Airservices Australia impressed with SBAS trial results
The Australian government announced a two-year project to trial a Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS), investing $12 million to develop a “second generation” SBAS. Led by Geoscience Australia, the project aims to improve the accuracy, integrity and availability of basic GNSS signals by using ground-based aids to support existing GNSS, increasing navigational accuracy to less than 10cm.
The tests are planned to evaluate the effectiveness of SBAS across 10 industries – agriculture, aviation, construction, consumer, maritime, mining, rail, road, spatial and utilities. Airservices Australia, which is overseeing the trials in aviation, recently conducted SBAS-enabled instrument flight procedures and claim in a statement released on July 20 that the trials have shown “impressive results”.
“The trial demonstrated that Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) technology is suitable for the needs of Australia’s non-metropolitan airports, using avionics that is already prevalent in regional and general aviation aircraft,” Airservices said.
The trials are testing three specific SBAS technologies – first-generation SBAS operational in June 2017, second-generation SBAS operational in September 2017 and Precise Point Positioning, which became operational in October 2017, with the latter providing navigational accuracy to within 10 centimetres.
The initiative led by the Australian government has also received $2 million in funding from the New Zealand government, while other countries in the region have shown strong interest in participating.