Operation and reliability of an onboard GNSS receiver during an in-flight test

Abstract

This article presents and describes the operational capabilities of an onboard GNSS receiver to determine the reliability of the in-flight navigation parameters. An analysis was made of the operation reliability of an autonomous single-frequency Thales Mobile Mapper receiver in air navigation as compared to the technical operation of a dual-frequency Topcon HiperPro receiver. To this end, this work contains a comparison of the aircraft flight navigation parameters based on readings obtained from the Thales Mobile Mapper and Topcon HiperPro receivers. In particular, the comparison concerned the reliability of coordinate determination and flight speed parameters of an aircraft. The research experiment was conducted using a Cessna 172 aircraft, a property of the Military University of Aviation in Dęblin, Poland. Technical operation of the GNSS satellite receivers was tested in the flights of the Cessna 172 aircraft around the EPDE military airport in Dęblin. Based on the results obtained from the tests, it was found that the operational reliability of the Thales Mobile Mapper in the operational phase of the in-flight test ranged from -3.8 to +6.9 m in the XYZ geocentric frame and from -2.2 to +8.1 m in the BLh ellipsoidal frame, respectively. On the other hand, the accuracy of the Cessna 172 aircraft positioning when using the Thales Mobile Mapper receiver was higher than 1.7 m in the XYZ geocentric frame and higher than 2 m in the BLh ellipsoidal frame, respectively. Furthermore, the reliability of the Cessna 172 flight speed determination was from -3.4 to +2.4 m/s.