Friday, March 26, 2010

EGNOS to Take Off in 2010

The aviation industry is preparing to use European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) once it becomes certified for the sector later this year, said speakers at Galileo Application Days.

The aviation sector is one of the primary reasons EGNOS was launched by the European Community. The EGNOS Open Signal became operational in October 2009. The safety-of-life signal is expected to be certified for use in civil aviation later this year, said Hans de With, Market Development Officer with the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA).

About 40 EGNOS procedures for landing aircraft with EGNOS have been designed in France in preparation for when the satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) can be used, he said at the event’s aviation session on 4 March.

“The European Commission is dedicated to extending EGNOS geographically and a range of organisations – including the GSA – are working to facilitate its market adoption,” he said.

Studies have shown that the full adoption of EGNOS-enabled flight procedures, such as localised performance with vertical guidance (LPV), could produce savings of up to €4 billion in Europe.

Stefano Scarda from the European Commission’s Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry stated that with EGNOS “the aviation community has been involved from the beginning” and that now there was a need to “implement all the steps needed to ensure that full use can be made” of the system. The quality of the EGNOS Open Service – available since October 2009 for general applications where safety of life is not an issue – is excellent, he said.

“The actual performance is much higher than the defined specification,” said Scarda.

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