HONEYWELL HAS BEEN selected by the Minneapolis/St Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), Minnesota, to install a Honeywell/Pelorus SLS-2000 satellite-landing system and the company's recently developed vehicle-tracking system, the TracLink.
Both systems are based on the global-positioning system (GPS) and will use correctional positioning information from a local-area GPS ground station to serve all the runways at MAC airports within a 55km (30nm) radius.
The technique, called differential GPS (DGPS), allows the SLS-2000 to compute extremely accurate navigation data, which is transmitted to approaching aircraft. An aircraft's onboard GPS equipment uses this data to produce navigation information accurate to within 1.65m horizontally and 2m vertically.
The SLS-2000, is scheduled to be installed shortly, with US Federal Aviation Administration certification expected in January 1996. Honeywell says that the SLS-2000 will be the first DGPS system in the world certificated for passenger service. The MAC agreement represents the first sale of the SLS-2000 in the USA and the first sale of the TracLink.
Trials of the TracLink, a system, which uses the same DGPS data to determine the precise location of vehicles on the airport, will take place after certification of the SLS-2000. TracLink can also be used to send and receive encrypted and open messages.
Source: Flight International
