ADS-B receiver system with multipath mitigation

摘要

Systems and methods for receiving ADS-B messages in environments where multipath propagation corrupts the messages or blocks the reception of the messages. An exemplary system combines RF signal processing and digital signal processing techniques to make it possible to receive ADS-B messages in the presence of multipath reflections from nearby structures and/or farther out structures. The system uses an array of horizontally spaced antennas. The RF signals from the antennas are combined by the receiver so as to form a set of beams with different azimuth antenna patterns to increase the probability that the multipath does not combine destructively with the line-of-sight path in at least one of the beams. This effectively removes multipath reflections where the delay of the multipath relative to the line-of-sight path is less than 100-200 nanoseconds. The system is also configured to remove multipath reflections with greater delays relative to the line-of-sight path.