Acoustic tracking of aircraft using a circular microphone array sensor

Runway Incursion Avoidance Systems (RIAS) are vital parts in the prevention of runway accidents at airports. Such systems depend on the accurate positioning of aircraft and ground vehicles. Today, RADAR is the predominant method, but a RADAR based system might be both impractical and too expensive for small airports. Additionally, the redundancy of several independent systems is sought after even at large airports. We investigate the application of a low-cost circular microphone array solution for acoustic detection and tracking of aircraft. The shape of the array yields 360° coverage with equal characteristics in all directions. An algorithm based on sweeps performed with the Capon adaptive beamformer followed by peak detection and thresholding is implemented for real time use. The performance of the system is tested at Evenes airport in Norway.