Summary
A set of mathematical models and computer programs have been developed to characterize multipath propagation in an airport environment. When combined with system mathematical models, these models are intended to provide a firm technical basis for assessing the performance of candidate Microwave Landing Systems (MLS) in realistic airport environments. The two paramount issues in developing these models have been 1) validation based on actual field test data and 2) computer running time. The obstacles modeled include buildings and aircraft, as well as the ground which can cause both specular reflections and diffuse scattering. In addition, the shadowing effects due to runway humps, and aircraft, buildings approaching the line of sight between transmitter and receiver are included. Computational procedures are presented for obtaining the salient multipath parameters, i.e., relative magnitude, phase, directional angles, Doppler frequency, and time delay. Computer programs have been written for these algorithms using the Fortran programming language, with structured programming methods, such as Iftran, employed whenever possible. A presentation is given of computer validation data for the computational procedures. A comparison of these computer validation results with experimental field data demonstrates good agreement in all cases of interest. The computer running time for these computer programs is quite reasonable, e.g., it takes about five times longer than actual flight time to run a model of typical airport environment on an IBM 370 model 168.