PHOENIX, 13 April 2006. Honeywell has entered into an agreement with Airservices Australia to complete the development, certification, and joint commercialization of a Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) and a Ground-based Regional Augmentation System (GRAS).
The agreement hints that enabling technology will soon become available whereby GPS-based aircraft navigation will provide precision accuracy with integrity for all phases of flight.
"Traditional approach and landing aids such as Instrument Landing Systems (ILS) or Microwave Landing Systems (MLS) provide coverage for single runways and are often constrained by installation or frequency availability restrictions," says John Oelschlaeger, director of Honeywell's Satellite Landing Systems Business. "GBAS can provide coverage for all runways at most airports where installed."
Both GBAS and GRAS are ground-based systems that monitor the accuracy of navigation signals from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites and transmit a correction (augmentation) signal to GPS navigation systems in nearby aircraft.
The units broadcast corrections in all directions to a range of 30 miles from the airport to provide approaching aircraft with a Category 1 precision landing capability.
When GBAS-corrected GPS navigation systems are integrated with inertial navigation or other avionics sensors generally available on most commercial airlines, a GBAS is expected to eventually provide Category 2 and 3 landing capability.
Honeywell and Airservices expect to receive regulatory approval of both systems in 2008, with commercial availability immediately thereafter.
