Definition:
ILS provides lateral and vertical guidance to an aircraft approaching and landing on a runway.
The aircraft is guided by the ILS receiver on the plane through performing modulation depth comparison (DDM: Difference in the depth of modulation).
ILS consists of two independent sub-system:
- Localizer: for lateral guidance, along the axis of runway
- Glide path: for vertical guidance
Thus ILS also has two radio frequencies, 110 MHz for Localizer and 330MHz for Glide path
Localizer
- Carrier wave frequency: 108 - 112 MHz
- The carrier wave is modulated into 90Hz and 150Hz respectively
- Although 2 modulated tones (90 and 150Hz) are given, the antenna array only sends one beam, where these two pure AM signals are mixed and create two other signals: CSB and SBO.
- CSB (Carrier with sidebands) and SBO (sidebands only)
- When spread into space, these two signals are combined by space modulation
- Space modulation: incorporates the use of multiple antennas and fed with various radio frequency power and phase to create the depth of modulation within various volumes of three-dimensional air space.
- Clearance signal:
- It is very difficult to obtain a highly directional beam, like the course beam, without residual secondary lobes.
- The clearance signal is sent together with course signal to flood these secondary lobes whose power is relatively limited.
- The clearance signal has a power level of 10 dB less than the course level (a tenth of the power) and is radiated with a less directional pattern.
- The DDM for a localizer at the outer extremity of the course sector is 0.155
Glide Path
- Frequency Band: 329-335 MHz
- Provide vertical guidance to ensure the airplane follow the glide path which is approximately 3 degree above the horizontal ground level.
- 5 different types of glide-type arrays are in used, three of them are image arrays, which are null-reference system (with 2 antennas 14 and 28 above the ground level), side-band reference system and capture-effect system (with 3 antennas, 14, 28 and 42 above the ground level).
- Each antenna and its image form a two-element interferometer, multiple lobes are produced along the vertical plane (but actually the produced signal should provide vertical guidance)
VOR
VHF (Very High Frequency) Omni-Directional Range: short-range radio navigation system, enabling aircraft to determine their position and stay on course by receiving signal from the fixed ground transmitter.
- included signal:
- omni-directional master signal (reference signal)
- highly directional second signal (variable signal), whose phase is shifted clockwise w.r.t a reference direction.
By comparing the phase of secondary signal with the master signal, the angle to the aircraft from the station can be determined.
- The line of position is called “radial” from the VOR
- The intersection of radials from two VOR stations can be used to fix the aircraft position.