WAAS and its Relation
to Enabled Hand-Held GPS Receivers
26 Feb. 2006 (Revised 19 Mar.
2012)
For a discussion of DGPS
and Technical WAAS issues, see (HERE)
Statement from the FAA
The WAAS will improve basic GPS accuracy to approximately 7 meters vertically and horizontally, improve system availability through the use of geostationary communication satellites (GEOs) carrying navigation payloads, and to provide important integrity information about the entire GPS constellation. At present there are three geostationary satellites serving the WAAS area. See graphic below.
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The European area will eventually be served by two Inmarsats, AOR-E (Atlantic Ocean Region-East) and IOR (Indian Ocean Region) and the European Space Agency satellite, ARTEMIS. The footprints of all but ARTEMIS (Aircraft-Based Augmentation System) is shown below. On the future ARTEMIS satellite, the GPS/GLONASS augmentation is made directly from aircraft based equipment. Japan will be served by the MSAS system. The first MSAS satellite was lost on launch.
EGNOS & WAAS do not currently share almanac information, and EGNOS is broadcasting a "do not use" indication. So it is unlikely that users in Europe will see any response from EGNOS until their systems share more information and allow use of the corrections.
WAAS Information site: http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov/
Garmin units allow for 19 WAAS/EGNOS/MSAS unique GEO satellites as specified by the FAA TSO C-146. They are depicted on the GPS as Satellite IDs 33-51 which is actually a NMEA convention. Each WAAS/EGNOS/MSAS satellite will have its own unique PRN code assigned from the list of 19. The WAAS satellites are shown on the GPS satellite page with an ID below. These satellites do not move on the screen as do the other GPS low-earth-orbit satellites. A short comparison of WAAS hand-held accuracy is shown (HERE).
Garmin receivers use one or two channels to track WAAS satellites and they will use the WAAS satellite in the position solution, if the WAAS system indicates it is OK to use for navigation (sometimes the WAAS satellite is flagged as "do not use for navigation" but the corrections are still useful).
WAAS reference stations
for the USA. WAAS coverage is approximately 200nm around these stations
Another map of the WAAS service area
is at: http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov/RT_VerticalProtectionLevel.htm
This map concentrates
on the Vertical Protection Level -the most important measure for enroute
aircraft
WAAS GEO Coverage Starting in Fall
of 2010
A global map which is not quite up
to date is shown (HERE)
Here is the PRN/Satellite ID information for WAAS
and EGNOS
NOTE: The satellites IDs are the PRN numbers less
87.
The following PRNs have been allocated to the WAAS system:
Geostationary
PRN NMEA Satellite ID
Longitude
Inmarsat
133
46
98°W
Galaxy
15** 135
48
133°W
Anik
F1R## 138
51
107°W
** Has drifted out of orbit
## Check (HERE) to see the elevation
angle to expect on your unit in the US
The following PRNs have been allocated to the EGNOS system:
AOR-E
120
33
15.5°W
Artemis
124
37
21.5°E
IOR-W
126
39
25.1°E
IOR-E
131
44
?
The following PRNs have been allocated to the MSAS system:
MTSAT-1
129
42
140°E
MTSAT-2
137
50
145°E
The following PRNs have been allocated to the GAGAN system:
127
40
82°E
128
41
55°E
A Typical Ionospheric-delay Map of the US as Computed by the "GPS
Receiver" Sites from all received GPS Signals
A moving graphic of the daily ionospheric delays can be seen (HERE)
Ionospheric Corrections:
The IONO information transmitted by the WAAS system is much more
accurate than the basic GPS IONO model. Also, the WAAS system will
generally be more accurate than beacon based DGPS because of the way the
corrections are rendered by the WAAS system and applied by the GPS receiver.
The primary factor is spatial decorrelation, which is the degradation of
corrections due to separation from the reference station. RTCM based
DGPS corrections suffer from spatial decorrelation, but WAAS corrections
do not.
This Iono data (and other corrections) are constantly uploaded to the Geo Sats for re-transmission to GPS navigation receivers. There is no interpolation between ground stations by the receiver. This is because the WAAS master system computes a "grid of Iono corrections" which are location dependent based on the user's position. There is an interpolation/extrapolation process to determine the iono correction, but it is not specifically related to the location of ground stations that collect the information. The Iono-corrections grid offered by WAAS are interpolated and applied by the receiver.
GPS receivers must then apply the data for corrections appropriate at their location. This may take five or ten minutes to complete in a typical receiver.
Here are some interesting links:
http://waas.stanford.edu/~wwu/rfuller/iongps98/sld001.htm
Some encouraging results using aircraft testbeds
EGNOS tests in Europe
Map of EGNOS Coverage and Estimated Accuracy