GNSS and the L System: Truly Global Partners

Michael S. Braasch and Wen-Jye Huang

Abstract:	The use of global navigation satellite systems is increasing exponentially throughout the world. Exciting near-term benefits in the aviation community include oceanic navigation and surveillance. The use of GPS in the United States national airspace system is undergoing a period of explosive growth not unlike the use of Loran-C in the 1980’s. The two systems, rather than being competitors are actually mutually beneficial navigation service providers. Over the past decade as the accuracy of GPS has been improved corn the meter-level down to the centimeter and millimeter-level, similarly remarkable improvements in Loran-C receiver technology have also occurred. Whereas traditional Loran-C receivers where able only to process a handful of signals, modem designs are able to track anywhere from twenty to forty signals simultaneously. This tremendous performance, possible through the use of advanced digital design, increases the availability, accuracy and integrity of Loran-C throughout the world. As countries corn Ireland to India and China (along with many others in between) are installing new Loran-C transmitters, the receiver technology has advanced to be able to take advantage of the wealth of signals. Cross-rate interference, heretofore an error source, can now be exploited to provide additional information and accuracy. Skywave processing can now be performed to provide positioning capabilities even in oceanic airspace and remote routes. Together with GNSS, the two provide a powerful and robust navigation capability which is available WORLDWIDE. This paper shall present the state of Loran-C signal processing along with the results of testing to support the global nature of Loran-C and the GNSS/Loran-C partnership.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 52nd Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1996) June 19 - 21, 1996 Royal Sonesta Hotel Cambridge, MA
Pages:	509 - 516
Cite this article:	Braasch, Michael S., Huang, Wen-Jye, "GNSS and the L System: Truly Global Partners," Proceedings of the 52nd Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1996), Cambridge, MA, June 1996, pp. 509-516.
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