United States Patent 8,373,591

System and Method For Sensing Aircraft and Other Objects

 

Application Number 12,910,779

 

Filed 10/22/2010

 

Issued 2/12/2013

 

Jed Margolin


Abstract

A system for sensing aircraft and other objects uses bistatic radar with spread-spectrum signals transmitted from remotely located sources such as aircraft flying at very high altitudes or from a satellite constellation. A bistatic spread spectrum radar system using a satellite constellation can be integrated with a communications system and/or with a system using long baseline radar interferometry to validate the digital terrain elevation database. The reliability and safety of TCAS and ADS-B are improved by using the signals transmitted from a TCAS or ADS-B unit as a radar transmitter with a receiver used to receive reflections. Aircraft and other objects using spread spectrum radar are detected by using two separate receiving systems. Cross-Correlation between the outputs of the two receiving systems reveals whether a noise signal is produced by the receiving systems themselves or is coming from the outside.

 

Jed Margolin

Virginia City Highlands, NV

April 25, 2013


When the Examiner required a restriction I chose the embodiment of the bistatic spread spectrum radar system using a satellite constellation or high flying aircraft. See the patent claims for the legal definition of the invention.

I filed a divisional application for the embodiment using ADS-B as a radar.


 

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References


The listed links are the original links. In some cases they may be broken. The PDF version was made from the original link.

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Ref. 17From a Different Perspective: Principles, Practice, and Potential of Bistatic Radar by H.D. Griffiths, Dept. of Electron. & Electr. Eng., Univ. Coll. London, UK; Radar Conference, 2003. Proceedings of the International; Publication Date: 3-5 Sept. 2003; ISBN: 0-7803-7870-9; INSPEC Accession Number: 7892750

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Ref. 20:  Presentation Integration into the National Airspace System (NAS) given by John Timmerman of the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization (July 12, 2005)

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Ref. 25:  U.S. Patent 6,377,436 Microwave Transmission Using a Laser-Generated Plasma Beam Waveguide issued April 23, 2002 to Margolin.

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Ref. 26:  Simple Solutions for Hyperbolic and Related Position Fixes, Bertrand T. Fang, The Analytic Sciences Corp.; IEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic SystemsPublication Date: Sep 1990; Volume: 26, Issue: 5; page(s): 748-753; ISSN: 0018-9251   https://svn.v2.nl/andres/Documentation/TDOA/Simple_Solutions_for_TDOA-fang.pdf

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References cited by Examiner

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U.S. Patent 5,955,993 Detection of spread spectrum signals issued Sept 21, to Houghton et al.

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U.S. Patent 7,292,663 Efficient space-time adaptive processing (STAP) filter for global positioning system (GPS) receivers issued Nov 6, 2007 to Van Wechel et al.

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U.S. Patent Publication 2009/0167607 Methods, apparatuses and systems for locating non-cooperative objects published July 2, 2009 (Holder)

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U.S. Patent Publication 2010/0246547 Antenna selecting apparatus and method in wireless communications system  published Sept 30, 2010 (Yoon)

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