Abstract: A system and method for classifying and tracking aircraft and ground vehicles on the grounds of an airport is provided. The system generates a signal as a vehicle passes over a sensor under the taxiways or runways and analyzes the signal to determine a signature for the vehicle and the estimated speed of the vehicle. The determined signature and estimated speed may be used to track the movement of the vehicle around the grounds of the airport.

Abstract: The invention enables real-time control of a process using information regarding process properties that are indirectly related to the state of the process. A set of properties that characterize the process environment (fingerprint) is measured and used by a process results estimator to infer information regarding the state of the process and by a process condition monitor for monitoring the process to ascertain whether a particular type of condition exists. In one embodiment, optical emission spectra (OES) are used as the fingerprint. The process results estimator is sufficiently powerful to enable the process state to be inferred even when the relationship between the process environmental properties and the process state is complicated and difficult to describe with traditional mathematical models. In one embodiment, the process results estimator is embodied by a neural network. The process condition monitor can also be embodied by a neural network.