I.

INTRODUCTION
AbstractIn data fusion of airborne radar and ADS-B, data
accuracy of these systems will directly determine accuracy of
fusion result. As to decrease errors and obtain precise
estimation trajectory, it is critical to analyze errors
characteristics. The paper discusses errors of airborne radar
occurred in the fusion process, which include coordinate
conversion errors and kinematic errors. The difference of
statistic characteristic between former errors and converted
errors, and the relation between kinematic errors and
positioning errors are analyzed. In addition, to account for the
shortage of Kalman fusion algorithm during the period that
GNSS breaks down, this paper also discuss a fixed coefficient K
of radar slant-range error, method to calculate K and correction
on radar data. Simulation result indicates that fusion errors are
reduced by considering airborne radar errors and coefficient K.
UTOMATIC Dependent Surveillance Broadcast
(ADS-B for short) and radar are important means of
aeronautic surveillance, which provide aircrafts with accurate
real-time monitoring information. Especially during natural
disasters, precise surveillance data is more important to
guarantee aircrafts self-hedging in the complex low airspace,
for large numbers of aircrafts flying in such limited airspace.
Meanwhile, in such situation, ground-based radar has the
following shortages: on one hand, it has blind zone when
objects flying in the low altitude; on the other hand, natural
disaster such as earthquake and debris flow may make
ground-based radar unavailable.
In this case, pilots could only use airborne radar and
ADS-B system for surveillance. Besides, to achieve better
accuracy, data from these systems need to be fused to
overcome the drawbacks of each single system. Research on
fusion technology of airborne radar and ADS-B is necessary.
Researchers throughout the world have done a lot of
studies with respect to ground-based radar and ADS-B fusion
technology. RTK Z-MAX Company analyzes multi-radar and
multi-ADS-B trace fusion structure, aimed at solving the
problem that exists in multi-radar and multi-ADS-B trace
fusion
[1-7]
. In view of time synchronization of radar and
ADS-B, theory of extrapolation time synchronization means
and asynchronous Kalman filtering are developed
[8-11]
. Fusion
algorithm on the assumption that aircraft is in the state of
uniform rectilinear motion is researched, which is designed to
settle the matter of insecurity observation
[12]
Manuscript received April 22, 2011. This work was supported in part by
National Basic Research Program of China(973 Program,
No.2011CB707004).
Li Dong is with the School of Electronic and Information Engineering,
Beihang University, Beijing, 100191 China(phone
number:(+86)15201148160; e-mail: fiona1024lee@gmail.com).
Pan Qingge is with Northeast Air Traffic Management Bureau of
CAAC(e-mail: pan0111@vip.sina.com
.
However, all these algorithms are designed to solve the
inconsistency problems that exist during fusion of
ground-based radar and ADS-B data, and not applicable to
airborne radar. Compared to fixed ground-based radar,
airborne radar is equipped on the aircrafts that are moving all
the time. Aircrafts manoeuvre adopts extra errors to airborne
radar data, which may influence the accuracy of estimation
track. Therefore, analysis on airborne radar error is critical.
Moreover, traditional algorithms dont consider the problems
that ADS-B data may disappear due to the break-down of
navigation system.
Focused on above problems, this paper mainly analyzes
airborne radar errors, and makes improvement to traditional
fusion algorithm using K correction. Coordinate conversion
errors and kinematic errors are discussed. From the basic
conversion formula, a series of formula to calculate the
new-converted error statistics characteristics are deduces. For
the kinematic errors, the airborne kinematic errors influence
on positioning is analyzed. Finally, considering the situation
that navigation systems break down, i.e. ADS-B data
unavailable, this paper puts forward an improvement means
through analyzing the fixed coefficient K in the radar
slant-range equation and explains how to calculate K with
ex-data.
II. AIRBORNE RADAR ERRORS
A. Coordinate conversion errors
The first step prior to data fusion is coordinate
unification, for measurement coordinates are different
between airborne radar and ADS-B, i.e. data from airborne
radar locate in polar coordinate while ADS-B data in geodetic
coordinate. Therefore, data from these systems need to be
converted to the same coordinate by coordinate
transformations.
For radars, we use standard coordinate conversion
method that allows us to transform radar data form polar
coordinate to WGS-84 coordinate. The relevant conversion
formula
[13]
cos cos
cos sin
sin
r
T
r
r
x x L
y R L y
z L z
u o
u o
u
| | | | | |
| | |
= +
| | |
| | |
\ . \ . \ .
is shown as follows:
(1)
sin cos sin cos cos
sin cos 0
cos cos cos sin sin
r r r r r
r r
r r r r r
R
| | |

| | |
| |
|
=
|
|
\ .
(2)
Where ( , , )
T
x y z represents position of object;
( , , )
T
r r r
x y z represents position of radar;
r
|
r
represent
latitude and longitude of radar respectively; L, o and u
Error analysis in data fusion of airborne radar and ADS-B
LI Dong, PAN Qingge
A
181 978-1-61284-200-4/11/$26.00 c 2011 IEEE
represent slant-range, azimuth angle and pitch angle between
object and radar; R is coordinate rotation matrix.
In the process of coordinate transformation, statistic
characteristics of errors change, for direction cosine matrix is
produced due to the rotation or translation towards certain
axis. Direction cosine matrix alters errors covariance matrix,
which is an essential element of fusion algorithm. Therefore,
it is indispensable to calculate the new-converted covariance
matrix using ex-matrix.
Statistic characteristics of radar errors are given as:
2
(0, )
L
L N o A
2
(0, ) N
u
u o A
2
(0, ) N
o
o o A .
It is supposed that errors of radar measurements follow
normal distribution, thus ex-covariance-matrix is:
2
2
cov
2
0 0
0 0
0 0
L
ex
R
u
o
o
o
o

| |
|
=
|
|
\ .
(3)
Focused on equation (1) and (3), new-converted
covariance matrix can be obtained, deducing as follows:
The observed polar coordinate and correspond WGS-84
coordinate are:
m
m
m
L L L
u u u
o o o
+ A | | | |
| |
= + A
| |
| |
+ A
\ . \ .
(4)
cos cos
cos sin
sin
m m m m
T
m m m m
m m m
x L
y R L
z L
u o
u o
u
| | | |
| |
=
| |
| |
\ . \ .
(5)
Employ first-order Taylor series expansion at ( , , ) L u o
to equation (5), we obtain:
1 1 1
2 2 2
3 3 2
( , , ) ( , , ) ( , , )
( , , ) ( , , ) ( , , )
( , , ) ( , , ) ( , , )
m
m
m
f L f L f L
L
x x L
f L f L f L
y y
L
z z
f L f L f L
L
u o u o u o
u o
u o u o u o
u
u o
o
u o u o u o
u o
c c c | |
|
c c c
A | | | | | | |
c c c | | | |
= + A
| | | |
c c c
| | |
| A
\ . \ . \ .
c c c
|
|
c c c \ .
(6)
m
r
m
m T
r m
m
m
r
x
x x L
y y y R B
z z
z
u
o
| | A
A | | | | | |
|
| | |
A = = A
|
| | |
| | | |
A
A
\ . \ . \ .
\ .
(7)
Where
cos cos sin cos cos sin
cos sin sin sin cos cos
sin cos 0
L L
B L L
L
u o u o u o
u o u o u o
u u
| |
|
=
|
|
\ .
(8)
Then, new covariance matrix
cov
R can be calculated as:
( )
cov
( )
m
r
m m m m
r r r r
m
r
x
R E y x y z
z
| | A
|
= A A A A
|
|
A
\ .
( ) ( )
T T
L
R BE L B R u u o
o
A | |
|
= A A A A
|
|
A
\ .
2
2
2
0 0
0 0
0 0
L
T T
R B B R
u
o
o
o
o
| |
|
=
|
|
\ .
(9)
B. Airborne radar kinematic error
Airborne radar is equipped on the aircraft and analysis
on radar data is done on ideal hypothesis that aircraft is in
uniform rectilinear motion. However, in the complex low
airspace, this ideal situation is hard to realize due to both the
influence of atmospheric turbulence and manoeuvre of
aircraft itself. Kinematic errors are generated to airborne
radar measurements due to aircrafts velocity error and
acceleration error, correspondingly affecting the accuracy of
positioning.
Aircrafts motion can be resolved into three directions: 1)
orientation direction that forwards ideal trajectory; 2) range
direction that forwards radar sight line; 3) direction that
perpendicular to the plane including orientation direction and
range direction. Among these directions, motion in range
direction is the main source of kinematic error, which causes
large positioning errors.
Assume that velocity and acceleration error in the range
direction is
r
V and
r
a , then the correspond y-direction
error ( )
a
y t at time
a
t can be calculated as:
2
1
( )
2
a e r a r a
y t y V t a t = + +
(10)
( )
a
y t changes echo delay and echo wave signal,
generating x-direction and y-direction errors, shown as (11):
0
cos
( )
0
r
d
r
d
r a
d
r
V
R
dx
V
dy y t
dz
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
= |
|
|
|
| \ .
|
\ .
(11)
The calculation of positioning errors presented above
makes use of ideal model of radar positioning
[14]
.
The real parameters of radar and navigation are shown in
Table
[14]
, and Table
[14]
presents the result of positioning
errors calculated as (11). From the table, we can see that
real-time positioning errors that caused by aircrafts motion
can be calculated using formula (11). With the real-time
positioning errors, we can correct radar measurements
directly, thus compensating kinematic errors.
TABLE .
RADAR OPERATIONAL PARAMETERS AND NAVIGATION
PARAMETERS
Radar operational
parameters
Navigation parameters
Flight speed 50m/s Range error 4m
Flight altitude 7km Velocity error 0.05m/s
Operating
distance
45km Acceleration
error
0.01m/
2
s
TABLE .
RESULTS OF POSITIONING ERRORS
Factor that may
influence positioning
y-direction
error /m
x-direction
error /m
Range error 4 0
Velocity error 0.39 39.60
Acceleration error 0.32 0
182 2011 IEEE 5th International Conference on Cybernetics and Intelligent Systems (CIS)
III. ERROR CORRECTION WITH COEFFICIENT K
ADS-B is a surveillance application based on Global
Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and air-to-air data link
of communication system. Currently, GNSS is the only
source of ADS-B data and essential ingredient of ADS-B
system, shown as Fig.1. The accuracy and creditability of
ADS-B is determined directly by precision of GNSS.
Therefore, once GNSS breaks down, ADS-B will be unable to
provide users with monitoring information.
In this case, traditional Kalman algorithm can make use
of radar data and previous ADS-B data to estimate trajectory,
but the estimation errors will be considerably large for
unavailability of real-time ADS-B data and inaccuracy of
radar data. The primary goal of this section is to correct radar
measurements to achieve better accuracy, fixed coefficient K,
which appears in the slant-rang formula, is considered.
Radar measurement errors include three aspects: slant
range errors, altitudinal angle errors and azimuth angle errors.
Hereinto, slant range errors approximately equal to one in a
thousand of the range between radar and objective. Therefore,
with the increase of range between radar and objective, radar
errors will correspondingly increase, which contributes to a
worse accuracy of estimation trajectory.
Fig. 1: ADS-B Monitoring Structure
As is known to us, slant range about objective is
represented as:
g
L L K L n = + +
(12)
Where L is the real distance between radar and objective; n
is white Gaussian noise; K is a fixed coefficient (for certain
period).
Coefficient K is almost fixed during a certain period
(from the moment that radar start-up to the next moment that
restarting), thus K L can be seen as fixed error term. This
trait of radar leads us to have an ideaif we can calculate
coefficient K and subtract K L from (12), then only
random errors are left and the corrected errors will be
reduced.
To calculate coefficient K, previous (when GNSS not
yet breaks down) ADS-B and radar data are used. From a
practical point of view, we assume ADS-B data contain
accurate information about objective, for the measurement
errors of GNSS are less than 30m which can be neglected
comparing with errors of radar. On this assumption, we have
the real slant range of ten occasions:
1 2
, ......
n
L L L . Put them
into equation (12),
1 2
, ......
n
K K K .are obtained and
coefficient K equals to the mean of
1 2
, ......
n
K K K .
Simulations are conducted with traditional Kalman
fusion algorithm and improved Kalman algorithm using K
correction. Fig. 2 shows the comparison of estimation errors
using these two means. Fig.2 indicates that: 1)Without
real-time ADS-B data, traditional Kalman fusion algorithm
can still use previous ADS-B data to estimate trajectory, but
contain considerable large errors.2) With K correction,
estimation errors are reduced, but still larger than those
during GNSS is in normal operation.
Fig. 2 Fusion errors comparison
IV. DATA FUSION
Data fusion of airborne radar and ADS-B mainly
include the following aspects:
1) Time-space calibration: in order to convert airborne
radar and ADS-B data into the same time-space
coordinate, containing time alignment and coordinate
unification.
2) Error correction: aims to decrease the errors,
including systemic errors, measurement errors, kinematic
errors and random errors.
3) Trajectory correlation match: associate radar data
and ADS-B data concerning the same objective, as to
detect errors that may happen during transportation.
4) Data fusion and trajectory estimation: estimate the
trajectory with fusion algorithms using covariance matrix
cov
R . Basic fusion algorithms include weighting least
square and Kalman fusion, in which covariance matrix
cov
R is indispensable.
Fig.3 indicates the whole process concerning data fusion
of airborne radar and ADS-B.
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
-0.4
-0.3
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
Error comparison with K correction
E
r
r
o
r
s
/
k
m
Time/s
Errors without K correction
Errors with K correction
2011 IEEE 5th International Conference on Cybernetics and Intelligent Systems (CIS) 183
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V. CONCLUSION
The paper studies errors in the fusion of airborne radar
and ADS-B. Theoretical analysis of airborne errors works in
the correction of positioning and final fusion algorithm. In
addition, K correction is also discussed in this paper and
simulation results show that the improved means decrease the
extra errors which are derived from flight in the complex
environment, thus presenting a solution to the problem of
trajectory deviation during the period that GNSS breaks
down.
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184 2011 IEEE 5th International Conference on Cybernetics and Intelligent Systems (CIS)