Victor Wullschleger

THE FAA'S LOCAL AREA AUGMENTATION SYSTEM (LAAS)

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is developing the Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) as a public use local area differential GPS system. The LAAS is required to support all categories of precision approach navigation. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the FAAs LAAS technical activities and programme plans. First, the complementary roles of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) and LAAS are summarized. Then technical activities are discussed, including requirements, system architecture, and flight tests. The paper concludes with a summary of the FAAs plans for LAAS, including the planned schedule of major programme activities.

TECHNICAL AND PROGRAMMATIC FEATURES OF THE FAA'S LAAS

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is developing and planning to field the Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS). LAAS is a Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) to GPS, and is designed to serve all categories of precision approach. The purpose of this paper is to provide the latest technical and status information on the LAAS programme. The technical aspects of the LAAS specification are discussed, followed by a description of specification validation field testing and results. Institutional and programmatic aspects are then summarized along with a chronology of events leading up to the Government Industry Partnership (GIP) for the initial development and fielding of LAAS.