GICS, a new concept to enhance in-flight safety and security of commercial aviation

Abstract

This paper presents a new concept of aircraft tracking based on a LEO constellation of small satellites, each of them carrying receiving and transmitting devices in order to check the integrity of the ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast) positioning information and proceed with a non-cooperative independent localization of the aircraft, if a flight anomaly comes out. To do so, on side of the conventional ADS-B processing, authors propose to add a multilateration process and two active radar modes, able to perform a finer and reliable localization of the aircraft, as well as a first information on the nature of the flight anomaly. The paper deals with a preliminary system analysis, although underpinned by some illustrations of existing sensor technologies, already or nearly operational in space. The concept has been patented [1].

Keywords

• ads-b
• sar
• radar
• atc
• multilateration