Satellite-based location determination of small aircraft in case of accidents and disasters

Abstract

From the moment the air/aero/aerial objects appeared the necessity of monitoring for them arose and were solved using different tools, such as radio communications, radio direction finding, radar and others. With the advent of global satellite navigation, the massive introduction of navigation equipment began in almost all areas of human activity and especially in mobile (moving) objects (cars, aircraft, ships, etc.). This allowed aircraft crews to accurately determine their coordinates in real time under any weather conditions. However, the organization of uninterrupted data transmission to ground control centers remained problematic. In this regard, aircraft monitoring systems were primarily installed on military and civil aircraft, while the other categories and types of aircraft were equipped only with communication systems. Thus, currently, there is the lack of navigation devices allowing flight monitoring and communication in small aviation. As a result, in case of emergency landing of small aircraft, it takes a lot of time and effort to find its location, therefore providing emergency assistance to passengers and crew is not possible. This problem can be solved by the system for determining the location of small aircraft using technologies of global navigation satellite systems and mobile satellite communications. This system includes devices for registering the location of the observed object, transmitting data via mobile cellular and satellite communications, processing, storage and displaying of data. The proposed system, by continuously recording and transmitting aircraft location data to the ground control center, helps minimize time and narrow the search area of the aircraft that made an emergency landing.