Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) for Civil Aviation

Dear Colleagues,

In civil aviation, integrity monitoring systems, including Advanced Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (ARAIM), Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS), and Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS), are used in different approaches to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Considering that satellite signals are subject to various faults resulting in large position errors, integrity monitoring used to guarantee the safety of aviation users against various signal failures is challenging. To address this target, new signals (e.g., L5 and E5a) and additional constellations (BDS3, Galileo, Glonass) may bring benefits with additional signal sources. Also, it is important to assess the atmospheric delays that GNSS signals experiences from satellite to aircraft antennas. Traditional integrity monitoring systems are based on least-squares estimation, and new algorithms may bring long-term benefits to the field of civil aviation, e.g., Kalman filters, robust estimation, fault detection/exclusion, machine learning, precise positioning, and integrated positioning.

In the domain of civil aviation, integrity monitoring systems such as ARAIM, GBAS, and SBAS are employed in various procedures to ensure the accuracy and integrity of GNSS signals. This is crucial, as satellite signals are susceptible to diverse faults, including satellite clock and ephemeris errors, ionospheric and tropospheric delays, and multipath effects, that can result in substantial position errors, posing a challenge to the integrity monitoring required to guarantee the safety of aviation users against various signal failures.

To address this challenge, the introduction of new signal types, such as the L5 and E5a signals, which provide improved tracking performance and increased resistance to interference, as well as additional satellite constellations (BDS3, Galileo, GLONASS), may provide benefits through increased signal sources and improved geometric dilution of precision. Also, it is essential to assess the atmospheric delays experienced by GNSS signals from the satellite to the aircraft antennas, as these delays can significantly impact the positioning accuracy.

While traditional integrity monitoring systems rely on least-squares estimation, the exploration of novel algorithms, such as Kalman filtering, which can better model the dynamic behavior of the GNSS signals and provide optimal state estimates, robust estimation techniques that can handle outliers and non-Gaussian errors, fault detection and exclusion methods to identify and exclude faulty signals, precise positioning algorithms utilizing carrier-phase measurements, integrated positioning solutions that combine GNSS with other navigation sensors (e.g., inertial measurement units, barometric altimeters), and machine learning approaches to handle complex tasks with relaxed assumptions, may offer long-term benefits to the civil aviation community by improving the overall integrity, availability, and accuracy of the GNSS-based positioning and navigation systems.

Additionally, the growing incidents of GNSS jamming and spoofing have caught the attention of key players in this community, which has become a significant concern for aviation safety. It is of growing importance to address this growing threat by monitoring and assessing various threat cases and developing efficient mitigation methods.

Aim of the Special Issue and how the subject relates to the journal scope:

It is anticipated that integrity monitoring applications will proliferate, contributing to the development of safety of aviation. Therefore, the main aim of this Special Issue is to seek high-quality submissions that highlight GNSS integrity monitoring for civil aviation and propose original contributions to address key important scientific and technical issues to ensure user safety while using GNSS. This aim is related to remote sensing for the atmosphere and a broader engineering scope.

Suggested themes and article types for submissions:

Articles may include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• New developments in integrity monitoring systems for civil aviation, e.g., ARAIM, GBAS, and SBAS.
• Integrity monitoring algorithms for new signals and additional constellations, e.g., LEO/L5.
• Effect mitigation methods for GNSS jamming and spoofing.
• Integrity monitoring for ionosphere and troposphere delays.
• Robust estimation and fault detection/exclusion theories.
• Machine learning for GNSS integrity monitoring.
• Integrity monitoring algorithms for precise positioning.
• Integrity monitoring algorithms for Kalman filters.
• Integrity monitoring algorithms for multi-sensor integration.
• New software and datasets for integrity monitoring.

Dr. Yiping Jiang
Dr. Eugene Bang
Dr. Fuxin Yang
Dr. Kun Fang
Guest Editors

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• multi-constellation global navigation satellite system
• air navigation
• integrity monitoring
• global navigation satellite system jamming and spoofing
• atmospheric delay
• integrated positioning
• fault detection and exclusion
• precise positioning
• machine learning
• LEO navigation