Navigation Aids Performance Evaluation for Precision Approaches

The paper deals with the evaluation of the expected performance of aircraft approaches and landings operated with different navigation systems, both traditional and satellite-based. Flight dynamics characteristics and control authority of the approaching aircraft are considered in order to obtain an overall manoeuvre evaluation. The technique from the presented analysis applies to different operative conditions, taking into account aircraft requirements, navigation systems features, and environmental constraints. The aim is to offer a tool to be used in the very preliminary design phase for system performance analysis in different scenarios, such as airport ground systems adoption and air traffic control requirements compliance; later, the same tool can be tuned to complement and direct the required real flight trials to validate an already fielded solution. A numerical code referring to the presented analytical model has been implemented and some applications concerning the system's performance evaluation and planning are proposed to illustrate the algorithm capabilities. The tool and the proposed analysis technique indeed are successful in providing a quantitative assessment of the differences among several possible approaches.