A Universal Software Defined Radio Setup for Measuring Airport NavCom Infractures

This contribution discusses the feasibility of performing inspection and compliance measurements of airport navigation and surveillance infrastructures by means of commercially available software defined radios. With the advanced technology in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) inspection measurements could be conducted with drones, which allow a very effective way for assessing a large space around airport infrastructures. Since basically in-situ measurements of such navigation systems require always at least two channels, i.e. one channel for measuring the signal variation in space, and one channel for calibration of statistical effects of the system, a multi-channel software defined radio (SDR) setup provides a commercially available solution for this type of measurements. A universal setup of such a system is discussed in this contribution, along with a performance assessment of uncertainties in a laboratory setup. Finally, example measurements are presented for a UAV-flight inspection of an instrument landing system at an airport.