DAIMLER-BENZ Aerospace (DASA) has successfully demonstrated its differential GPS (DGPS) automatic landing system, using a Dornier 328 turboprop at Braunchweig, Germany.
Four flights were carried out, each including one touch-and-go landing, during which 60 international observers had the opportunity to monitor guidance information in the aircraft cabin. The DGPS ground station had been installed and surveyed at the airfield two weeks earlier.
DASA says that the performance of the system, developed jointly with Rockwell-Collins Commercial Avionics, was well received by international observers present.
The system is to be made available commercially within a year, says DASA. The company plans to get initial certification equivalent to US Special Category I standards, to provide approach and landing guidance. It intends later to develop the system up to Category III capability.
Flight-management functions are an optional extra.
The programme is part of a rapidly developing effort inside DASA to become a major player in communications, navigation and surveillance as the world moves towards satellite-based systems.
The company is also working aggressively on automatic dependent surveillance, believing that the concept will eventually have an important role to play even in continental European airspace.
Source: Flight International
