MSAS Flight Test And Its Progress

Keisuke Matsunaga, Kazuaki Hoshinoo, Minoru Ito, Naoki Arai, Jun Imamura, Toyoo Hashimoto, Masato Kawai, Kotaro Ikegami and Nobuo Hiroe

Abstract:	The Japanese Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) is implementing the MTSAT Satellite-based Augmentation System (MSAS), which will cover the Flight Information Region associated with Japan. Under the leadership of JCAB and Electronic Navigation Research Institute (ENRI), the first MSAS flight test was conducted in January 2002. NEC Corporation (NEC) and Furuno Electric Co., Ltd. (FURUNO) joined forces with this flight test. The objectives of the MSAS flight test were 1) verification of MSAS capability including accuracy and integrity, and 2) promotion of understanding on capability and benefit of MSAS. Instead of using downlink from MTSAT, MSAS messages were sent from Kobe Aeronautical Satellite Center to Iwanuma Branch of ENRI at Sendai Airport via ISDN line and they were transmitted to the aircraft by VHF Data Broadcast (VDB uplink). The prototype GPS/MSAS receiver was modified in order to utilize MSAS message from VDB receiver via Ethernet. The radio-downlink from the airplane was used for sending the real-time position and integrity data to the ground monitor equipments. The flight test was open to the press and aviation people in Japan. During the flight test, over 150 people in total were visited Iwanuma office. Real-time and offline showings were demonstrated. In real-time, the followings were shown; 1) MSAS-GPS protection level time variation, 2) Trajectories of MSAS and GPS solutions, 3) MSAS Messages, and 4) 3 dimensional display of the runway view from the aircraft at the final approach. Offline showings were focused on the accuracy. As a true reference for each flight, the post-processed Kinematic solution was used. Seven "touch-and-go" flights were carried out. The average of the 95% MSAS horizontal and vertical accuracies were 4.26 m and 7.46 m respectively. These figures meet the accuracy requirement for the APV-II flight phase (APV: Approval with Vertical Guidance). On the other hand, the average of the HPL (Horizontal Protection Level) and VPL (Vertical Protection Level) of MSAS solutions obtained 29.08 m and 36.96 m respectively. It does not meet the availability (integrity) requirement for APV-II. It shows only 31.71% of time, MSAS solution could be used for APV-II. However, 85.65% of time, MSAS solution could be used for APV-I (LNAV/VNAV) while GPS solution never meets its requirement. Throughout the MSAS flight test, understanding on capability and benefit of MSAS were deepened.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2002) September 24 - 27, 2002 Oregon Convention Center Portland, OR
Pages:	1696 - 1703
Cite this article:	Matsunaga, Keisuke, Hoshinoo, Kazuaki, Ito, Minoru, Arai, Naoki, Imamura, Jun, Hashimoto, Toyoo, Kawai, Masato, Ikegami, Kotaro, Hiroe, Nobuo, "MSAS Flight Test And Its Progress," Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2002), Portland, OR, September 2002, pp. 1696-1703.
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