Precision Navigation for Air Traffic Management,
Abstract
This report discusses the problems that would arise if airspace users had the use of NAVSTAR or some other much better position-fixing aid than at present, and the uses that ATC could, or could not, make of this capability. There would be formidable transitional problems in the vertical plane, because NAVSTAR measures height from the Earth's centre whereas current altimeters measure atmosphere pressure. In either vertical or horizontal planes much work will be necessary to prove that the separation standards can be reduced at all. The paper discusses changes that might be possible in the ATC system should appreciable reductions in separation standards prove possible. NAVSTAR might form the basis of a collision avoidance system based on either the broadcast co-ordinates of each aircraft or on a time-frequency basis using NAVSTAR as the time reference. The latter scheme would offer protection of a fully-equipped aircraft against a threat that could not afford the expense of a NAVSTAR fit. This paper is a contribution to the 29th AGARD GCP Symposium, Copenhagen, Oct 1979. It is issued as a memo to make it available earlier and in an unclassified document. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1979
- Accession Number
- ADA083947
Entities
People
- S. Ratcliffe
Organizations
- Royal Signals and Radar Establishment