With Altitude Information Patents (Class 342/38)
  • Patent number: 4990921
    Abstract: A guidance system for landing an aircraft is described which uses a source of signals identifiable with the aircraft and a ground station which is linked to the aircraft. Specifically, the ground station includes a receiver which is connected to one or more pairs of antennas having a fixed, overlapping, directional sensitive pattern symmetically located relative to the center of the landing path, a receiver and a processor for measuring the relative sensitivity of the signals received at the antennas and for using the relative signal intensity to determine the location of the aircraft relative to the center of the landing path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 1, 1987
    Date of Patent: February 5, 1991
    Assignee: Sundstrand Data Control, Inc.
    Inventor: John P. Chisholm
  • Patent number: 4970518
    Abstract: A system and method for detecting and removing specular multipath reports from terminal ATCRB systems for aircraft targets having Mode 3/A transponder reporting capabilities. Reports are delayed for a first time, or azimuth, interval to determine whether the report is multipath or to identify future occurrences of multipath reports. After the first azimuth interval, the report is released for display and a fragment of the report is retained for an additional azimuth interval. Of two reports with matching Mode 3/A code, the one with the greater range is considered to be a multipath reply. If the multipath report range falls within a multipath range interval and has not been released for display, it is discarded by the system as an erroneous report.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 1988
    Date of Patent: November 13, 1990
    Assignee: Westinghouse Electric Corp.
    Inventor: Elbert L. Cole, Jr.