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WAAS Future and Evolutions
| WAAS | |
|---|---|
| Title | WAAS Future and Evolutions |
| Author(s) | GMV. |
| Level | Basic |
| Year of Publication | 2011 |
The Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) is a GPS Augmentation system developed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), WAAS is an extremely accurate navigation system developed for civil aviation, it provides service for all classes of aircraft in all phases of flight - including en route navigation, airport departures, and airport arrivals.
WAAS Future and Evolutions
- Improvement to aviation operations
In 2007, WAAS vertical guidance was projected to be available nearly all the time (greater than 99%), and its coverage encompasses the full continental U.S., most of Alaska, northern Mexico, and southern Canada. At that time, the accuracy of WAAS would meet or exceed the requirements for Category 1 ILS approaches, namely, three-dimensional position information down to 200 feet (60 m) above touchdown zone elevation. With these projections, the FAA announced on March 24, 2006 that the first procedures that allow operations down to 200 feet would be published in 2007.
- Software improvements
Software improvements, to be implemented by September 2008, significantly improve signal availability of vertical guidance throughout the CONUS and Alaska. Area covered by the 95% available LPV solution in Alaska improves from 62% to 86%. And in the CONUS, the 100% availability LPV-200 coverage rises from 48% to 84%, with 100% coverage of the LPV solution.
- Space segment upgrades
Both Galaxy XV (PRN #135) and Anik F1R (PRN #138) contain an L1 & L5 GPS payload. This means they will potentially be usable with the L5 modernized GPS signals when the new signals and receivers become available. With L5, avionics will be able to use a combination of signals to provide the most accurate service possible, thereby increasing availability of the service. These avionics systems will use ionospheric corrections broadcast by WAAS, or self-generated onboard dual frequency corrections, depending on which one is more accurate. Additionally, FAA status presentations indicate a third geostationary satellite could be acquired between 2009 and 2013.