error (Foy algorithm).
Figure 21
Figure 21
Cumulative distribution function of horizontal position estimation error (SI algorithm).
Figure 22
Figure 22
Exemplary map with single result of aircraft position estimation using voice transmission in VHF band.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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