Satellite Navigation & Air Traffic Control and Landing Systems (SATNAV & ATCALS)

ARINC’s Satellite Navigation & Air Traffic Control and Landing Systems (SATNAV & ATCALS) division is playing a critical role in the research, development, testing, and evaluation of ultrasophisticated navigation and avionics systems used to maneuver and land military and commercial air, land, and sea craft—without having to rely on human intervention. All of these systems take full advantage of the 10-centimeter positional accuracy of today’s satellite GPS technology.

For example, ARINC is the prime contractor to the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force on their Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS) program. ARINC is supporting the U.S. Navy's mission to enable “hands off” landing of tactical aircraft on moving carriers, where the allowable landing area is only 20 ft wide and 130 ft long, using GPS-based navigation and control. ARINC is also supporting the joint mission, led by the Air Force, for enabling landing of fixed-base, tactical, and special-mission aircraft in increasingly difficult operational environments, including challenging terrain and weather conditions.

Older, instrument flight path technology simply isn’t adequate to ensure safe landing while a carrier is under way in rough seas, or where short-length airstrips have been carved out of vegetated areas or deserts.

In less than six months, ARINC developed the solution architecture, defined the specifications, wrote the software, developed a prototype, and helped plan the first-ever, successful demo of a tactical aircraft (F/A-18) auto-landing aboard a moving carrier using GPS technology. In addition, ARINC developed software, which provided the accuracy required to successfully execute 10 fully automatic landings of a tactical aircraft aboard a carrier.

Now that it’s proven, this technology can be applied to a broad spectrum of fixed-wing, rotary-wing, and Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft. ARINC will soon be helping to integrate similar auto-landing capability within other military craft—joint strike fighters, UAVs, and F-16s—and commercial jets.

ARINC has also developed GPS-based systems that can accurately locate and/or maneuver sea and land vehicles, including trucks and trains, and is helping to minimize GPS satellite signal interference from ground-based radio sources.

For more information, e-mail satnav@arinc.com.

Photograph from the United States Navy.