Tokyo, February 28, 2025 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) announced that its Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) (*1) officially began operations at Tokyo International Airport (Haneda Airport) on January 23, 2025. Haneda Airport is one of the world’s busiest and is the first airport in Asia to officially operate GBAS.

GBAS is a navigation system that uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) to support aircraft approach and landing. It supports safe aircraft approach and landing by generating and broadcasting augmentation information on the ground to ensure the accuracy of positioning and safety using GPS. GBAS has the same level of accuracy as the legacy Instrument Landing System (ILS), which uses radio waves from the ground to guide aircraft to approach and landing.

In addition, GBAS can support multiple runways and bi-directional landings with a single facility, whereas ILS requires multiple ground-based facilities. The introduction of this system is expected to lead to a reduction of maintenance and operating costs in the future.

In the aviation industry, in order to meet the increasing demand for air travel year on year, there is a need to take measures to improve the efficiency of aircraft operations, such as shortening routes, while ensuring safe flight operations. From this perspective, GBAS, which provides aircraft with information on approach routes using digital data, has been made an international standard by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and its introduction has been requested globally.

In this context, Japan’s Civil Aviation Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has also been working on aircraft operations utilizing GBAS. NEC received an order from the bureau to manufacture a set of GBAS-16 equipment, which has now been delivered and is being used in official operations at Haneda Airport.

NEC’s GBAS is less susceptible to ionospheric effects by utilizing its own proprietary technology and a patent held by Japan’s Electronic Navigation Research Institute (*2), making it possible to suppress positioning errors even in regions with low magnetic latitude that are susceptible to ionospheric activities. According to NEC research, it is the first company to successfully achieved this technology. In the future, NEC aims to deploy GBAS at airports around the world, including in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, which is in line with Japan’s national strategy of developing infrastructure systems internationally.

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About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation has established itself as a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies while promoting the brand statement of “Orchestrating a brighter world.” NEC enables businesses and communities to adapt to rapid changes taking place in both society and the market as it provides for the social values of safety, security, fairness and efficiency to promote a more sustainable world where everyone has the chance to reach their full potential. For more information, visit NEC at https://www.nec.com.