Augmentation of a
global navigation satellite system
A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geopositioning. A satellite navigation system with global coverage is termed global navigation satellite system (GNSS). , four global systems are op ...
(GNSS) is a method of improving the navigation system's attributes, such as precision, reliability, and availability, through the integration of external information into the calculation process. There are many such systems in place, and they are generally named or described based on how the GNSS sensor receives the external information. Some systems transmit additional information about sources of error (such as
clock drift
Clock drift refers to several related phenomena where a clock does not run at exactly the same rate as a reference clock. That is, after some time the clock "drifts apart" or gradually desynchronizes from the other clock. All clocks are subject to ...
,
ephemeris, or
ionospheric delay
The error analysis for the Global Positioning System is important for understanding how GPS works, and for knowing what magnitude of error should be expected. The GPS makes corrections for receiver clock errors and other effects but there are sti ...
), others provide direct measurements of how much the signal was off in the past, while a third group provides additional vehicle information to be integrated in the calculation process.
Satellite-based augmentation system

Satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS) support wide-area or regional augmentation through the use of additional satellite-broadcast messages. Using measurements from the ground stations, correction messages are created and sent to one or more satellites for broadcast to end users as differential signal. SBAS is sometimes synonymous with WADGPS, wide-area
differential GPS
Differential Global Positioning Systems (DGPSs) supplement and enhance the positional data available from global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs). A DGPS can increase accuracy of positional data by about a thousandfold, from approximately to ...
.
The SBAS that have been implemented or proposed include:
* The
Wide Area Augmentation System
The Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) is an air navigation aid developed by the Federal Aviation Administration to augment the Global Positioning System (GPS), with the goal of improving its accuracy, integrity, and availability. Essentia ...
(WAAS), operated by the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
Federal Aviation Administration
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...
(FAA).
* The
European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), operated by the
ESSP (on behalf of
EU's
GSA).
* The
Multi-functional Satellite Augmentation System (MSAS), operated by
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
's
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB).
* The
Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), operated by Japan, started initial operations in November 2018. QZSS also operates in a non-SBAS mode called PNT, essentially acting as extra GNSS satellites.
* The
GPS-Aided GEO Augmented Navigation (GAGAN), operated by the
Airports Authority of India.
* The
System for Differential Corrections and Monitoring (SDCM), operated by
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
's
Roscosmos
The State Corporation for Space Activities "Roscosmos", commonly known simply as Roscosmos (), is a State corporation (Russia), state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space science, space flights, List of space agencies, c ...
based on
GLONASS
GLONASS (, ; ) is a Russian satellite navigation system operating as part of a radionavigation-satellite service. It provides an alternative to Global Positioning System (GPS) and is the second navigational system in operation with global cove ...
.
* The
BeiDou Satellite-Based Augmentation System (BDSBAS), proposed by
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
based on
BeiDou
The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS; ) is a satellite-based radio navigation system owned and operated by the China National Space Administration. It provides geolocation and time information to a BDS receiver anywhere on or near the ...
.
* The
Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN), being developed by Australia and New Zealand, with initial services going live in September 2022.
* The
Wide Area GPS Enhancement (WAGE), operated by the
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...
for use by military and authorized receivers.
* The commercial
StarFire navigation system, operated by
John Deere
Deere & Company, Trade name, doing business as John Deere (), is an American corporation that manufactures agricultural machinery, heavy equipment, forestry machinery, diesel engines, drivetrains (axles, Transmission (mechanical device), transmi ...
and
C-Nav Positioning Solutions (by
Oceaneering International).
* The commercial
Starfix DGPS System and
OmniSTAR system, operated by
Fugro.
* The commercial
Atlas GNSS Global L-Band Correction Service system, operated by
Hemisphere GNSS
Hemisphere GNSS designs and manufactures precision global positioning system and global navigation satellite system products and technology for positioning, heading, guidance, navigation, machine control, and L-band correction service application ...
.
* The
GPS·C, short for GPS Correction, was a differential GPS data source for most of Canada, maintained by the Canadian Active Control System, part of
Natural Resources Canada
Natural Resources Canada (NRCan; ; )Natural Resources Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of Natural Resources (). is the department of the Government of Canada responsible for natural r ...
now decommissioned.
* The Australian SBAS using the Inmarsat 4F1 geostationary satellite, which suffered an outage in April 2023.
Ground-based augmentation system
Ground-based augmentation system (GBAS) provides
Differential GPS
Differential Global Positioning Systems (DGPSs) supplement and enhance the positional data available from global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs). A DGPS can increase accuracy of positional data by about a thousandfold, from approximately to ...
(DGPS) corrections and integrity verification near an airport, providing approaches e.g. for runways that do not have
ILSs.
Reference receivers in
surveyed positions measure GPS deviations and calculate corrections emitted at 2 Hz through
VHF data broadcast (VDB) within .
One GBAS supports up to 48
approaches and covers many
runway
In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...
ends with more installation flexibility than an ILS with localizer and glideslope antennas at each end.
A GBAS can provide multiple approaches to reduce
wake turbulence and improve
resilience, maintaining
availability and operations continuity.
[
In December 2008, the ]Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, (PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ) is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York (state), New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate c ...
invested $2.5 million to install a GBAS at Newark Airport (EWR) with Continental (now United) equipping 15 aircraft for $1.1 million while the FAA committed $2.5 million to assess the technology.
Honeywell
Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building automation, industrial automa ...
’s SLS-4000 GBAS design was approved by the FAA in September 2009 and is still the only one.
It offers Cat. 1 instrument landings with a decision height and can be upgraded to a Cat. 2 with real-time monitoring of ionospheric conditions through SBAS, while the more precise Cat. 3 SLS-5000 is waiting for compatible airliners.
The first installations were approved in EWR in 2012 and Houston / IAH in 2013.
The Port Authority recommends a GBAS for New York JFK and LaGuardia (LGA) to alleviate congestion.
Newark and Houston GBAS were upgraded to Cat. 2, Seattle-Tacoma, San Francisco SFO, JFK and LGA are expected next.[
Among the 20 Honeywell GBAS installations worldwide, the other U.S. installations are: Honeywell's test facility in Johnson County, Kansas; the FAA Technical Center at Atlantic City International Airport, New Jersey; Boeing's test facility in ]Grant County Grant County may refer to:
Places
;Australia
* County of Grant, Victoria
;United States
* Grant County, Arkansas
* Grant County, Indiana
* Grant County, Kansas
*Grant County, Kentucky
Grant County is a county located in the northern pa ...
, Washington; the B787 plant in Charleston International, South Carolina; and Anoka County–Blaine Airport near Minneapolis.
Airports equipped in Europe are Bremen
Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...
, Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
, Málaga
Málaga (; ) is a Municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 591,637 in 2024, it is the second-most populo ...
and Zurich
Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...
.
in Asia-Pacific, airport with installations are Chennai
Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...
, Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...
, Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
, Seoul-Gimpo, Shanghai-Pudong and Sydney
Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
.
Other locations are St. Helena in the South Atlantic, Punta Cana
Punta Cana is a resort town in the easternmost region of the Dominican Republic. It was politically incorporated as the "Verón–Punta Cana township" in 2006, and it is subject to the municipality of Higüey (La Altagracia Province). According ...
in the Dominican Republic and Rio de Janeiro–Galeão.
There are around 100 Cat. 1 GBAS landing systems (GLS) installations in Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
with Russian-specific technology.[
In the US, GBAS was previously known as the Local-area augmentation system while a SBAS with a ground references network providing GPS corrections is called WAAS.
In the US, there were more WAAS LPV approaches reaching than Cat. 1 ILS approaches by March 2018.
1 GBAS costs $3–4 million; and $700,000 more for Cat. 2.][
By Spring 2018, ]Boeing
The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...
delivered 3,500 GLS-capable airliners, with 5,000 on order: GLS Cat. 2/3 is standard on the Boeing 747-8, 787 and 777 while GLS Cat. 1 is optional on the 737NG/MAX and GLS Cat. 2/3 will be offered from 2020.
Airbus
Airbus SE ( ; ; ; ) is a Pan-European aerospace corporation. The company's primary business is the design and manufacturing of commercial aircraft but it also has separate Airbus Defence and Space, defence and space and Airbus Helicopters, he ...
offers GLS Cat. 1 with autoland on the A320, A330, A350 and A380.[
The FAA's NextGen promotes GBAS and GLS to increase airport capacity and to lower noise and weather delays.
Boeing prefers FAA support than funding while the National Air Traffic Controllers Association argues rigid approaches will lower traffic management flexibility, losing throughput and capacity, a viewpoint shared by ]Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines, Inc. is a Major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, operating nine hubs, with Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport being its ...
.
Some ICAO
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international sch ...
members vetter GBAS Approach Service Types-D (GAST-D) supporting Cat. 2/3 approach and landing.
There are stricter Safety requirements on GBAS systems relative to SBAS systems since GBAS is intended mainly for the landing phase where real-time accuracy and signal integrity control is critical, especially when weather deteriorates to the extent that there is no visibility (CAT-I/II/III conditions) for which SBAS is not intended or suitable.
Beyond airfields
The US Nationwide Differential GPS System (NDGPS) was an augmentation system for users on U.S. land and waterways. It was replaced by NASA's Global Differential GPS (GDGPS) system, which supports a wide range of GNSS networks beyond GPS. The same GDGPS system underlies WAAS and A-GNSS implementation in the US.[US Government page on GPS augmentation systems]
/ref>
Ground stations may also be used to accumulate continuous GNSS observations to achieve post-hoc correction of data to the centimeter level. Two example systems are the US Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) and the International GNSS Service (IGS).[
The ]National Association of Broadcasters
The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is a Industry trade group, trade association and lobbying, lobby group representing the interests of commercial and non-commercial over-the-air radio and television broadcasting, broadcasters in th ...
has sponsored development of the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS) over ATSC 3.0 television signals as an augmentation system.
Aircraft-based augmentation system (ABAS)
The augmentation may also take the form of additional information from navigation sensors being blended into the position calculation, or internal algorithms that improve the navigation performance. Many times the additional avionics
Avionics (a portmanteau of ''aviation'' and ''electronics'') are the Electronics, electronic systems used on aircraft. Avionic systems include communications, Air navigation, navigation, the display and management of multiple systems, and the ...
operate via separate principles from the GNSS and are not necessarily subject to the same sources of error or interference. A system such as this is referred to as an aircraft-based augmentation system (ABAS) by the ICAO. The most widely used form of ABAS is receiver autonomous integrity monitoring
Receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) is a technology developed to assess the integrity of individual signals collected and integrated by the receiver units employed in a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). The integrity of rec ...
(RAIM), which uses redundant GPS signals to ensure the integrity of the position solution, and to detect faulty signals.
Additional sensors may include:
* eLORAN receivers
* Automated celestial navigation
Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is the practice of position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies that enables a navigator to accurately determine their actual current physical position in space or on the surface ...
systems
* Inertial navigation system
An inertial navigation system (INS; also inertial guidance system, inertial instrument) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors (gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning th ...
s
* Distance measuring equipment
In aviation, distance measuring equipment (DME) is a radio navigation technology that measures the slant range (distance) between an aircraft and a ground station by timing the propagation delay of radio signals in the frequency band between 9 ...
, often multiple systems are used to create a positional fix (DME/DME). Can also be used with INS (DME/DME/INS).
* Simple dead reckoning systems (composed of a gyro compass and a distance measurement)
See also
* Assisted GPS (A-GPS)
* GNSS enhancement
*Satellite navigation
A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geopositioning. A satellite navigation system with global coverage is termed global navigation satellite system (GNSS). , four global systems are ope ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gnss Augmentation
Satellite navigation
Satellite-based augmentation systems
ru:Системы дифференциальной коррекции#Спутниковая система дифференциальной коррекции