Development of a Three-dimensional Aviation Unusual Weather Detection System Based on the use of ADS-B 1090MHz Data

Hao-Wei Peng and Shau-Shiun Jan

Abstract:	Unusual weather conditions, such as low level wind shear, downdraft and clear-air turbulence, are potential hazards for aviation operations. The current aviation unusual weather detection systems used around airports utilize several ground-based meteorological monitoring stations to observe the weather information. However, these systems, such as of the low level wind shear alert system (LLWAS), can only detect the unusual weather near the ground surface level. It is thus necessary to improve current aviation unusual weather detection systems. In this paper we propose using aircraft ADS-B Mode-S ES data to develop a vertical weather profile to augment the current aviation unusual weather detection system, and by doing so all aircrafts with ADS-B systems can serve as our weather sensors in the air, and thus a three-dimensional aviation unusual weather detection system can be established. As a result, the objective of this work is the evaluation of the correlation between the decoded ADS-B data and the unusual weather conditions. This paper first conducts the necessary transformations of the decoded ADS-B data to the weather parameters. After these transformations and adjustments of the parameters derived from ADS-B Mode-S ES data, their feasibilities for use with the unusual weather detection algorithms are analyzed. In addition, the abnormal movements of the aircraft observed from the decoded ADS-B data might be interpreted as possible turbulence. Therefore, the observed abnormal movements of aircraft are validated using the turbulence alert messages from pilot reports. Finally, the results of using a three-dimensional aviation unusual weather detection system prototype based on the ADS-B data are presented in this paper.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2016 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 25 - 28, 2016 Hyatt Regency Monterey Monterey, California
Pages:	564 - 572
Cite this article:	Peng, Hao-Wei, Jan, Shau-Shiun, "Development of a Three-dimensional Aviation Unusual Weather Detection System Based on the use of ADS-B 1090MHz Data," Proceedings of the 2016 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Monterey, California, January 2016, pp. 564-572. https://doi.org/10.33012/2016.13435
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