Radio beacon
radio transmitter to identify a location for navigation aid
In navigation, a radio beacon or radiobeacon is a kind of beacon, a device that marks a fixed location and allows direction-finding equipment to find relative bearing. It is a fixed-position radio transmitter which radiates radio waves which are received by navigation instruments on ships, aircraft or vehicles.
The beacon transmits a continuous or periodic radio signal on a specified radio frequency containing limited information (for example, its identification or location). Occasionally, the beacon's transmission includes other information, such as telemetric or meteorological data.
Radio beacons have many applications, including air and sea navigation, propagation research, robotic mapping, radio-frequency identification (RFID), and indoor navigation, as with real-time locating systems (RTLS) like Syledis or simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM).
Types
Radio-navigation beacons
The most basic radio-navigational aid used in aviation is the non-directional beacon or NDB. It is a simple low- and medium-frequency transmitter used to locate airway intersections and airports and to conduct instrument approaches, with the use of a radio direction finder located on the aircraft. The aviation NDBs, especially the ones marking airway intersections, are gradually being decommissioned and replaced with other navigational aids based on newer technologies. Due to relatively low purchase, maintenance and calibration cost, NDBs are still used to mark locations of smaller aerodromes and important helicopter landing sites.
Marine beacons, based on the same technology and installed in coastal areas, have also been used by ships at sea. Most of them, especially in the Western world, are no longer in service, while some have been converted to telemetry transmitters for differential GPS.
Other than dedicated radio beacons, any AM, VHF, or UHF radio station at a known location can be used as a beacon with direction-finding equipment.
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This entry incorporates text from “Radio beacon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.