AE4-393: Avionics Exam Solutions 2007-10-29

1. COMMUNICATION, NAVIGATION, SURVEILLANCE

[a] Pressure altitude and an aircraft identification.
[b] The two modes work as follows:
• SSR Mode A: interrogation interval P1 and P3 equals 8µs. The transponder
replies with an Aircraft Identification Code (ACID), defined by ATC and set
by the pilot on the transponder code interface. It is a 12 bit code, i.e. there are
212 possibilities, or 4096 codes.
• SSR Mode C: interrogation interval P1 and P3 equals 21µs. The transponder
replies the aircraft pressure altitude in steps of 100 ft (QNE).
[c] The transponder reply consists of twelve data pulses uniformly spaced between two
framing pulses. The SSR transmits three interrogation pulses, P3, P2 and P3. The
position of P3 w.r.t. P1 and P2 determines the mode (A/C) in which the transponder
should reply. Every antenna, however, has a main lobe and several side-lobes. The
signal is depicted in figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1: SSR interrogation signal

[d] The main lobe interrogation of a far-away radar can well be the same as the strength
of the side lobe interrogation of a near-by radar. The could lead to the transponder
replying to the side lobe interrogations of the near-by antenna; which is called side-
lobe interrogation. To prevent this, P2 is sent with an additional omni-directional
antenna with a magnitude larger than any of the antenna side lobes. P2 is smaller than
P1 and P3 only in their main lobes. Hence, the transponder only replies to the main
lobes. Also see figure 1.2.
[e] SSR-Mode S permits discrete addressing of aircraft; a unique 24-bit Mode S address
is assigened to each aircraft so that aircraft can be unambiguously identified amnd
addresses worldwide: 224 ≈ 17 million. It allows for:
• Private line communications
• Digital air-ground and air-air data link
Figure 1.2: side lobe suppression

2. THE FUTURE AIR NAVIGATION SYSTEM

[a] The shortcomings of the current CNS services result in a lack of real-time
information on present position and short and long term intent of the aircraft on
certain parts of existing air-routes, which in turn requires the use of procedural
methods of ATC. These do not provide the most efficient flight profiles or system
capacity, as in general, flights must be planned via intermediate waypoints rather than
on the most direct routes. There is also a limited opportunity to make changes to the
cleared flight profiles. Hence, the capabilities of modern airborne systems cannot be
fully exploited and the provision of ATS is not always efficient and cost effective. In
addition, the lack of digital air-ground data interchange systems reduces the
feasibility of automating the processing of ATS information. In short: the present
system is incapable of making optimum use of ATC system capacity, available
airspace and aircraft capability.
[b] The ideal would be a single navigation system providing adequate navigation for all
phases of slight under all meteorological conditions all over the world for all airspace
users. The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) applied within the
RNAV/RNP (Area Navigation/Required Navigation Performance) concept is
approaching this ideal. GNSS + RNAV/RNP provides the aircraft with the
capabilities to fly through a pre-determined four-dimensional ‘tunnel’ from departure
to landing. In order to enhance accuracy and to monitor the integrity, the following
types of augmentation are being developed: on-board augmentation (RAIM), local
area augmentation (LAAS) and regional area augmentation (RAAS).
RAIM, or Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring is a technique whereby and
airborne GNSS receiver processor autonomously monitors the integrity of the
navigation signals form GNSS satellites.
For LAAS/RAAS, or Local/Regional Area Augmentation System ground-based
reference stations monitor the ‘health’ of the GNSS satellites and determine the range
error at its location. This information is then transmitted to the aircraft to increase the
on-board position determination function and its integrity.
 RNAV is a function of modern FMS, its operations permit flight in airspace within
prescribed accuracy tolerances without the need to fly directly over the ground based
navigation facilities.
The RNP concept recognizes that current aircraft navigation systems are capable of
achieving a predictable level of performance accuracy and that a more efficient use of
the available airspace cane be realised on the basis of the individual airborne
navigation capacity.

3. INERTIAL SENSORS: GYROSCOPES

[a] Moving parts, and therefore wear, lower reliability, they are more sensitive to
accelerations and vibrations
[b] A vertical gyro yields reference datums for the detection of aircraft pitch and roll
angle changes.
[c] These two properties mean:
• Rigidity is defines as the property which resist any force tending to change the
pane of rotor rotation.
• Precession is defined as the angular change in direction of rotation under the
influence of an applied force. The change in direction take place not ion line
with the force but always at a point 90 degrees away in the direction of
rotation.
[d] As a vertical gyro has a fixed orientation with respect to the body, Figure 3.1 shows
in what position the gyro will be at.

Figure 3.1: Vertical gyro

[e] A gyroscope is an inertial machine, in other words, it keeps the plane of the rotor
fixed relative to an inertial frame Fi. To make it useful, it must be converted to what is
termed an Earth gyroscope, i.e. maintaining a fixed reference with respect to the earth.
In order to do this, corrections have to be made for drift and transport wander.
• Drift can be categorized in two forms:
- Apparent drift, due to the earth rotation. The gyroscope senses the
various components of the Earth rotation as an angular input, For the
observer the gyroscope would appear to drift.
- Real drift, due to imperfections in a gyroscope, such as bearing
friction, gimbal system unbalance, mass unbalance
• Transport wander: carry a gyroscope over the earth surface, while keeping the
gyro level with the Earth horizontal plane, means that the gyro must be rotated
w.r.t. the inertial reference plane.
[f] Drift of the vertical gyro is usually in the order of 20 deg/h. Various monitoring
systems have been designed to constrain the error in keeping the vertical reference.

4. TERRESTRIAL RADIO NAVIGATION

[a] In free space, all radio waves, regardless of frequency, are propagated in straight
lines at the speed of light. Along the surface of the Earth however, two methods of
propagation are of importance: up to about 3MHz and appreciable amount of energy
follows the curvature of the Earth, called the ground wave. Up to about 30 MHz,
appreciable energy is reflected form the ionosphere, this is called the sky wave. Line-
of-sight waves are radio waves that follow a straight line and the range of these waves
is determined by the height of the transmitter, height of the received and curvature of
the Earth.
[b] The signal sent by the VOR ground station is omnidirectional: it is the carrier wave
signal, amplitude modulated with a sub-carrier wave with frequency 9960 Hz that
itself is frequency modulated by a 30 Hz sinusoid signal. This signal is being sent in
all directions with a special antenna, the limacon, that has a cardioid pattern. This
antenna rotates at 30 rps. The VOR receiver on board of the aircraft interprets the
changing amplitude of the VOR signal due to this rotation as an amplitude
modulation with a 30 Hz signal. The trick is that the phase of the 30 Hz amplitude
modulated signal due to the cardioid rotation depends on the position of the aircraft
w.r.t. the VOR beacon, whereas the phase of the 30 Hz frequency modulated sub-
carrier hidden in the VOR signal does not. The heading of the aircraft is derived form
the phase difference between these two signals. The line on Earth with a constant
phase difference is called a radial. A VOR has 360 radials, which correspond with the
magnetic heading at the VOR station. A pilot can select the radial to be flown with
the Omni Bearing Selector (OBS).
[c] DGOP is the Geometric Dilution of Precision, see figure 4.1.
Figure 4.1: change in GDOP
[d] TACAN us a military omnibearing (like VOR) and distance measurement (like DME)
system. Civil aircraft can use the TACAN beacon as if it would be a DME beacon.
They cannot use the omnibearing facility of TACAN. For this purpose, TACAN
beacons are often augmented with a VOR transmitter, yielding the so called
VORTAC station.

5. SATELLITE RADIO NAVIGATION

[a] The basic principle is to measure the spherical ranges form the user from a minimum
of four GPS satellites.
1) Measuring the time delay for the satellite transmission to reach the user yields
the spherical range. The systems thus depends on very precise time
measurements and requires atomic lock standards (10ns time error results in a
distance error of 3 m). Each GPS satellite carries an atomic clock,
synchronized with GPS time, which provides the time reference for the
satellite data transmission. The user equipment carries a crystal clock as time
reference is less accurate, resulting in a time bias in the measurement of the
transit time form satellite transmission. The control segment comprises a
master control station at Colorado Springs, five monitor stations and 3
uploading stations located worldwide. The control segment tracks the
satellites and predicts their future orbital position data and the required
satellite clock correction parameters, and updates each satellite on the uplink
as it goes overhead.
2) GPS satellites use two frequency transmissions, L1 and L2 for transmitting the
digitally encoded navigation message data. L1 provide the coarse/acquisition
(C/A) code which is available to all users and which used to be deliberately
degraded: selective availability (SA). It also provides the Precision (P) code
which is encrypted and is only available to authorized military users. L2 also
provides the P code. The dual frequency transmission of P code enables
corrections to be made for ionospheric delay uncertainties. L1 and L2 both
send the navigation message.
3) A GPS receiver obtains an estimation of the position via the Pseudo Range, it
assumes the clock error of the satellite and sum of various measurement errors
 as known or modeled. Now, four non-linear equations with four unknowns (xu,
yu, zu and ∆tu) can be solved with special computer algorithms.
4) The estimation of velocity is obtained through the range-rate equations. They
allow the user’s velocity to be computed with a high level of accuracy,
typically one order of magnitude better than the pistion. The Doppler shift is
determined by the GPS receiver. Using four satellites yields for non-linear
equations with four unknowns (vu, ∆ɺ tu )
[b] Differential GPS (DGPS) requires a reference station at a know location that receives
the same GPS signals as does the avionics user. The reference station uses its GPS
measurements with respect to its exactly known location to determine correction
factors about each satellite and sends this data to the GPS receivers in the same area.
The avionics user the applies those corrections to its own measurements canceling all
common errors.
[c] The GPS system is augmented to increase accuracy, integrity, availability and
continuity. There are 3 main forms of augmenting GPS:
1) RAIM, Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring
2) WAAS, Wide Area Augmentation System, which augments GPW with three
services:
i) A ground integrity broadcast
ii) Wide area DGPS corrections, improving accuracy
iii) A raging function, providing additional availability and reliability
3) Pseudolite (PL) Augmentation; a pseudo-satellite is comprised of a GNSS-like
signal generator at a fixed know location that broadcasts DGPS corrections as
well as a raging code. Equal to WAAS, but now the signal is generated form
the ground.

6. LANDING GUIDANCE SYSTEMS

[a] ILS is the Instrument Landing System.
[b] The three main components of ILS are:
1) ILS localizer, see figure 6.1.
2) ILS Glide Slope, see figure 6.2.
3) ILS Markers, see figure 6.3.
[c] An ILS glide slope antenna generally consists of two dipole antennas at 5λ and 10λ
form the ground, with λ the carrier wave wavelength. The reflections of the antenna’s
signals due to the Earth surface yields a radiation pattern with multiple lobes (direct
signal, reflected signal)
[d] See Figure 6.4. 1 is the carrier wave generator, 2 is the 90 Hz modulator, 3 the 150 Hz
modulator, 4 the antenna bridge, 5 has a length of 0.25λ, 6 has a length of 0.5λ, 7
adds a 90 degree phase, 8 is the central antenna, 9 the right antenna and 10 the left
antenna. The localizer antenna principle is based on phase differences. The 90 Hz
AM modulated carrier wave (cw) is attached to the antenna bridge at A. The 150 Hz
AM modulated cw is attached at B. At C we get cw + 90 + 150. This seignal will be
taken as ‘reference’ w.r.t. phase i.e. phase is zero at C. The central antenna the
transmits cw + 90 (0) + 150 (0). At D the cw-90Am signal (phase 0) is added with the
cw-15AM signal (phase 180 due to path length difference of λ/2). Hence, the carrier
wave is reduced and the remaining signal is 90 (0) + 150 (180). At 7, 90 degrees pase
 is added, so the signal at E is 90 (90) + 150 (270). This signal is led unchanged to F
and is transmitted at the right antenna. The signal arrives form E in G with another
180 degree phase difference. The signal at G is then 90 (270) + 150 (90), which is
transmitted at the left antenna.
[e] At position A, 90 Hz AM and 150 Hz Am are equal and at B, 90 Hz is dominant. See
figure 6.5.
[f] Obstacles in terrain (other aircraft, vehicles) result in disturbances of the ILS signal
(multipath effects).

Figure 6.1: ILS localizer

Figure 6.2: ILS Glide Slope

Figure 6.3: Marker Beacons

Figure 6.4: The ILS localizer antenna
Figure 6.5: signal shift at ILS localizer antenna