Suppress effects on weather clutters of ASSS

Abstract

We have developed the Airport Surface Surveillance System (ASSS) to enhance safety and efficiency of the ground control on airport surface. The ASSS is capable of detecting aircraft on surface using Airport Surface Detection Equipment (ASDE), and displays detected aircraft on the screen as graphical symbols together with a call-sign and other information.

ASDE, however, uses a sub-millimeter wave of short wave length, and strong weather clutter images appear on the display in rainy days. They are caused by the reflection of raindrops, and it is sometimes difficult to detect the aircraft. Therefore, the contraction method used in the image processing was applied to suppress those clutters for ASSS. This paper describes its results of an experiment for its evaluation at Sendai Airport.