Promising trials for European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS)

July 19, 2007 The go-anywhere characteristics of helicopters make them ideal for emergency services, but when visibility is poor their operation is limited by aviation regulations. One of the keys to enabling anytime, anywhere helicopter rescue is the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) - a European network that collects, records, corrects and improves data from the US Global Positioning System (GPS). EGNOS will provide a guaranteed positional accuracy of better than two metres, compared with 15 to 20 metres for GPS alone. The accurate position reporting and navigation system integrity checking offered by EGNOS will be a vital enabling factor for anywhere, anytime rescue services – as was demonstrated during a series of trials in Switzerland recently, using EGNOS to guide Eurocopter’s experimental all-weather helicopter (Helicoptere Tous Temps – HTT) in rooftop landings on Lausanne University Hospital.

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