AJB 30203:

AIRCRAFT RADAR SYSTEMS:

DISTANCE MEASURING EQUIPMENT
(DME)

ASSOC. PROF. TS. DR. HARLISYA

HARUN
harlisya@unikl.edu.my
13 May 2020
Figure: Various antenna types and their placement on an Airbus A380 airliner.
Source: Aircraft drawing from www. norebbo.com.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 DME
• VOR guides an aircraft along a course, such that it determines the
radial an aircraft is on from the beacon.
• But, VOR does not help a pilot to fix its position because it don’t
show distance to location. That information is provided by DME.
• Airborne DME calculates the aircraft’s distance to or from a
selected enroute VOR navigation station (i.e., beacon) or an
approach ILS facility.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 DME
• DME works on the principle of secondary radar, that is, a signal sent by
the aircraft triggers a response from a transponder on the ground
collocated (i.e., physically sited next to, or very near, each other).
• DME can be collocated with VOR navigation aid or sometimes teamed
with a localizer for an instrument approach.

Figure: DVOR (Doppler VOR) ground Figure: The CVOR (Conventional VOR) at
station, collocated with DME. Megas Alexandros airport, Kavala, Greece. Also
- Ottersberg, South of Stuttgart shown is the UHF antenna used for the distance
airport. measuring equipment (DME).

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 Ground Station
• When a VOR houses a TACAN (Tactical Air Navigation),
the facility is known as Vortac.
• VOR provides course guidance and TACAN’s DME for
distance.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 DME
• The operating frequency range of a DME system is from 960–1215 MHz UHF/L-band.
• The DME station does not have to be selected specifically as all ground based DME
stations are paired (i.e., a process known as frequency pairing) with a selected VOR
or ILS beacon.
• When a VOR or ILS frequency is selected on the controller, the frequency of the
collocated DME is also selected automatically.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 DME
• The aircraft antenna for the DME system is an L-band, omnidirectional type,
mounted on the bottom of aircraft.
• It is fitted in an area not masked or shielded from the ground signals.
• This helps to prevent the DME from losing the ground station signal and
consequent loss of distant information.
• On fast aircraft the antenna is shaped like a blade to reduce aerodynamic
drag.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 DME
• In the DME system, the interrogating equipment, known as the “Interrogator”, is
installed in the aircraft and the target located on the ground, is referred to as the
“Transponder” or “Ground Beacon”.
• Both interrogation and return signals are transmitted from omnidirectional antenna.
• The principle of DME is that an airplane sends out an interrogation pulse to a
ground station and the station replies.
• The DME aboard the airplane measure elapsed time to compute distance to the
station. Time is multiplied by the speed of the signal, which is close to the speed of
light.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 DME
• In addition to providing nautical mile distance
(distance-to-station), most DME systems also
compute and display:
‐ The aircraft velocity in respect to the ground
station, known as ground speed (GS) (i.e., by
calculating how rapidly distance is changing).
‐ By knowing ground speed and distance , the
DME also reads out Time to Station (TTS) (i.e.,
time required for the aircraft to intercept the
ground station).
DME Ground Station
• Each ground-based beacon only operates on one
dedicated frequency.
• The base station only consists of a DME
Transmitter/Receiver and an omnidirectional
antenna. There is no need for a ground controller.
• The base station is identified by a 1350-Hz coded
audio tone which is transmitted every 30 s.
• If the ground station receives no interrogations from
any aircraft, it “squitters” – that is, freely broadcast
pulses. This “awakens” any aircraft within range;
and their DME’s go from “automatic standby” to an
interrogating mode.
• Ground station has a 50 μs delay between reception
and transmission.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 DME
Airborne DME
• An airborne DME transmits and receives pulse-modulated signals in the UHF frequency
range of 960 MHz to 1215 MHz.
• The effective range of airborne DME transceiver in nautical miles can be calculated by
multiplying 1.23 by the square root of the aircraft’s altitude in feet.
• For example, an aircraft at 30,000 feet would be able to receive a ground station 200
nautical miles away.
• After pulses are produced in the pulse generator, spacing between pulse pairs is varied
in random fashion. This imprints the signal with its own identity, in a process known as
jitter. Each aircraft will have its jitter pattern.
• The oscillator is used to provide the spacing of transmitted pulse pairs in a random
manner (i.e., jitter.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 DME Operation
• The airplane DME sends pairs of interrogating pulses (i.e., pulse pairs with
random spacing) to DME ground station.
• Airborne DME can transmit and receive one of 252 channels, spaced at 1
MHz interval; for example 1026 MHz, 1027 MHz etc.
• The air-ground frequencies are from 1025 to 1150 MHz, while the ground-
air transmitted frequencies are from 962 to 1213 MHz.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 DME Operation
• These 252 channels are evenly split between 126 X channels and 126 Y
channels.
• Each channel transmits and receives on frequencies that are spaced 63 MHz
apart. This is to ensure that the outgoing and incoming pulses do not
conflict.
• The aircraft uses a 12 μs pulse spacing for 100 mode (i.e., 100 kHz
increment) X channels (e.g., 108.10 MHz, 108.20 MHz) or 36 μs apart for
mode Y channel (i.e., 50 kHz increment), for example 108.05MHz,
108.15MHz .
• The DME tower receives these pulses and sends back the same pulse pairs
with an added fixed 50 μs delay to provide a fixed ground station delay for
accurate calculation.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 Slant Range
• When an aircraft is flying at altitude, the direct distance to the station will be the slant
range or line-of-sight distance.
• The difference between the measured distance on the surface and the DME slant range
distance is called slant range error.
• The error will be maximum when the aircraft is directly over the ground facility, at
which time, the DME will display altitude in nautical miles above the station.
• Slant range error is minimum at low altitude and long range, and is negligible when the
aircraft is one mile or move from the ground station for each 1,000 feet of altitude
above the elevation of the station.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 Slant Range
• The airborne DME computes slant-range distance to or from the
station as follows:

𝑇 − 50𝜇𝑠
𝐷=
12.359

where
‐ D = slant-range distance in nautical miles.
‐ T = time in μs between the transmission of the interrogating
pulse pair and the reception of the corresponding reply pulse
pair.
‐ 50 μs = delay in DME ground station between reception of
initial interrogation and transmission of a reply.
‐ 12.359 μs = time required for RF energy to travel one nautical
mile and return.
Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun
 Slant Range
• The DME computes the aircraft ground speed as the rate of change of the distance with
respect to tome.
• Sine this computation is measured as a function of slant range, the ground speed
would read zero when the aircraft is flying over the station or in a circle at a constant
distance from the station.
• The aircraft receiver has a complex task in determining which response is from its own
transmission before making the calculation of distance to the tower.
• Slant range is different from the ground range due to the triangle determined by the
altitude.
• If a computer, or the pilot, knows the altitude, then the ground range can be
calculated.
• The computer can also calculate the ground speed by knowing the difference between
distance and the time for a few readings, but only if flying directly to the tower.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

Slant Range and Actual Range

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 DME Range
• Range depends on:
‐ Power of the interrogator’s output.
‐ Sensitivity of the receiver (interrogator).
‐ Altitude of the aircraft.
‐ Number of interrogation.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 DME Components
Single Systems
• DME Transmitter/Receiver
• DME Indicator
• DME Controller
• L-band, omnidirectional antenna

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 ARINC 429
• ARINC 709 provides distance data and frequency information to the
indicator or other aircraft systems on ARINC 429 digital bus.
• Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) information is for the display in the cockpit
whereas binary data output for the Flight Management Computer System
(FMCS) (1 station at a time only).
• Binary data is provided for each output.
• Audio is possible for stations with BCD data.

Prepared By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Harlisya Harun

 END
OF
PRESENTATION

Prepared By: Mohd Ezwani Kadir 20