Europe and the USA have for several years now had the jump on Australia and New Zealand in terms of GNSS navigation accuracy. Our northern colleagues have the luxury of augmented signals that can pin-point a receiver more precisely and with greater integrity than the GNSS that is currently in place in Australasia. The generic term is Space-based Augmentation System – SBAS.
In Europe, they call it the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS); in the USA, it’s Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). The existence of this technology has meant that IFR pilots can fly with greater navigation capability both lateral and vertical than is available in countries with no SBAS.
But now we're getting into the game, with the planned introduction of SouthPAN.
Announced in September last year, the Southern Position Augmentation Network (SouthPAN) is a collaboration between Geoscience Australia and Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) to build our own SBAS that will deliver similar capability to the time-tested EGNOS and WAAS.
Although designed for use by a number of industry sectors, SouthPAN will deliver for aviation by enabling IFR approaches down to 200 feet decision height with ILS-like capability at regional airports. We won't have that until 2028, but by 2030 we'll probably be wondering how we ever did without it.
Inside SBAS
SBAS is aimprove position accuracy from what was 5-10 m down to as little as 10 cm, although for aviation the best accuracy likely to be available is 3-4 m. All without internet coverage. Here’s how it works.
