Accuracy assessment of aircraft positioning by multiple Radio Navigational aids

Modern trends in the development of aviation transport put forward new requirements for the existing air navigation system. Existing principles for usage of VOR/DME data for positioning purposes no longer meet current accuracy requirements. This is the result of angular data usage, which does not allow to obtain high positioning accuracy by its nature. In VOR/DME system the angular information is combined with distance, which significantly reduces accuracy of positioning. The paper considers the principle of positioning using data from multiple navigational aids and accuracy estimation by Taylor series approach taking into account weighed matrix of navigational aids measurement errors. Obtained results describe the possibility of a significant reduction in positioning error by extending the amount of input data in navigation equation. Proposed method of positioning by multiple VOR/DMEs radio signals was verified using real data and showed a decreasing of positioning errors in comparison with VOR/DME pair-based approach, multiple DME/DMEs, and multiple VOR/VORs approaches.