Ensuring GPS navigation integrity using receiver autonomous integrity monitoring

The many advantages of Global Positioning System (GPS) based navigation have created a tremendous amount of interest in using GPS as the primary navigation aid onboard commercial and civil aircraft. Even in the presence of Selective Availability, the accuracy of GPS is sufficient to guide aircraft point-to-point between airports without requiring other navigation aids such as VOR or DME. Unfortunately, there is a finite probability that a GPS satellite will fail, causing the transmission of potentially misleading navigation information. Thus, before GPS can be widely adopted as a navigation aid, techniques must be devised to detect any possible failures and notify the user prior to the degradation of navigation accuracy. This paper discusses the problem of detecting possible GPS satellite failures using a technique called Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM).>