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European Space Agency

Press Release

Safer navigation means more helicopters saving lives

16 April 2003
 
Helicopter Emergency Services deal with emergency evacuations and
inter-hospital transport across Europe. Improved navigation
information from EGNOS could mean fewer cancelled flights due to
adverse weather. 
 
Although most modern helicopters have Instrumental Flight Rules (IFR)
capability this is not used because IFR are not adapted to helicopter
flight characteristics. As a result almost all medical operations are
still performed under Visual Flight Rules (VFR). When visibility is
reduced, as in bad weather, the use of VFR creates a risk factor in
helicopter medical operations.

Any helicopter landing system must support steep glide slopes and
multiple legs but needs little or no ground infrastructure. This
rules out the conventional Instrument Landing system meaning that
systems relying on the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) are
required instead. 
 
There are currently three options: GPS, EGNOS and ground-based
augmentation systems (GBAS). Of these, EGNOS is the most appropriate
for Europe because it delivers a high level of performance and needs
no local ground installation. 

EGNOS (the European Geostationary Navigation and Overlay Service) is
a joint project of the European Space Agency (ESA), the European
Commission (EC) and Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the
Safety of Air Navigation. It is designed to augment the two military
satellite navigation systems now operating (US GPS and Russian
GLONASS) and is paving the way for Galileo. The system, now in its
testbed phase and operational in 2004, already improves the accuracy
of GPS positions from about 20m to 2m. 

A very successful demonstration was organised by Eurocopter last
month as part of a programme to improve the ability of helicopters to
fly in adverse weather. These trials validated the use of EGNOS on
HEMS helicopters.

Eurocopter fitted an EGNOS Test Bed User Equipment (TBUE) receiver
onto an EC 155-HTT helicopter. This was coupled with the flight
management system (FMS) so that EGNOS-guided helicopter approaches
could be shown. 

These trials demonstrated the good quality of the EGNOS signal
despite the adverse electromagnetic environment that is typical to
helicopters because of the rotating blades and other masking effects.
The TBUE receiver successfully enabled precise guidance, both in
manual and automatic piloting mode. The flight path simulated a
medical mission, including approaches and transition to hover before
final landing. 
 
EGNOS can deliver real benefits to the Helicopter Emergency Services
(HEMS) helicopters by bringing helicopter IFR approaches to reality.
There will be less noise at ground level, and it should be safer to
fly in adverse weather conditions. Crucially, a more reliable service
with fewer cancelled flights means more lives saved.

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