Flight Test Results Using Carrier Phase Kinematic Solutions for Aircraft Precision Approach and Landing

Alison Brown, Frank van Diggelen, and Tom Kelecy, Peter Brown

Abstract:	This paper presents flight test results of a differential GPS-based system for aircraft precision approach and landing. The August 1993 test flights were flown by the NASA Langley Research Facility at Wallops Island, VA, with ground and airborne equipment provided by NAVSYS Corporation and Allied Signal. Data sets collected from ground reference and aircraft-based receivers were processed post-test to examine how well aircraft precision approach and landing accuracy and reliability requirements were satisfied using a GPS- based system. Laser ranging and MLS data taken during the tests were used as ground-truth. Multiple data sets were examined for aircraft approaches at ranges from 10 km from the airport and heights of 500 meters to the ground. Kinematic on-the-fly ambiguity determination and navigation algorithms developed at NAVSYS were used to compute position solutions using Ll carrier phase data. The navigation solution also included a “real- time” estimate of the differential tropospheric delay. There were significant differences observed from the estimated differential tropospheric delay and the delay derived from tropospheric models using ground temperature, pressure, and humidity measurements. The differential and kinematic solutions computed were compared with the laser ranging and MLS ground truth data. The results taken indicated performance well within the Category III accuracy requirements for MLS equipment.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1994) June 6 - 8, 1994 Antlers Doubletree Hotel Colorado Springs, CO
Pages:	411 - 420
Cite this article:	Brown, Alison, van Diggelen, Frank, Kelecy, Tom, Brown, Peter, "Flight Test Results Using Carrier Phase Kinematic Solutions for Aircraft Precision Approach and Landing," Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1994), Colorado Springs, CO, June 1994, pp. 411-420.
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