• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.119-127
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• 2019

COsmicheskaya Sisteyama Poiska Avariynich Sudov Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking (COSPAS-SARSAT) is an international communication support program to perform search and rescue (SAR) operations in emergency situations by using satellite signals relayed from a beacon. The legacy COSPAS-SARSAT was originally composed of low altitude and geostationary Earth orbit satellites; thus, a limited number of directional dish antennas was sufficient to cover the limited number of visible satellites at the local user terminal. However, the second generation COSPAS-SARSAT newly added the medium Earth orbit satellites, e.g., Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to the existing system, so that the number of visible satellites increase dramatically, and the system upgrade to cover all the visible satellites is foreseen. The additional use of planned Korea Positioning System (KPS) to existing GNSS is envisaged to provide a better performance of their SAR service. This paper presents the benefits of the additional use of KPS together with the phased array antennas at the local user terminal of the COSPAS-SARSAT. This is to effectively response to the increase of the number of visible satellites. Numerical simulation is included to evaluate the performance improvement of COSPAS-SARSAT in terms of the number of visible satellites, geometry between satellites and user, and position estimation accuracy.