Guest: Mike Sharples Host: Markus Voelter Shownoter: Stefan Rillaert
Secondary surveillance radar (SSR) is the radar technology used in aviation to query transponders; it forms the backbone of today’s air traffic control infrastructure. Our guest in this episode is Mike Sharples who has been part of the development of the technology and is intimately familiar with the details. We discuss the importance of SSR today, the details of the protocol, the difference between and evolution from Mode A/C to S as well as the relationship to ADS-B.
Introduction 00:02:31Michael Sharples | COMSOFT Solutions | Royal Signals and Radar Establishment | Mode S
Overview primary and secondary radar 00:04:56Radar | Primary radar | Chain Home | Bistatic radar | Multistatic radar | Secondary surveillance radar | Transponder | Identification friend or foe | Aviation transponder interrogation modes | Plot extraction | Signal processing | Garbling/Degarbling | Matched filter | Monopulse radar | Sliding window | Pulse repetition frequency | Side lobe | Side Lobe Suppression
Mode S 00:48:01(American) history of Mode S | DABS/ADSEL | Mode S 24-bit address | Controller–pilot data link communications (CPDLC) | Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) | Mode S error correction | Mode S Uplink | Mode S Downlink | Mode S Interrogation | FLARM (Episode 143 – Collision Avoidance with FLARM) | Mode S Enhanced Surveillance (EHS)
ADS-B 01:41:21(Automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast (ADS–B)) | Omnidirectional antenna | Multilateration (MLAT) | Clock synchronization | ADS-B spoofing | ADS-B on Raspberry Pi | Flightradar24 (Automatic dependent surveillance — contract (ADS-C)) | ADS-B receivers on Iridium