Avionics and Operations

This course provides a comprehensive, unified coverage of the principles of modern navigation equipment and systems, both in the aircraft and on the ground, including the aircraft instrumentation and flight-deck systems, with a special emphasis on the important trends in the global air navigation and air traffic management system.

In each lecture (a set of) different aviation systems will be covered and will start at the aircraft systems used for measuring its speed (air data systems), attitude (gyroscopes) and heading (compass). After a brief excursion to the flight deck and instruments used by pilots, aircraft navigation systems will be covered, including the ground-based radio systems, that can help to determine an aircraft's current and predicted positions, as well as guiding an aircraft safely to the runway. After the basics of space-based navigation (i.e., GPS), communication and surveillance (radar) systems will be covered. Finally, an outlook on the future airspace environment will be provided.

Lecture arrangement:

1. Introduction to avionics systems.

2. Air Data Systems (self study, no lecture!)

3. Gyroscopes, attitude reference systems.

4. Compasses, heading reference systems.

5. Navigation equations.

6. Flight deck instruments and integrated systems.

7. The Flight Management System (FMS) (self study, no lecture!)

8. Inertial Navigation Systems.

9. Radio navigation systems (VOR, DME).

10. Landing guidance systems (ILS, GPS).

11. Satellite navigation systems (GPS).

12. Communication, Navigation, Surveillance (CNS).

13. Air Traffic Management (ATM).

14. The Future Air Navigation System (FANS) (self study, no lecture!)