Tracking technology has really improved in the modern age. Even though the tracking technology is at our disposal, there are still a number of cases of vanishing airplanes. Tracking systems have been in place for some time, but airplane tracking has not evolved substantially for some decades back. Airports still rely on ground-based radar systems that hold very critical flight information.
Technologies for tracking airplanes that are of great importance
Radar systems
The radar systems are designed for decoding out radio-frequency signals that are produced by electronic devices. They measure the waves that are reflected and bounce away from the target, to determine where the airplane located and the sleep at which it is flying. At high frequencies, these radar system components are able to send and receive back signals that become increasingly noisy.
Primary radar systems detect the position of an airplane after sending and collecting the reflected radio signals to the targeted aircraft. Radio radar can only work up to a distance 150 miles from the land. However, the different radar systems are used along with the particular airplanes. radar systems can be radio radar and even the military radar systems.
Light-based system
The signals that are generated by the laser are very stable because they produce less noise. This implies that precise tracking of the location of an airplane in the sky can sweep a larger spatial area when scanning.
Light-based systems use high-frequency signals that trigger the deployment of radar antennas in several locations. Using photonic devices indicates that the system is very flexible. It can scan and send signals at different levels of frequencies. The Current radar components only work for a very narrow range of frequencies.
Satellites
Satellites are also used to track airplanes while they fly very high in the clouds. It is been proven that satellite communication signals are picked after some time. ACARS works using the same logic as the satellites. When signing a contract with Inmarsat Company, grants you the right to transmitting ACARS messages through satellite.
Military radar systems
The military radar systems help to track everything that is above the earth’s crust. However, they are not often in use. The states militaries do not pay enough attention to the commercial flights except when there is a security issue. A good example is the MH370 that managed to move across three Malaysian air force radar system installations without any agency noticing it. Seven days later, a review was carried out by the radar data and it was revealed the MH370 was still moving by 2:15 a.m. This phenomenon made the military from the neighboring countries to start looking back to their own radar information.
The aireonsystem
The Aireon system is a recent airplane tracking technology that is a Global space-based ADS-B coverage system. It was designed to back up the other tracking systems. From this Aireon, the idea of moving the radar stations from the land to space was born. NTSB is a company that wants to track every aircraft’s location using the satellite setting. Aireon manufactures have an automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast that relays signals to a receiver at the Iridium satellite which revolving around the Earth.