Navigation Introduction

Introduction

The following pages describe the aircraft navigation capabilities developed by the ATM project. The project team has developed a range of techniques which enable NASA to guide a remote-sensing aircraft, and its sensor swath, along a very precisely-defined path. A variety of hardware is used to implement these techniques, including computers, GPS receivers, visual pilot displays and electronic interfaces with aircraft systems. When this hardware is packaged into equipment racks and installed aboard remote-sensing aircraft, it is known as the "GPFMS" system.

Altough developed specifically to meet the needs of the ATM project, the GPFMS system has proven to be useful to others in the airborne science community who require precise aircraft steering. Some of the projects which have utilized the system are the 2003 and 2006 Arctic sea ice experiments, the 2003 and 2004 Antarctic sea ice experiments, and the Global Ice Sheets Mapping Orbiter (GISMO) project.

Next: GPFMS System Overview