Integration of (Surveillance) Multilateration Sensor Data into a Remote Tower System

Information from a surveillance sensor can be integrated into a Remote Tower System. Surveillance sensors provide position and altitude information that can be used to supplement optical sensor tracking, and a cooperative surveillance sensor further provides aircraft identification that can be correlated with flight information. In the Remote Tower research system developed by the Electronic Navigation Research Institute (ENRI), integration with a multilateral sensor allows integrated flight information to be displayed in a label (tag) associated with each aircraft, and surveillance position is combined with optical sensor information to assist automatic object-following by a PTZ camera function, which improves its performance particularly in low visibility conditions. To integrate surveillance information with optical target tracking accurately, calibration or correction techniques such as georeferencing (3D-2D mapping) are required. This chapter gives details on the following specific topics: (1) correlation of optically detected and tracked objects with surveillance sensor targets and labelling, (2) PTZ object following, and (3) mapping between two-dimensional screen coordinates and real-world three-dimensional PTZ coordinates.