Recent work on optimizing antenna installations on large flight inspection (FI) aircraft is presented. The innovative aspect of this study is an automatic procedure and tool than can optimize, analyze, and design the best antenna installation locations using a unified performance index, considering all practical constraints, including signal quality requirements, environmental effects, actual flight geometries, and others. Example design procedures and results for actual flight mission aircraft is provided.

I struggle to describe the amount of gratitude I have for the people I am about to mention. I continue to be surprised by the kindness I come across in the OU ECE department from students and faculty. The people that I have met at OU have made my time here a very joyous experience. To my advisor, Dr. Rockee Zhang, thank you for always being available for questions and thank you for having a "can-do" attitude and a positive outlook. Thank you for leading me -I have really enjoyed working under you. To Dr. David Schvartzman, you have answered many, many questions of mine and you have done so with patience and in-depth answers which I am very grateful for. Thank you for sharing so much of your time and knowledge with me. To Dr. Hernan Suarez, thank you for being kind and willing to help me. In no special order, thank you to the following people who really helped me in different ways -Dr.

The concept of a unified, portable, and precise navigation solution for future precise manned and unmanned air vehicle landing support would need both enhanced GNSS technology and non-GNSS (such as precise approach radar) together in one package. This concept and initial implementations are discussed. Initial evaluations using different Software-Defined-Radio (SDRs) to implement the GNSS augmentation functions are performed and compared to certified ground augmentation system receivers. The results show the promising feasibility of integrating GNSS augmentation and precise approach radar function to support future landing missions.