DME ground apparatus

• US 7,639,174 B2
• Filed: 05/29/2008
• Issued: 12/29/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Kamimura, Yukihiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Sotomayor; John B
• Application Number:
  US12/129,032
• Publication Number:
  US 20080297398A1
• Time in Patent Office: 579 Days
• Field of Search: 342/42, 342/47, 342/30, 342/38, 342/173, 342/174
• US Class Current: 342/47
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/785 Distance Measuring Equipment [DME] systems

Abstract

In a DME ground apparatus, under the control of a transmission-rate monitoring control unit, the transponder unit decodes an interrogation signal it has received and generates a response signal. The transmission rate at which to transmit the response signal is monitored. If the result of the monitoring indicates that the transmission rate has reached a preset value, the response signal is transmitted from the DME ground apparatus. If the result of the monitoring indicates that the transmission rate has not reached a preset value, squitter pulses are transmitted from the DME ground apparatus.

Claims

1. A DME ground apparatus comprising:

an aerial unit that receives an interrogation signal from an aircraft;

a transponder unit that receives the interrogation signal from the aerial unit, generates a response signal in response to the interrogation signal and generates and transmits squitter pulses; and

a monitor control unit that monitors and controls the transponder unit, wherein

the transponder unit monitors a transmission rate at which the response signal is transmitted, which has been generated by decoding the interrogation signal received, and, in accordance with a result of monitor, transmits the response signal when the transmission rate reaches a preset value, and transmits the squitter pulses in place of the response signal when the transmission rate does not reach the present value.

2. The DME ground apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the transponder unit has an interrogation-signal receiving unit that receives the interrogation signal from the aircraft and decodes the interrogation signal, a response-signal generating unit that generates a response signal from the signal decoded by the interrogation-signal receiving unit, a response-signal supplying unit that supplies the response signal generated by the response-signal generating unit, a transmission-rate monitoring control unit that monitors and controls transmission rate at which the response signal is supplied from the response-signal supplying unit, and a squitter-pulse generating unit that generates squitter pulses.

3. The DME ground apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

the interrogation-signal receiving unit is a decoder that performs automatic threshold control and pulse-width discrimination, thus decoding, thereby discriminating the received interrogation signal.

4. The DME ground apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

the response-signal generating unit imparts a preset system-delay time to the signal decoded by the interrogation-signal receiving unit, and encodes the signal, thereby generating a response signal.

5. The DME ground apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

the squitter-pulse generating unit keeps generating random pulses from which squitter pulses are generated.

6. The DME ground apparatus according to claim 5, wherein

the squitter-pulse generating unit generates random pulses from a random signal obtained from a digital circuit.

7. The DME ground apparatus according to claim 6, wherein

the digital circuit is a PN code generating circuit that generates an PN code composed of pseudo noise pulses and pseudo random pulses.