Abstract

A new method is envisaged for obtaining information on the structure of temperature and humidity in the atmosphere. Radio waves transmitted by aircraft suffer refraction (bending), especially when the aircraft is distant and close to the horizon. It should be possible to measure the angle of arrival (AoA) of the transmissions using an interferometer installed on a tower. Knowledge of the exact location of the aircraft then enables the bending due to the atmosphere to be calculated. Before any trial of the technique can go ahead, we need to model the data in to understand the sensitivity to changes in the atmospheric structure and the required accuracy for the AoA measurement. The initial data modelling would involve ray-tracing using synthetic or idealised data for aircraft locations and atmospheric structure.