Challenges in Complementing GNSS: Terrestrial Navigation and Integrity

Abstract

Everyone agrees that 'GPS is great', and it has enabled many new services, especially in aviation. With the recent proliferation of jamming and spoofing, many of these services have become permanently unavailable in large parts of the world. One of the most broadly affected services is en-route navigation for aircraft.

In this talk, we will look at how radio-frequency interference (RFI) affects aircraft and what solutions exist to the most pressing issues. This includes the loss of Required Navigation Performance (RNP) services, which offer very high levels of automation to pilots, but depend critically on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Satellite navigation has set very high expectations and replacing it with terrestrial systems has proven challenging.

The effort to enable RNP from terrestrial ranging has been going on for several years. We will discuss recent progress, some of the proposed systems and the challenges involved. Of course, we will also look at some solutions to these problems and some perspectives for the future of RNP.

Speaker

Dr Okuary Osechas is currently a Researcher at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland, where he works on advanced navigation technologies, aviation systems, and resilient positioning, navigation, and timing solutions. Before joining ZHAW in 2023, he spent more than eight years as a Researcher at the German Aerospace Center, DLR, one of Europe’s leading aerospace research institutions. He has also held a postdoctoral fellowship at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in the United States and previously worked as a Research Assistant at Tufts University, where he earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering. Dr Okuary Osechas is active in the development of industry standards for Required Navigation Performance (RNP), as well as Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) and is dedicated to making aviation resilient to interference against satellite navigation.