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İbrahim Sünnetçi

The National Primary Surveillance Radar Installed and Set Up at Gaziantep Airport

Issue 3 - 2020
The National Primary Surveillance Radar Installed and Set Up at Gaziantep Airport

In the civil aviation domain, Primary Surveillance Radars (PSRs) are used to be integrated with the MODE-S interrogator, which is based on a cooperative surveillance technique. The installation and set up efforts of the MGR National Primary Surveillance Radar (MGR/PSR), with a redundant structure, was completed in mid-February 2020 at Gaziantep Airport. Developed under the MGR/Mode-S SSR Radar Development and Installation Project signed between General Directorate of State Airports (DHMI) and TUBITAK Informatics and Information Security Research Center (BILGEM) in December 2017, the MGR, which has an algorithm capable of tracking moving targets and measuring the location and density of precipitation, will be delivered to DHMI until the end of February after the completion of the tests. The MGR, the tower and building construction of which was completed at Gaziantep Airport, is of critical importance in terms of being the first civil aviation radar system developed with national and domestic resources in Turkey. The entire infrastructure and software of the system was also developed indigenously. The MGR Radar System allows traffic controllers to perform their duties more safely and securely and aircraft will have safer landings and take-offs thanks to its capability to detect the positions of the aircraft (distance, direction and altitude) within the air traffic control services. History of the project The MGR, National Primary Surveillance Radar was developed for the purpose of civil or military air traffic control and determination of precipitation within the scope of the KUSRAD R&D Project in cooperation with TÜBİTAK BILGEM and DHMI. The MGR/PSR is a Solid-State Pulse-Doppler Radar operating in S-band and was designed in accordance with the ICAO and EUROCONTROL standards and guidelines. By using coherent advanced signal processing, aircraft up to 60 nautical miles under different weather conditions can be detected and tracked. The system can simultaneously track up to 1,000 targets via Moving Target Detection (MTD) and Clutter Reduction capability by using low/high beam selection, sensitivity time control (STC), adaptive clutter map and Doppler filters. Also, the weather channel can provide 6 levels of rain strength information at 1,4° to 0,95 nautical miles resolution and 2D location of rain zones. The system has a clear spectrum output in accordance with the limits defined by NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration). The MGR, Turkey`s first national PSR Radar System, is expected to be considered for meeting DHMI’s future new PSR (Primary Surveillance Radar) requirements as well as PSR modernization needs with national means. The MGR/Mode-S SSR Radar Development and Installation Project was launched to further develop the existing MGR/PSR, the acceptance of which took place in 2017 and was installed and set up at the TÜBİTAK BILGEM Gebze campus, to achieve redundancy and to develop a new Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) system with MODE-S capabilities and then integrate it to MGR/PSR to achieve a working combined PSR/SSR Mode-S radar system. Within the scope of the MGR /Mode-S SSR Radar Development and Installation Project the existing MGR/PSR System was rendered redundant with the necessary additional improvements made by TÜBITAK BILGEM and then was installed in the vicinity of Gaziantep Airport. Afterwards, the demonstration of the Mode-S SSR Radar System prototype, which is being developed by TÜBITAK BILGEM with national facilities, is planned to be carried out in the TÜBİTAK Gebze campus, and later integrated into the Gaziantep MGR/PSR System. Finally, both radar systems (MGR/PSR + SSR/Mode-S) will be integrated into the Gaziantep Approach Control System, which will be installed by DHMI under a separate contract and will be actively used in air traffic control services. The Project with a 42-month timeline will be completed in 2022. The interface of the MGR PSR + SSR / Mode-S System with other systems is in ASTERIX (CAT 240, CAT 34, CAT 48, CAT 008) format, MGR outputs can be transferred to other systems at the airport via ASTERIX format over TCP-UDP/IP. As part of the installation work of the PSR + SSR (Mode-S) version of MGR for air traffic control at Gaziantep Airport, a tender was held on December 28, 2018 for the construction of the Reinforced Concrete Radar Tower and Control Center on an area of 4,000m2. According to the 2018 DHMI Annual Report, 8 PSR (Primary Surveillance Radar), 25 SSR (Secondary Surveillance Radar) and 13 ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) systems have been serving in Turkey’s airspace as of the end of 2018. As a result of the installation of an on-mounted PSR/Mode-S SSR system at Istanbul Airport and a stand-alone Mode-S SSR system for Muğla, Dalaman Airport, the number of PSRs and SSRs in service has increased. In order to renew the Dalaman SSR System that has completed its economic life, and to establish 1 PSR/SSR System at Istanbul New Airport, Spanish INDRA Sistemas S.A. and DHMI signed the "Renewal of Dalaman SSR System and PSR/Mode-S SSR System Supply and Installation Contract" on December 8, 2016. Within the scope of the contract, the provisional acceptance of Istanbul Airport PSR/Mode-S SSR System was made on December 3, 2018, and the provisional acceptance of the Dalaman Mode-S SSR System on February 7, 2019. Both systems have been activated. MGR/PSR Technical Features • S-Band solid state pulse Doppler radar • Coherent signal processing • Pulse compression (Nonlinear FM) • PRI/PRF Staggering • Frequency Staggering • Doppler filter banks and MTI • Weather channel with 6 levels of precipitation reporting • Antenna beam (modified cosecant squared 45° vertical (low and high beam), 1,45° horizontal) • Circular and linear polarization • Antenna rotation speed >= 12 rpm • Max. Range: 60 nmi • Range resolution < 200 m • Power >=18 k W peak • PRF: staggered PRF (830 Hz average) • Doppler processing: > 4 bank Doppler filtering • Target tracking speed interval 60-300 m/s • Maximum number of targets 1,000 • Weather channel resolution 1,4°-0,95 nmi / 6 levels rain information • Interface PPI console • System interface EUROCONTROL ASTERIX CAT240 video, CAT34 service messages, ASTERIX CAT48 plot/track


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