An Independent Evaluation of the Regional Positioning System

Larry J. Levy, Philippe Charest, and F. M. Bay

Abstract:	Lockheed Martin has initiated a project to develop a GPS augmentation system with a space-based architecture. The Regional Positioning System (RPS) will provide worldwide augmentation to GPS users by broadcasting augmentation signals from dedicated satellites in geostationary orbit. RPS will provide very accurate navigation with high integrity and availability to aviation and other users both domestically and globally. The RPS system will initially deploy three geostationary (GEO) satellites over the Americas. An independent assessment of the space-based augmentation architectures over the Americas was performed by the JHU/APL to provide a common basis of comparison of the architectures considered in the previous JHU/APL GPS Risk Assessment, Reference [1], and the Lockheed Martin developed RPS architecture. The assessment of the RPS architecture was to determine its ability to satisfy the navigation performance requirements for the future National Airspace System (NAS). The main conclusions were: (a) RPS performance is generally superior to the 3 & 4 GEO architectures (with WAAS spec outages of 3 yr. MTTR) of the original JHU/APL GPS Risk Assessment Study; (b) RPS architecture does not require RAIM to meet performance requirements; (c) The 4 GEO architecture (with 3-yr. MTTR) needs RAIM to meet performance requirements. (d) Performance of the RPS architecture is about the same as the 3 GEO architectures with RAIM and a 3 month MTTR; (e) RPS degrades about the same as other architectures for Raytheon processing and for the solar max. case; (f) RPS provides better performance over Alaska; (g) A good balance of coverage and availability can be achieved with the RPS with the minimum number of spacecraft.
Published in:	Proceedings of the IAIN World Congress and the 56th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2000) June 26 - 28, 2000 The Catamaran Resort Hotel San Diego, CA
Pages:	30 - 37
Cite this article:	Levy, Larry J., Charest, Philippe, Bay, F. M., "An Independent Evaluation of the Regional Positioning System," Proceedings of the IAIN World Congress and the 56th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2000), San Diego, CA, June 2000, pp. 30-37.
Full Paper:	ION Members/Non-Members: 1 Download Credit Sign In