Don Ormand, Raytheon's director of operations, is at Paris to enthuse about the company's wide area augmentation system (WAAS).
This is the North America-wide project to "augment" GPS signals, making them more accurate, reliable and suitable for precision navigation and approaches.
"The hardware was installed last summer, we have 25 reference stations and three uplink stations, and in just a few months Raytheon will have a totally useable signal in space," Ormand says.
The signal he talks about is an additional GPS reference transmission coming from a geostationery satellite. It offers existing GPS users accuracy not previously dreamed of.
To prove his point, Ormand shows a computer demonstration of where the GPS satellites think you are. Throughout the day, the signal wobbles all over the place within a 100m (300ft) radius of your true position due to a combination of ionospheric, timing and other effects.
But apply the WAAS reference signal and it stabilises within a much smaller reference circle.
By next September Ormand hopes the system will have US Federal Aviation Administration certification. "It will be perfectly good enough for Cat1 approaches then," he says, "although we will need to install additional ground reference stations to provide integrity and even greater accuracy.
"We expect Canada and Mexico to add reference stations quite quickly too which will open up precision navigation all over the USA," he says.
"Give us $5 million or so, we can install some additional reference stations in Europe, and you can have a fully operational WAAS system next year. Alternatively, you could invest $15-20 billion, launch your own satellites and have WAAS in 10 year's time. I know what I would do."
Don Ormand, Raytheon's director of operations, is at Paris (Hall 3/B13) to enthuse about the company's wide area augmentation system (WAAS).
This is the North America-wide project to "augment" GPS signals, making them more accurate, reliable and suitable for precision navigation and approaches.
"The hardware was installed last summer, we have 25 reference stations and three uplink stations, and in just a few months Raytheon will have a totally useable signal in space," Ormand says.
The signal he talks about is an additional GPS reference transmission coming from a geostationery satellite. It offers existing GPS users accuracy not previously dreamed of.
To prove his point, Ormand shows a computer demonstration of where the GPS satellites think you are. Throughout the day, the signal wobbles all over the place within a 100m (300ft) radius of your true position due to a combination of ionospheric, timing and other effects.
But apply the WAAS reference signal and it stabilises within a much smaller reference circle.
By next September Ormand hopes the system will have US Federal Aviation Administration certification. "It will be perfectly good enough for Cat1 approaches then," he says, "although we will need to install additional ground reference stations to provide integrity and even greater accuracy.
"We expect Canada and Mexico to add reference stations quite quickly too which will open up precision navigation all over the USA," he says.
"Give us $5 million or so, we can install some additional reference stations in Europe, and you can have a fully operational WAAS system next year. Alternatively, you could invest $15-20 billion, launch your own satellites and have WAAS in 10 year's time. I know what I would do."
Source: Flight Daily News
