UAS Navigation with EGNOS

Abstract

The Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles (UAV) industry has grown at such an amazing rate, that it is almost impossible to count or describe all the applications that have become normal practice, not to mention the number of companies involved in either making drone platforms or supplying drone integrators with sensors: GNSS receivers, inertial sensors, LiDAR, photographic, thermal and infrared cameras, video and more. In particular, positioning systems have become crucial for almost all industrial drone’s applications, such as photogrammetry, 3D mapping, search and rescue operations, surveillance… Beyond the use of computed positions of the drone for professional matters, the need to “getting the right position to fly safely” is of the utmost importance. Yet, most of the GNSS receivers on-board of drones provide low-quality data, with no expected changes in the long-term, principally because of their cost and weight. Then, new questions are arising: Is the low-quality position data good enough for current or new applications? Are there other technologies, systems or methods able to improve performance without changing the drone’s GNSS receivers? The answer is positive: SBAS augmentation system is a complement to GPS built initially for civil aviation, but available to GNSS receivers, even those from drones. It is a method reduce more than a half the position error (accuracy) and also gives additional information in order to quantify how bad the measurements are (integrity). This document will explain how a software able to calculate GPS-based positioning augmented with SBAS has been developed and then, the results of it are assessed in order to analyse if the system would be useful in drone applications or operations