On September 16, Professor Jiyun Lee from the KAIST Department of Aerospace Engineering received an achievement award from the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The award was given for her contribution to the development of the augmentation system Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and its technological advancement.
The current GNSS augmentation system supports aircraft precision navigation by providing differential GNSS corrections and integrity information. The system is helpful in aircraft navigations as it is able to provide in real-time information about specific locations within 1 meter accuracy. However, during periods of maximum solar activity, the total electron content (TEC) in the ionosphere increases significantly. These ionospheric anomalies may affect the availability of the system.
To alleviate the problem, Professor Lee developed a software that continuously monitors ionospheric behavior and builds ionospheric threat models to monitor the anomalies. With the use of this software, the reliability of the GNSS augmentation system has increased. The software, verified by the FAA Technical Center, has been distributed worldwide and is currently used by various major institutions such as EUROCONTROL. Furthermore, the results of her research on this software have been published in the July issue of Radio Science Journal.
Professor Lee commented that in the future, the applications of satellite navigations will expand beyond the fields of aerospace, maritime, transportation, and communications. Therefore, it is important to acquire a safe and reliable GNSS augmentation system. In addition, through international cooperation, it may be possible to implement the GNSS augmentation system globally in the near future.
Professor Lee received her bachelor’s degree from Yonsei University and completed her master’s and doctorate degrees from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. Afterwards, she has worked as a research member at SiRF Technology Inc., a company that pioneered the development and commercial use of global positioning system (more commonly known as GPS) and at AMT Tetra Tech Inc., a leading provider in information and technology and aviation management. She has been an assistant professor at KAIST since 2009.
Dong-Kyeong Lee
dk1558@gmail.com