Abstract—Existing ground movement surveillance technologies at airports are subjected to limitations due to shadowing effects or multiple reflections. Therefore, there is a strong demand for a new sensing technology, which will be cost effective and will provide detection of non-cooperative targets under any weather conditions. This paper aims to present a new intelligent system, developed within the framework of the EC-funded ISMAEL project, which is based on a new magnetic sensing technology and provides detection, tracking and automatic classification of targets moving on the airport surface. The system is currently being installed at two European airports. Initial experimental results under real airport traffic demonstrate the great potential of the proposed system. Keywords—Air traffic management, magnetic sensors, multi- tracking, A-SMGCS. I. INTRODUCTION IR traffic control has become an increasingly complex task due to increasing traffic, airport complexity and the number of operations that take place even under low visibility conditions. Recent research has shown that traffic volumes at European airports will continue to increase leading to at least Manuscript received May 31, 2006. This work was supported in part by the European Commission under Contract No IST-507774 K. Dimitropoulos is with the Informatics and Telematics Institute, PO Box 361 GR-57001, Thessaloniki, Greece (e-mail: dimitrop@iti.gr). N. Grammalidis is with the Informatics and Telematics Institute, PO Box 361 GR-57001, Thessaloniki, Greece (e-mail: ngramm@iti.gr). I. Gragopoulos is with the Informatics and Telematics Institute, PO Box 361 GR-57001, Thessaloniki, Greece (e-mail: grag@iti.gr). H. Gao is with the Institute of Experimental Physics, Saarland University, Saarbruecken, 66041 Germany (e-mail: h.gao@mx.uni-saarland.de). Th. Heuer is with the Institute of Experimental Physics, Saarland University, Saarbruecken, 66041 Germany (e-mail: t.heuer@mx.uni- saarland.de). M. Weinmann is with Votronic GmbH, St. Ingbert, 66386 Germany (e- mail: mweinmann@votronic.com). S. Voit is with Votronic GmbH, St. Ingbert, 66386 Germany (e-mail: svoit@votronic.com). C. Stockhammer is with HiTec – Vereinigung High Tech Marketing, 1030 Vienna, Austria (e-mail: cs@hitec.at) U. Hartmann is with the Institute of Experimental Physics, Saarland University, Saarbruecken, 66041 Germany (e-mail: u.hartmann@mx.uni- saarland.de). N. Pavlidou is with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, PO Box 361GR-57001, Thessaloniki, Greece (e-mail: niovi@eng.auth.gr). a doubling in traffic every 12 years [1][2]. Furthermore, statistics from Eurocontrol (the European organization for the safety of air navigation) and FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) reveal that the highest risk portion of a flight refers in fact to ground movements [3]. Specifically, runway incursion is considered as one of the most critical safety issues for all airports (e.g. the incident at Linate airport in Milano in October 2001 [4]). This problem is increasingly addressed by advanced systems, called A-SMGCS (Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control Systems) [5], whose main goal is to provide maintenance of uninterrupted traffic capacity under any weather conditions. A-SMGCS systems are mainly based on surface movement primary radars (SMR). However, this technology suffers from limitations e.g. shadowing effects or multiple reflections. Thus, most of the large airports are equipped with additional sensors, e.g. multi-lateration systems, whose function relies on signals from Mode-S transponders on board aircraft. Nevertheless, even multi- lateration systems are subjected to limitations. For instance, multi-lateration is subjected to interference caused by reflections, while non-cooperative targets (e.g. vehicle or aircraft either without or with switched-off Mode-S transponder) cannot be detected by the system increasing so the risk of a runway incursion. For these reasons, a new sensing technology is required in order to improve safety and efficiency of ground movements at airports. The EC-funded research project ISMAEL [6] aims to determine whether recent advances in magnetic sensing can provide improved surface movement surveillance at airports. The resulting system can either be used as an additional sensor to cover blind spots in an existing A-SMGCS system at major airports or as a cost-effective alternative to SMR (Surface Movement Radar) for smaller airports. A survey carried out with approximately 500 European airports revealed that around 80% of the responding airports are based on tower outside view only to perform surveillance and guidance of airport ground traffic. In addition, 40% of the airports are affected by low visibility, which is defined as a runway visual range of less than 400m for more than 15 days a year. Without any technological aid, airport operation has to shut down in this case, thus significantly limiting an airport’s general Detection, Tracking and Classification of Vehicles and Aircraft based on Magnetic Sensing Technology K. Dimitropoulos, N. Grammalidis, I. Gragopoulos, H. Gao, Th. Heuer, M. Weinmann, S. Voit, C. Stockhammer, U. Hartmann, and N. Pavlidou A International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computer Sciences 1;4 © www.waset.org Fall 2005 195