Summary
This project report documents the algorithms and flow of the Beacon Target Detector (BTD) processing function incorporated as part of the ASR-9 Processor Augmentation Card (9-PAC). The BTD function combines replies that arise from the same aircraft to form beacon targets, and sends these beacon targets to the 9-PAC merge process where they are combined with primary radar reports. The 9-PAC BTD process was designed to solve two problems with the ASR-9 Array Signal Processor (ASP) BTD: identifying and removing false beacon targets due to reflections, and preventing merging or splitting of targets due to reply overlap and garble. The BTD reflection processing algorithm marks each beacon target as either real or false, and provides this information to the 9-PAC merge process. Discrete Mode A reflection false targets are identified when duplicate code reports satisfying stringent conditions are located. In order to find non-discrete Mode A code reflection false targets, the BTD builds an automated, dynamic reflector database based on the geography of pairs of discrete real and false targets.