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The AN/MPN is a mobile Ground-controlled approach radar first used during World War II. "MPN" is Joint Electronics Type Designation System nomenclature for (Ground) Mobile (M), Pulsed (P), Navigation aid (N).
Earlier radars included the AN-FPN-36 "Quad Radar", a compact and portable system that could function as either an airport surveillance radar, GCA radar, non-precision ASR approach radar, or airport surface detection equipment, and the AN-CPN-4, a larger, more modern and precise system that provided those functions. The AN/MPN-26 program was cancelled in 2008.
Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airspace. The primary purpose of ATC is to prevent collisions, organize and expedite the flow of traffic in the air, and provide information and other support for pilots.
In aviation, the instrument landing system (ILS) is a precision radio navigation system that provides short-range guidance to aircraft to allow them to approach a runway at night or in bad weather. In its original form, it allows an aircraft to approach until it is 200 feet (61 m) over the ground, within a 1⁄2 mile (800 m) of the runway. At that point the runway should be visible to the pilot; if it is not, they perform a missed approach. Bringing the aircraft this close to the runway dramatically increases the range of weather conditions in which a safe landing can be made. Other versions of the system, or "categories", have further reduced the minimum altitudes, runway visual ranges (RVRs), and transmitter and monitoring configurations designed depending on the normal expected weather patterns and airport safety requirements.
A tactical air navigation system, commonly referred to by the acronym TACAN, is a navigation system initially designed for naval aircraft to acquire moving landing platforms and later expanded for use by other military aircraft. It provides the user with bearing and distance to a ground or ship-borne station. It is, from an end-user perspective, a more accurate version of the VOR/DME system that provides bearing and range information for civil aviation. The DME portion of the TACAN system is available for civil use; at VORTAC facilities where a VOR is combined with a TACAN, civil aircraft can receive VOR/DME readings. Aircraft equipped with TACAN avionics can use this system for enroute navigation as well as non-precision approaches to landing fields. However, a TACAN-only equipped aircraft cannot receive bearing information from a VOR-only station.
The AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel is an X-band electronically steered pulse-Doppler 3D radar system used to alert and cue Short Range Air Defense (SHORAD) weapons to the locations of hostile targets approaching their front line forces. It is currently produced by Raytheon Missiles & Defense.
The microwave landing system (MLS) is an all-weather, precision radio guidance system intended to be installed at large airports to assist aircraft in landing, including 'blind landings'. MLS enables an approaching aircraft to determine when it is aligned with the destination runway and on the correct glidepath for a safe landing. MLS was intended to replace or supplement the instrument landing systems (ILS). MLS has a number of operational advantages over ILS, including a wider selection of channels to avoid interference with nearby installations, excellent performance in all weather, a small "footprint" at the airports, and wide vertical and horizontal "capture" angles that allowed approaches from wider areas around the airport.
Precision approach radar orPAR is a type of radar guidance system designed to provide lateral and vertical guidance to an aircraft pilot for landing, until the landing threshold is reached. Controllers monitoring the PAR displays observe each aircraft's position and issue instructions to the pilot that keep the aircraft on course and glidepath during final approach. After the aircraft reaches the decision height (DH) or decision altitude (DA), further guidance is advisory only. The overall concept is known as ground-controlled approach (GCA), and this name was also used to refer to the radar systems in the early days of its development.
The air traffic control radar beacon system (ATCRBS) is a system used in air traffic control (ATC) to enhance surveillance radar monitoring and separation of air traffic. It consists of a rotating ground antenna and transponders in aircraft. The ground antenna sweeps a narrow vertical beam of microwaves around the airspace. When the beam strikes an aircraft, the transponder transmits a return signal back giving information such as altitude and the Squawk Code, a four digit code assigned to each aircraft that enters a region. Information about this aircraft is then entered into the system and subsequently added to the controller's screen to display this information when queried. This information can include flight number designation and altitude of the aircraft. ATCRBS assists air traffic control (ATC) surveillance radars by acquiring information about the aircraft being monitored, and providing this information to the radar controllers. The controllers can use the information to identify radar returns from aircraft and to distinguish those returns from ground clutter.
The AN/APG-66 radar is an X-band solid state medium range pulse-Doppler planar array radar originally designed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation for use in early generations of the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Later F-16 variants use the AN/APG-68 or the AN/APG-83. This radar was employed in all domestic and export versions of the F-16A/B models throughout the production. Subsequent upgrades have been installed in many varying aircraft types including the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's C-550 Cessna Citation, US Navy P-3 Orion, and Piper PA-42 Cheyenne II's.
A transponder landing system (TLS) is an all-weather, precision landing system that uses existing airborne transponder and instrument landing system (ILS) equipment to create a precision approach at a location where an ILS would normally not be available.
The SCR-584 was an automatic-tracking microwave radar developed by the MIT Radiation Laboratory during World War II. It was one of the most advanced ground-based radars of its era, and became one of the primary gun laying radars used worldwide well into the 1950s. A trailer-mounted mobile version was the SCR-784.
An airport surveillance radar (ASR) is a radar system used at airports to detect and display the presence and position of aircraft in the terminal area, the airspace around airports. It is the main air traffic control system for the airspace around airports. At large airports it typically controls traffic within a radius of 60 miles (96 km) of the airport below an elevation of 25,000 feet. The sophisticated systems at large airports consist of two different radar systems, the primary and secondary surveillance radar. The primary radar typically consists of a large rotating parabolic antenna dish that sweeps a vertical fan-shaped beam of microwaves around the airspace surrounding the airport. It detects the position and range of aircraft by microwaves reflected back to the antenna from the aircraft's surface. The secondary surveillance radar consists of a second rotating antenna, often mounted on the primary antenna, which interrogates the transponders of aircraft, which transmits a radio signal back containing the aircraft's identification, barometric altitude, and an emergency status code, which is displayed on the radar screen next to the return from the primary radar.
Hughes AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder weapon locating system is a mobile radar system developed in the mid-late 1970s by Hughes Aircraft Company and manufactured by Northrop Grumman and ThalesRaytheonSystems, achieving initial operational capability in May 1982. The system is a "weapon-locating radar", designed to detect and track incoming mortar, artillery and rocket fire to determine the point of origin for counter-battery fire. It is currently in service at battalion and higher levels in the United States Army, United States Marine Corps, Australian Army, Portuguese Army, Turkish Army, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The JY-9 Radar is a mobile S band low altitude search radar intended for use in air defense, gap filling, airport surveillance, and coastal defense. It is designed for effective detection of targets at low altitude in both ECM and natural clutter environments. The general designer of the JY-9 is academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences Mr. Wu Manqing, the head of 38th Research Institute, who is also the general designer of the JY-8 Radar and of the radar systems for the KJ-2000 and KJ-200 early warning aircraft.
The AN/MPN-14K Mobile Ground Approach System can be configured as a complete Radar Approach Control (RAPCON) or Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) facility.
In aviation, a ground-controlled approach (GCA) is a type of service provided by air-traffic controllers whereby they guide aircraft to a safe landing, including in adverse weather conditions, based on primary radar images. Most commonly, a GCA uses information from either a precision approach radar or an airport surveillance radar. The term GCA may refer to any type of ground radar guided approach such as a PAR, PAR without glideslope or ASR. When both vertical and horizontal guidance from the PAR is given, the approach is termed a precision approach. If no PAR glidepath is given, even if PAR equipment is used for lateral guidance, it is considered a non-precision approach.
The Bars (Leopard) is a family of Russian all-weather multimode airborne radars developed by the Tikhomirov Scientific Research Institute of Instrument Design for multi-role combat aircraft such as the Su-27, Su-30 and the MiG-29.
During World War II, the German Luftwaffe relied on an increasingly diverse array of electronic communications, IFF and RDF equipment as avionics in its aircraft and also on the ground. Most of this equipment received the generic prefix FuG for Funkgerät, meaning "radio equipment". Most of the aircraft-mounted Radar equipment also used the FuG prefix. This article is a list and a description of the radio, IFF and RDF equipment.
Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) is an aviation surveillance technology and form of electronic conspicuity in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation or other sensors and periodically broadcasts its position and other related data, enabling it to be tracked. The information can be received by air traffic control ground-based or satellite-based receivers as a replacement for secondary surveillance radar (SSR). Unlike SSR, ADS-B does not require an interrogation signal from the ground or from other aircraft to activate its transmissions. ADS-B can also receive point-to-point by other nearby equipped ADS-B equipped aircraft to provide traffic situational awareness and support self-separation.
The P-18 or 1RL131Terek is a 2D VHF radar developed and operated by the former Soviet Union.
Irbis-E is a Russian multi-mode, hybrid passive electronically scanned array radar system developed by Tikhomirov NIIP for the Sukhoi Su-35 multi-purpose fighter aircraft. NIIP developed the Irbis-E radar from the N011M Bars radar system used on Sukhoi Su-30MKI aircraft.