GPS Risk Assessment for Civil Aviation

Larry J. Levy, Alan J. Pue, Thomas Thompson, Samuel P. Pullen

Abstract:	JHU/APL conducted an independent risk assessment (see Reference [1]) to determine the ability of GPS and its augmentations to provide navigation performance for the future National Airspace System (NAS). The main conclusions were: (a) GPS with appropriate WAAS/LAAS configurations can satisfy the required navigation performance as the only navigation system installed in the aircraft and the only navigation service provided by the FAA; (b) Risks to GPS signal reception can be managed, but steps must be taken to minimize the effects of intentional interference (with assumed available surveillance radars and with onboard anti-jam systems); (c) A definitive national GPS plan and management commitment is needed to establish system improvements with civil aviation users and to provide greater informational access to the civil aviation community. The evaluation relied heavily on statistical simulation analyses to assess performance of GPS, GPS/WAAS, and GPS/LAAS against requirements as expressed by accuracy, integrity, continuity, and availability for Oceanic through Category III Precision Approach operations. The most significant risks and their associated mitigations (if necessary) were also evaluated for acceptability. A significant technical contribution of the effort was the unique simulation methodology used to evaluate the very small probability values given in the navigation requirements. In addition, the assessment was very wide in scope and therefore, provided a consistent and comprehensive evaluation of GPS performance for civil aviation.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 12th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1999) September 14 - 17, 1999 Nashville, TN
Pages:	2121 - 2130
Cite this article:	Levy, Larry J., Pue, Alan J., Thompson, Thomas, Pullen, Samuel P., "GPS Risk Assessment for Civil Aviation," Proceedings of the 12th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1999), Nashville, TN, September 1999, pp. 2121-2130.
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