Publications

Operational experience with the Integrated Terminal Weather Systems (ITWS) and Airport Surveillance Radar, Model 9, (ASR-9) Weather System Processor (WSP) demonstration systems, studies of pilot weather avoidance decision making), and recent accidents have demonstrated the need to provide timely, accurate information on the location and movement of storms to air traffic controllers, pilots, and airline dispatch. At medium-intensity airports, generally those with too few flight operations to justify the presence of Doppler radar systems like the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) or the WSP, terminal air traffic surveillance is currently provided with the ASR-7 and ASR-8 radar systems. The ASR-7 and ASR-8 do not provide calibrated precipitation intensity products or any storm motion information. The Medium-Intensity Airport Weather System (MIAWS) program is intended to address these terminal weather information deficiencies. MIAWS-generated products would be displayed to tower and Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) supervisors and delivered to aircraft cockpits and airline dispatchers to assist pilots during landings. Initially, the MIAWS will provide a real time display of storm positions and motion based on Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) product data using a product generation and display system derived from the WSP. Airport wind and wind shear information will be acquired from an FAA Low Level Wind Shear Alert System (LLWAS). A demonstration system will be installed and demonstrated at experimental sites in Memphis, TN and Jackson, MS in 2000 and potentially at a third site in 2001. This demonstration system will be used to assess technical and operational issues such as compensation for the relatively slow updates of the NEXRAD products and, Anomalous Propagation (AP) ground clutter. The ASR-11 is a replacement for the ASR-7/8 radars that feature a weather reflectivity processing channel. When it becomes available at MIAWS locations, the MIAWS processor will acquire and display precipitation and storm movement products derived from the ASR-11. Likewise, when an LLWAS Relocation/Sustainment (LLWAS-RS) (Nilsen, et al., 1999) becomes available at MIAWS locations, the MIAWS will acquire wind and wind shear information derived from the LLWAS-RS.

The ASR-9 Processor Augmentation Card (9PAC) is a custom processing card that provides the ASR-9 system with increased beacon and radar processing performance. This paper describes the system and application software that executes on the prototype board, with an emphasis on the interaction between software modules. The application software on the 9PAC determines the position of radar and beacon target reports, replacing software that previously ran on the ASR-9 Array Signal Processor (ASP). The software is organized as a set of cooperating tasks executing under the control of a real-time operating system, PAC/OS, which provides all the services typical of an embedded kernel such as interrupt handling, pre-emptive multitasking, queues, signals, semaphores, mailboxes, and memory management. The deployment of 9PAC will occur in two phases. The Phase I application replaces only the beacon target detector (BTD) and radar/beacon target merge (MRG) functions of the ASP. The Phase I application consists of two executable programs since Phase I uses only two of the C44 processors on the 9PAC. One program, the housekeeping processor, is responsible for all I/O functions and performs the radar/beacon merge operation. The second progam, the beacon processor, is dedicated to processing the raw beacon replies and generating beacon targets which are then returned to the first processor for the merge operation. The Phase II application consists of three executable programs, one for each of the C44 processors on the 9PAC and performs much of the Phase I functionality and adds primary radar processing. The intent of this paper is to provide the 9PAC software support personnel with sufficient information to implement future enhancements without unintentionally compromising some aspect of the overall system.

The Airborne Intelligent Display is a microprocessor-based display capable of serving as a cockpit data terminal in a variety of FAA developmental applications. A prototype of this display was developed by Lincoln Laboratory during 1979-1980 in order to evaluate and demonstrate the use of the data link between Mode S ground sensor and Mode S transponder-equipped aircraft. The AID served as a data link interface allowing the pilot to see, respond to, and initiate communications from a ground sensor. Later, when Lincoln began testing the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), the AID became the TCAS display device, showing position estimates for TCAS-tracked aircraft. More recently, a redesign effort, focused principally on software, was begun to extend the AID design so that it could be more quickly adapted to a variety of FAA developmental programs. This document describes the redesigned Airborne Intelligent Display, with special emphasis on software design.