An effective procedure to design the layout of standard and enhanced mode-S multilateration systems for airport surveillance

In this paper, an effective procedure to emplace standard and enhanced mode-S multilateration stations for airport surveillance is studied and developed. This procedure is based on meta-heuristic optimization techniques, such as genetic algorithm (GA), and is intended to obtain useful parameters for an optimal system configuration that provides acceptable performance levels. Furthermore, the procedure developed here is able to evaluate and improve previous system designs, as well as possible system enhancements. Additionally, the design strategies to be used along with the procedure proposed here are fully described. Parameters such as the number of stations, the system geometry, the kind of measurements to be used, and the system accuracy are obtained taking into account the basic requirements such as the Line of Sight, the probability of detection, and the accuracy levels. © Cambridge University Press and the European Microwave Association, 2012.