Nighttime measurement errors in the runway visual range and optimization of runway lighting systems

Abstract

Considering that existing theories consider runway lights as markers, neglecting their roles as lighting devices that increase sky background luminance and thus affect runway visual range (RVR) measurements, the actual values of sky background luminance observed by pilots during take-off are calculated and compared with the instrumental RVR measurements in this paper. The RVR measurement errors due to the installation positions of these devices are subsequently analysed. Furthermore, the impacts of different runway light types and positions on sky background luminance are explored, leading to the proposal of an optimized runway lighting scheme. The results show that the representation of sky background luminance sensor data in RVR measurement systems for nighttime airport runways is limited. A deviation of over 90% exists between the sky background luminance of the runway entrance and the RVR measurement equipment location, resulting in a relative error in RVR measurements of over 18%. The centreline and entrance lights contribute significantly to the total sky background luminance. Lights closer to the observer contribute more luminance. In the second proposed scheme, modifying the lighting range to 600 m yields the highest RVR improvement, with an optimization magnitude of over 5% across all visibility ranges.