Effect of Interference on the Performance of a Minimum TCAS II (Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System)

摘要

Minimum TCAS II equipment is required to operate reliability in all aircraft densities up to the 0.3 transponder-equipped aircraft per square nautical mile anticipated in the Los Angeles Basin in the year 2000. Prototype TCAS equipment has been developed and shown to be capable of providing reliable surveillance in today's highest densities, which reach an average of about 0.1 aircraft per square nmi. Since there are no existing environments that reach the density of asynchronous interference anticipated to determine the performance in the year 2000, it is necessary to generate simulated interference to determine the performance of the TCAS II design in that environment. A series of bench tests were conducted at Lincoln Laboratory for this purpose. Special sources were used to generate asynchronous ATCRBS and Mode S reply signals (fruit) and TACAN/DME squitter and interrogation signals. Synchronous ATCRBS and Mode S reply sequences were also generated to simulate airborne encounters. The performance was evaluated by observing how the interference signals either degraded the ability of a TCAS II unit to receive, process, and track the desired synchronous reply sequences, or caused the TCAS II unit to generate false tracks.