Abstract: | A Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) architecture alternative has been developed to provide satellite-based navigation for aircraft precision approach and landing. Differential code and carrier phase measurements from GPS satellites and ground-based airport pseudolites (APLs), located at each end of the approach runway, are optimally processed at the aircraft to improve vertical performance. In an operational sense, this performance improvement would be realized as increased LAAS availability. In addition, a new integrity monitoring architecture is introduced to provide the tightest achievable protection limits with respect to LAAS reference receiver failures. To demonstrate that the notional LAAS architecture is realizable, a prototype system was implemented at Moffett Federal Airfield in California for flight testing on a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Beechcraft King Air. In this paper, the ground and air components of the prototype architecture implementation are described. Experimental results from King Air flight trials performed in September 1997 show exceptional navigation performance with the APL architecture, including a 95 percent vertical navigation error of 0.74 m in real time. |
Published in: | NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 45, Number 1 |
Pages: | 31 - 38 |
Cite this article: | Pervan, Boris, Lawrence, David, Gromov, Konstantin, Opshaug, Guttorm, Christie, Jock, Ko, Ping-Ya, Mitelman, Alexander, Pullen, Sam, Enge, Per, Parkinson, Bradford, "FLIGHT TEST EVALUATION OF AN ALTERNATIVE LOCAL AREA AUGMENTATION SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE", NAVIGATION: Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 45, No. 1, Spring 1998, pp. 31-38. |
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