Precision Survey of Navigation Facilities at German Commercial Airports for the German Air Traffic Control Authority

• Introduction of GNSS Procedures
• Delivery of Tailored GNSS Equipment
• Execution of Pilot Projects
• Performance of Surveys and Subsequent Evaluations at all German Commercial Airports
• Database Maintenance
• Elaboration of Procedural Directives
• Compilation of Requirement Specifications
• Expert reports

The navigation facilities in Germany's commercial airports have been surveyed and documented by the Quality Assurance department of DFS since the mid-nineties. This is conducted in line with the obligations of national air traffic control companies stipulated by the international regulatory bodies for flight management and air navigation safety ICAO and EUROCONTROL.

For this purpose, GNSS and terrestrial procedures were developed and tested by ALLSAT together with DFS. In a pilot project in 1997, after delivering tailored GNSS equipment and software to DFS, all the navigation systems at selected German airports were surveyed using both GNSS and terrestrial methods. These systems include, for example, landing aids (ILS), enroute navaids, radar systems, transmission and receiving stations, as well as further airport sites forming a reference system for flight inspection and navaid calibration operations. The majority of these systems are located in areas where particular safety precautions are called for. Owing to the mode of functioning and permanent operation of these systems, specialised procedures are frequently required to prevent any hindrance to their operation. In some cases, measurements could only be performed at night in the absence of air traffic. Depending on the required accuracy, accessibility and construction of the individual facilities, static GNSS measurements were carried out with subsequent post-processing evaluation, real-time measurements and total station observations.

In collaboration with DFS, ALLSAT has elaborated detailed procedural directives and drawn up requirement specifications for specialist survey personnel. Updated versions of these documented procedures are regularly given to ALLSAT by DFS for appraisal.

A new navaid database built on Lotus Notes has been developed by DFS together with ALLSAT for documentation purposes. This database enables the administration of survey protocols and coordinates as well as the performance of transformations and geodetic calculations.

The execution and evaluation of the surveys and the maintenance of the database were carried out by ALLSAT over many years. Today, these tasks are predominantly carried out by DFS staff who have been trained by ALLSAT.