RESTON, VA--(Marketwire -) - Era Corporation has been awarded a patent covering fundamental attributes of network-centric management of surveillance system-wide information, including distributed timing and surveillance data bandwidth management. The patent includes methods of ADS-B tracking and multilateration, where aircraft transponder signals are received over local, regional and wide-area networks using a number of receivers designed to filter redundant transponder signals, time-stamp filtered signals and forward surveillance information to air traffic control and other users.
Conventional triangulation techniques on an aircraft's transponder signal have required decoding real-time transponder replies at several locations, time-stamping them and sending them to a central location for processing. Because each sensor has to time-stamp individual transponder signals, a relatively high bandwidth communications medium was required between each remote sensor and the central server. This is generally viewed as a barrier to large-scale implementation of wide area surveillance networks, especially in more remote regions where there may be limited communications infrastructure.
Era's patented techniques alleviate this problem, allowing users to manage massive amounts of real-time aircraft transponder information and use a variety of existing datalink and network implementations with various bandwidth constraints. Furthermore, the technique accommodates both passive and active surveillance systems for air traffic control, military, homeland security and commercial airport applications.
Era's solutions include hardware, software and systems for correlating flight identification data with aircraft registration numbers, including correlation of flight identification data from aircraft communications with the data from Mode S and ADS-B transponder transmissions. For some applications, this creates the same data as an air traffic controller would see, without the need for any active interrogation or connection to any Air Traffic Control equipment.
"Once again, Era has introduced truly ground-breaking solutions to facilitate the practical and early implementation of proven innovative surveillance solutions that will provide all users with tangible benefits," said Dave Ellison, President and CEO of Era Corporation. "This new technology allows for a myriad of opportunities, ranging from improving air traffic control efficiency and homeland security applications to aircraft noise mitigation and will help better serve all of our customers."
The latest patent is U.S. patent 7,248,219.
For more information about the new era in surveillance, visit the company's Web site.
About Era
Era Corporation is a pioneer and leading supplier of next-generation surveillance and flight tracking solutions for the air traffic control, military, homeland security and airport operations markets. With proven multilateration and ADS-B technologies delivering high performance, high reliability surveillance solutions, the company has over 100 commercial, air traffic control and military customers throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America and Asia. Era's investment in research and development and its track record of product innovation has resulted in a substantial patent portfolio. Era is headquartered in Reston, VA, with leading product research and development centers of excellence in the U.S. and Czech Republic.