Indian skies to be safer, courtesy GAGAN

Ahmedabad: India’s civil aviation sector is set to get a major technological boost with the launch of the Space Based Augmentation System (SBAS) known as GAGAN (GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation). It is being jointly developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Airport Authority of India (AAI).
Ahmedabad is playing a major role in it by virtue of being one of the eight centres in the country called Indian Reference Stations (INRES).
The INRESs are responsible for collecting measurement data and broadcast messages from all the Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geo-synchronous Orbit (GEO) satellites in view and forward it to the Indian Mission Control Centre at Bangalore. There, the data corrections are done to pinpoint any location in India. According to the ISRO, the initial results of the GAGAN project are very encouraging and the project would be implemented by 2009.
P K Srivastava, Deputy General Manager, Communications, AAI, Ahmedabad, said: “Right now, the air traffic is controlled by a radio navigation system called VHF Omni-directional Radio Range or VOR/DME. These VOR/DME are spread throughout the country and guide the pilots by radiating particular frequencies. So, the pilots need to keep on switching from one VOR to another, as the range of one VOR is only 200 nautical miles.”
He added, “With GAGAN, we will get away with this ‘switching business’, resulting in far better coordination and safety for passengers.
16/11/08 Ahmedabad Newsline

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Categories: Airports Nov 2008