Tag: European Union

Rodrigo da Costa begins role as new GSA director

On Oct. 16, Rodrigo da Costa took up his duties as executive director of the European GNSS Agency (GSA), soon to become the EU Space Programme Agency.

He was elected by the GSA Administrative Board on Sept. 15 and met with the ITRE Committee of the European Parliament on Oct. 12.

Da Costa, a Portuguese national who has worked in a number of EU countries, joined the GSA as the Galileo Services Programme manager in March 2017. In this position he was responsible for leading Galileo, the European Union GNSS, in its service provision phase.

He has previously held several senior project management, business development, and institutional account management positions in space industry, in the areas of human space flight, exploration, launchers and research and development.

Da Costa will now be working on transforming the GSA into the EU Space Programme Agency (EUSPA). He will ensure that its existing activities continue to be successfully delivered while also performing new ones required to undertake with the Agency’s new mandate.

Since its creation in 2004, the GSA has made an unparalleled contribution to the EU flagship satellite systems Galileo and EGNOS, which have significantly contributed to the union’s independence and economic growth.

Staffed with highly skilled and dedicated personnel, the agency has boosted innovation, fostered entrepreneurship, led the provision of services, and stimulated the EU economy, in particular through ensuring Galileo and EGNOS uptake across a wide range of market segments thanks to high-quality and secure satellite services.

Rodrigo da Costa, executive director of the European GNSS Agency. (Photo: GSA)

With eyes fixed on the future, EUSPA will further build on the work of the GSA, and will take on additional new responsibilities for further components to the EU Space Programme, including activities in Copernicus (the European Earth observation programme), GOVSATCOM (the EU secure satellite communication system).

Commenting on his new duties da Costa said: “Becoming Executive Director of the Agency means, above all, to lead a team of excellent, dedicated professionals. I’m immensely excited by the opportunity we have to build a successful EUSPA, a key contributor of the EU Space Programme. I’m looking forward to working with all our stakeholders. The task is vast, but I am confident we will be able to play our part, demonstrating to EU citizens what we can do together in EU space activities as GSA/EUSPA.’’

October 19, 2020
MyGalileoDrone competition seeks UAV innovations

The European GNSS Agency (GSA) has launched the MyGalileoDrone competition.

The contest targets the design and development of drone-based applications or services, using a Galileo-enabled receiver, to address the European Union’s (EU’s) key priorities such as the Green Deal, and support the EU Recovery Plan for Europe.

Initial ideas should be submitted by Aug. 31. Wide participation from all EU Member States is expected.

According to ESA, the MyGalileoDrone competition seeks to tap into the EU’s innovative spirit to deliver applications and services to boost Europe’s competitiveness, resilience and sustainability. Applications should leverage and demonstrate Galileo’s added value, such as increased accuracy, availability and robustness of position, as well as integrity for a solution based on drone operations.

Drones applications

Photo: ©GSA

The market related to drone applications and services is growing rapidly, and European drone service revenues are expected to reach EUR 250 million by 2025. The European demand is estimated to reach EUR 10 billion annually, in nominal terms, to 2035 and over EUR 15 billion annually to 2050, creating more than 100,000 jobs.

With GNSS receivers implemented on almost all new commercial drones, Galileo’s and EGNOS’ added value is pivotal for the development and growth of drone services and applications.
In addition to designing and developing the application, contestants should prepare their drone- based application or service for commercial launch.

The solution should leverage Galileo to provide a position fix. The use of EGNSS is understood in the broad sense, and Galileo can be integrated in the flying platform, the ground control station, or in other devices supporting the operation, such as a smartphone or even in the frame of U-Space services.

“GNSS is a key enabling technology in this segment, ensuring robust navigation and reliability for a wide range of applications. The MyGalileoDrone competition aims to bring oxygen to European SMEs and entrepreneurs driving innovation. It will create jobs and growth in this promising market,” said Pascal Claudel, acting executive director at the GSA.

Focus on EU priorities

In times of post-COVID recovery focus, submissions should target applications and services that support key EU priorities, but the sky’s the limit. The GSA is looking for trailblazing ideas in applications such as smart mobility, sustainable agriculture or environmental protection, or solutions that exploit synergies between 5G and space data, or support the internet of things, or whatever might be the next big thing.

Deadlines and Prizes

The first prize in the MyGalileoDrone competition amounts to EUR 100,000, with EUR 60,000 for second, EUR 40,000 for third, and a fourth prize of EUR 30,000.

After Aug. 31, projects selected to advance to the development phase of the contest will be announced on Sept. 15. Participants will have until Nov. 30 to develop a demo version of their proposed application or service.

In the finals, the selected teams will perform a live demonstration and pitch their ideas to investors. During the development process, the applicants will receive mentoring and coaching from recognized experts in the drone market. These experts will accompany them as they build their application, develop tests and get ready from the business perspective to attract investors and move to market.

To register or for more information, visit the competition page on the GSA website.

July 20, 2020
GMV to help develop unmanned ground vehicle for European defense
GMV will take charge of the command and control and C4ISR interoperability system under the Integrated Modular Unmanned Ground System (iMUGS).

The European Commission’s European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP) has assigned 30.6 million euros to the iMUGS project for the development of an unmanned ground system. This makes it one of the European Commission’s biggest defense investments to date.

The Integrated Modular Unmanned Ground System (iMUGS) project will be carried out by a consortium primed by Milrem Robotics, with another 11 high-tech defense firms, including the technology multinational GMV.

The common development of this vehicle will build from Milrem Robotics’s previous program called THEMis, with the addition of various mission systems and autonomy solutions.

The aim is to develop a valid scalable architecture applicable to both manned and unmanned vehicles, with the idea of standardizing Europe’s ground and air systems and its command-and-control and communications systems, sensors, payloads and autonomy algorithms.

The system will consist of a robust and modular ground vehicle fitted with an electronic-warfare-resistant command, control and communications system and secure autonomous mobility software to allow the operator to control many different ground and air platforms securely and simultaneously.

iMUGS will include several components:
- system cybersecurity
- autonomous mobility
- advanced communications systems and further driving-related developments
- manned-unmanned teaming (MUT) including swarms.
iMUGS will enable European countries to use unmanned vehicles with logistics and ISR functions, trimming the load and increasing troop security.

With this joint initiative, the European Defence Fund meets member states’ requirements and draws on the skills of Europe’s industry to boost defense capabilities and strategic autonomy.

European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP)

The European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP) is the first initiative of the European Union’s 2019 and 2020 defense research window of capabilities. Announced on June 7, 2017, EDIDP can be considered the “preparatory action” of defense research to prove the feasibility of a joint defense-capability development and procurement program.

EDIDP’s aim is to drive the European Union’s strategic autonomy and cooperation between member states, making it possible for armed forces to carry out high level operations, with special attention to intelligence, secure communications and cybernetics.

Under the EDIDP 2019-2020 program, GMV is participating in the iMUGS, GEODE, ESC2 and PANDORA projects.

GMV‘s iMUGS role

GMV will be coordinator of the command and control and C4ISR interoperability subproject. GMV is bringing to the table experience in C2 ground systems and JISR (joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance interoperability).

The overall aim is to develop the C2ISR tactical component for planning and carrying out joint manned and unmanned systems operations, using and distributing sensor data from the unmanned ground vehicle.

JISR interoperability synchronizes and integrates the planning and operation of all information-obtaining capacities with operation and processing capacities, sending on the resulting information to the assigned person at the right time in the right form and in direct support of present and future operations.

The Boxer Mechanised Infantry Vehicle (MIV) is used by many allied forces. (Photo: U.K. Ministry of Defence)

The C2 command and control subsystem will be fitted in a Boxer 8 x 8 vehicle for manned-unmanned teaming (MUT) coordination tests.

GMV’s participation in iMUGS is based on its experience in C2 ground systems, dismounted soldier C2 systems and JISR interoperability, areas where GMV is one of the leading companies in Europe. GMV is a supplier of Artillery and Dismounted Soldier Command and Control Systems for the Spanish MoD.

Since 2016 it has been responsible for maintenance and upgrading of the EUCCIS C2 system of the European External Action Service (EEAS).
July 13, 2020
Martek Marine launches COVID-19 tests for crew changes

New tests instituted to stop COVID-19 infection at crew change in response to new European Union and and International Maritime Organization (IMO) guidelines

The European Union and International Maritime Organization (IMO) have issued new guidelines requiring ship operators to implement pre-boarding screening of seafarers.

To assist ship operators comply with these important new guidelines and help protect their vessels from an outbreak of COVID-19, Martek Marine has launched the CoronaSafe finger prick antibody screening test.

From a single drop of blood, CoronaSafe will detect IgM antibodies within 5-7 days of infection. It is particularly useful for detecting infections among subjects who show no symptoms and would otherwise embark undetected.

A study into the COVID-19 outbreak on the cruise ship Diamond Princess estimated that 20.6%-39.9% of cases were asymptomatic, while a study published in the British Medical Journal concluded that up to four-fifths of cases are asymptomatic.

The CoronaSafe test is approved and certified by the European Union as meeting the safety, quality and performance requirements of Standard IVDD 98/79/EC — the highest standard applicable for these devices. It is also in wide-scale use by authorities and corporations in Japan, China, Germany, Poland and Indonesia, and is formally certified by CFDA, Philippines FDA and Singapore Health Sciences Authority.

“Screening crew before boarding is a critical step to prevent avoidable transmission from an asymptomatic crew member,” said Martek CEO Paul Luen. “It’s also an important diagnostic tool for re-screening after leaving or if someone shows symptoms. The effect of an outbreak on a ship could be catastrophic in both business and human terms.”

Major corporations worldwide are rushing to adopt these occupational screening tests to help control the spread of this deadly virus, with demand rising rapidly as the crisis deepens.

Martek, which has limited supply of the tests, are urging shipowners to act quickly to define their policy for crew screening, to maintain the health of their employees and ensure continuation of their shipping operations.

April 15, 2020
European drone-airspace integration project kicks off
Photo: aerogondo/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

GMV has been awarded the SUGUS project (Solution for E-GNSS U Space Service), which aims to speed the adoption of GNSS and Galileo in the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) segment and ensure safe airspace access by unmanned aircraft.

SUGUS is an 18-month, 485,000-euro European Union research and development project. A series of trials will be held to show the benefits of E-GNSS for drone operators as well as its approval by aviation authorities.

The project will be carried out by a GMV-led consortium including Everis Aerospace, Defense and Security; VVA Brussels; EGNOS service provider ESSP; FADA-CATEC and Unifly.

The demand for UAV services is steadily increasing, with the potential to generate significant economic growth, as recognized in the 2015 European Union Aviation Strategy. More recently, the 2016 European Drones Outlook Study (by SESAR — Single European Sky ATM Research) estimated that the European drone market will clock up 10 billion euros a year by 2035 and more than 15 billion euros annually by 2050.

U-Space services

U-Space is a set of new airspace-management services and procedures designed to ensure airspace access too UAVs while looking out for operational security, the right to privacy and the safety of persons and infrastructure. These services rely on a high level of digitization and function automation, whether onboard the drone itself or part of the ground-based environment.

Several initiatives are underway in Europe to develop U-Space and work toward the safe and efficient coexistence of manned and unmanned air traffic.

At the same time, new European legislation on operating unmanned systems is providing a uniform, Europe-wide framework. The new regulation is broken down into three drone operation categories:
- Open, calling for no AESA clearance or operator declaration
- Specific, where both clearance and declaration will be necessary
- Certified, reserved for riskier operations.
To help integrate drones into the airspace, SUGUS will center on the Open and Specific flight categories.

SUGUS tasks

SUGUS will demonstrate the benefits for drone operations of the measures implemented at service-provision level and the new EGNSS API (European GNSS application programming interface) to be implemented in the project.

These benefits included the mitigation of operating risks, improvement of preparation processes and clearance of the operator’s mission. Such measures as expected to ease future urban aerial mobility operations, such as aero taxis or parcel delivery.

For the first step in this endeavor, SUGUS will carry out a review of the results of previous EGNSS projects while also pinpointing the needs of drone operators and unmanned traffic service providers in complex operations and built-up areas.

This analysis will help to define and then implement the new EGNSS-based API.

SUGUS will also be running several flight trials in complex environments to prove the benefits of the drone-operation measures. The overarching idea is to raise awareness and contribute towards drone standardization and regulation to maximize the chances of the proposed services being implemented as a U Space service.
March 25, 2020
“Unacceptable! Never again!”: EC Deputy on Galileo outage

Pierre Delsaux speaks at an EU breakfast on space policy . (Photo: European Union)

Responding to a suggestion about the Galileo outage this past summer to the effect of “these things happen,” a senior European Commission (EC) official pushed back strongly, calling the event “Unacceptable!” and vowing “Never again!”

The comments by Pierre Delsaux came during a question-and-answer session at breakfast hosted by the European Union on “EU Space Policy: Trends for the Future.” The breakfast was held as a parallel event to this year’s International Astronautics Conference in Washington, D.C.

Delsaux is the European Commission Deputy Director General in charge of space and defense industries. In his presentation, Delsaux described the success of a number of European space initiatives, stressing civilian use and applications and how they have benefited the world.

His comments highlighted a principle difference between Galileo and other GNSS systems including its being built and operated by an entirely civilian organization. With an accuracy of 20 centimeters, it exceeds other GNSS, he said. Also, that Galileo signals can be authenticated and trusted.

Delsaux’s remarks were especially pertinent and timely being made this week in the United States. A strategy document recently made public by the U.S. Department of Defense states that civil dependence on GPS has limited its use as a military tool. Because of this, new military PNT technologies will be “increasingly classified,” which is understood to mean “not shared with civil users.”

During the question-and-answer period, Delsaux was asked about criticism in the press this summer related to Galileo’s multi-day outage. European media outlets commented about poor communications and a lack of transparency during the outage, and the absence of a terrestrial backup system for when space is not available.

Rejecting the idea that such outages might be expected in such a difficult undertaking, Delsaux said that the event was unacceptable and “never again!”

While admitting things can always be done better, he thought that, given what was known with certainty at the time, a reasonable amount of information was made available.

Subsequent investigation has shown that the primary cause was an initial human error compounded by that person not taking the right corrective action.

Even with these compounded errors Galileo service would still not had been impacted, but for the mischance that this happened when a backup site was temporarily out of service.

Going forward, the European Commission is committed to being as transparent as possible about the results of the investigation, given security constraints.

Reinforcing the transparency message, other EC officials mentioned separately that Galileo personnel had given presentations about the outage at a recent Institute of Navigation Conference in Miami.

Delsaux did not respond to press criticism over a lack of a backup system (the title of a Der Spiegel article about the Galileo failure translates as “Who relies on a single system is stupid!”).

Later, other EC officials observed that that the European Radionavigation Plan recognizes that for critical applications, it is broadly accepted that GNSS, even multi-constellation and multifrequency, should not be the unique source of PNT information. For those applications, a complementary, alternative or backup solution should be maintained or developed.

The EC is still developing its approach to this issue.

November 5, 2019
EU contracting for GNSS interference detection network

Request for proposals to be issued

The Official Journal of the European Union (EU) will publish a funding opportunity in the near future for a GNSS “Advanced Interference Detection and Robustness Capabilities System,” according to officials familiar with the project.

Advance notice of this procurement was first given in August of last year, with an award projected for the first quarter of 2019. Some observers have speculated that the procurement delay was related to a change in how the final system is envisioned. The current version of the notice asks for a crowdsourcing, software and networked-based solution.

The advance notice calls for the vendor to both establish the system and operate it.

The purpose of the present tender is to establish a new mechanism to detect interference at receiver and antenna level based on crowdsourcing and sharing information coming from any user (individuals or associated ones) and run the service for a period of two years.

While for many “crowdsourcing” suggests the participation of large numbers of individuals, this will likely not be part of the scheme. Speaking to a government advisory board, Jean Yves Courtois, CEO at Orolia, said that battery drain on cell phones would prevent this from being practical. “Privacy concerns would also be an issue,” he said. Each individual would have to affirmatively agree to have their location information used continuously. This additional administrative burden would be significant.

Much easier and preferable would be using Information from already deployed networks of fixed receivers, such as base stations. Unchanging locations and existing network connections make the engineering easier and thorny privacy concerns would be minimized. These ideas are also reflected in the current version of the advance notice:

The activity shall also focus on identifying and engaging users (such as entities currently monitoring vast networks of devices integrating GNSS receivers) by means of an appropriate enrolment scheme ensuring the provision of the data. The design of the system shall ensure that the sensitivity of the data (GNSS vulnerabilities) is always protected.

Crowdsourcing and collating such information is seen by many in industry as a relatively straight-forward engineering problem. Representatives from Orolia and Microsemi, for example, included ideas about crowdsourcing disruption data in recent presentations to the U.S. PNT Advisory Board. Both agreed, though, that there are few commercial incentives to do such work without a government customer.

It is perhaps not a surprise that the EU is taking the lead in this field while other GNSS providers seem to have little interest.

Unlike GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou, which are first and foremost national security systems, Europe’s Galileo was built and is operated by a civil organization focusing on economic and civil benefits. Interference with signals directly undercuts these benefits and can be easily seen in direct economic costs.

Many European countries are using GNSS for road tolling, for example. Small GNSS jammers are easy to acquire off the internet and their illegal use is likely costing nations millions of euros in lost tolls each year. Without the ability to regularly detect, sanction, and deter this activity financial losses will continue to mount.

The interference with tolling problem is not specifically addressed in the EU’s advance notice. It may well be that tolling authorities and others will be expected to install their own application specific interference detectors and then encouraged to link them to the EU backbone and database.

The European Commission has been aware of this vulnerability for some time. In 2015 it contracted with Nottingham Scientific Ltd. in the UK to lead a multi-nation team and assess the extent of the problem.

The STRIKE3 project was in operation from February 2016 to January 2019. Its goals were to sample and classify interference events, recommend a standard event reporting scheme, and assess the vulnerability of different types of GNSS receivers.

The project’s sampling activity in 23 different countries detected nearly 500,000 interference events. Of these, 59,000 were classified as deliberate attempts to disrupt GNSS signals.

Within the deliberate events the STRIKE3 team were able to identify about 300 jammer “families,” according to Mark Dumville, Co-Founder and Director at Nottingham Scientific. Along with the jammers they were able to classify into groups, there were “some very interesting outliers,” Dumville said. “These are likely evidence of jammer technology continuing to develop and evolve.”

STRIKE3 is viewed as a very successful project by most everyone in the international PNT community, and certainly within the EU, according to officials.

The upcoming announcement and future establishment of an on-going interference detection capability are some of the next logical steps to better securing Europe’s PNT services.

October 17, 2019
European GNSS Agency celebrates 15 years

GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides kicks off the celebration. (Photo: GSA)

News from the European GNSS Agency

The European GNSS Agency (GSA) hosted a special event on Sept. 10 to mark the 15th anniversary of its creation. The agency was set up as the European GNSS Supervisory Authority in 2004 to oversee the development of the European space programmes EGNOS and Galileo.

GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides welcomed special guests to the GSA’s Prague headquarters to celebrate the event, including European Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska, Czech Transport Minister Vladimir Kremlik, French Space Agency (CNES) President and GSA Administrative Board Chair Jean-Yves Le Gall and European Space Agency Director General Jan Woerner, in addition to other EGNOS and Galileo stakeholders.

“Over the last 15 years, the GSA has become one of the key players in building Europe’s independent capacity in satellite navigation,” said Commissioner Bieńkowska, responsible for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. While participating in the celebrations, the commissioner also presided over another historic milestone for both the Galileo programme and the GSA — the countdown to the 1 billionth Galileo-enabled smartphone sold.

“GSA has been at the heart of the EGNOS and Galileo programmes over the past 15 years.” — Carlo des Dorides.

Linking space to user needs

GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides said: “It is an honour and a great pleasure to celebrate this important milestone with representatives from all our stakeholders — the Commission, users, industry and other institutional bodies. Their presence here clearly shows that the GSA is delivering on its mission – linking space to user needs”.

“15 years ago, no one imagined how far the GSA and the EU satellite navigation systems EGNOS and Galileo would go. Now, no one can imagine Europe without Galileo and EGNOS, or Galileo and EGNOS without Europe. The GSA has been at the heart of these two programmes, accelerating progress in service provision, market uptake and guaranteeing operation security over the past 15 years. All that has been accomplished has been made possible thanks to the unique blend of expertise, dedication and commitment of the GSA’s staff,” des Dorides said.

Speaking at the event, GSA Administrative Board Chair Jean-Yves Le Gall said: “Today thanks to the European Union’s impressive investment, the European Space Agency’s technical expertise and the GSA’s outstanding commitment, Galileo is offering the best localization available worldwide. The range of applications is vast. This is structuring our economy and the implementation of the public policies to ensure that European companies are taking full advantage of these fantastic services.”

Czech Transport Minister Vladimir Kremlik noted the importance to the Czech capital of hosting the EU agency. “It has been fifteen years of hard work and continual development. By chance it is also seven years since the seat of GSA has been relocated from Brussels to Prague. I am very proud, that the Czech Republic is the hosting country of the seat of such an important European agency with real global reach,” the minister said.

Looking to the future

Galileo will soon reach its Full Operational Capability, a phase that will require new governance to comply with benchmarked standards for the management of operational satellite services. It was with this in mind that the European Parliament and the Council agreed on a new EU Space Programme Regulation establishing the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) as the successor to the GSA.

“In the new governance the Commission will continue to be responsible for managing the overall programme. The GSA, to be renamed the ‘EU Agency for the Space Programme,’ will increasingly support the exploitation and market uptake of EU space activities and play an increased role in ensuring the security of all programme components. The intergovernmental European Space Agency (ESA), given its expertise, will remain a major partner in the technical implementation of the EU space programme,” des Dorides said.

September 10, 2019
Galileo constellation represents Europe’s altruistic values

Alan Cameron

In February I had the privilege of addressing the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Navigation Days conference in the Netherlands. An internal ESA event, Navigation Days gathers engineering staff from centers in several countries to discuss the present and future of their endeavors.

Since most of the audience had been “bathing” in Galileo, EGNOS and the evolution of both systems for many years, the Director of Navigation and the Galileo Project Manager thought it would be interesting for all to have an “outsider” perspective and opinions on Galileo and the European GNSS position in the world.

Though my half-hour talk ranged freely, and perhaps somewhat wildly, across many sectors and subjects, it had two main foci: the fundamental differences between Galileo and the three other GNSS, and the future portended by those differences. A future column here will address the latter, that is, the future. At present, the present distinctions.

To me, they distill down to three elements: active stimulus of market development, well-funded research into new applications, and — actually the foundation stone of the afore two — democratically elected governments representing citizenry with altruistic values: a strong desire for the common good, thoughtful regulation, intertwined diversity and open borders.

In sum, Galileo’s strength is the strength of the European Union.

“Active stimulus of market development,
well-funded research into new applications,
and citizenry with altruistic values.”

For example, the Horizon 2020 framework program offers €80 billion to support and foster research from 2014–2020. Three E-GNSS calls in H2020 have a total budget of €100.9 million and they synergize with topics on societal challenges. To my knowledge, the U.S. has nothing like this in terms of downstream R&D programs; it is left to the marketplace to initiate and sustain such efforts.This corresponds to the respective economic systems of the two political entities. West of the Atlantic has historically taken a laissez-faire attitude towards applications, development and societal challenges: let the marketplace act.

The other two GNSS powers, Russia and China, as authoritarian regimes, may build viable GNSS and mandate their use, but the synergy between government and users is lacking. This missing link could prove an economic as well as technical weakness in the future. In some respects, it already has.

Particularly in transportation, freight and liability-critical applications, where the European GNSS have devoted extensive forethought to both user and societal needs (read “the environment”), we may see a distinctly different and more progressive future unfolding in Western Europe, led by Galileo.

On the other hand, in the realm of pure consumer devices, the market may be a stronger driver, and U.S. products and services with a GPS bent may remain dominant.

The Public Regulated Service (PRS) for defense, security, emergencies and critical infrastructure, is the hidden strength of Galileo.

I’ve run out of space here for non-scientific speculations, but will expand them in a future column or online.

May 15, 2019
EU initiative achieves greater airport safety with 3D GNSS

The European Union (EU) project BLUEGNSS has been developing GNSS applications in selected European airports to increase safety and airport accessibility, according to the European Commission’s Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS).

BLUEGNSS’s focus has been on advancing the adoption of the Galileo system in Greece, Italy, Cyprus and Malta. The four countries together form the Blue Med functional airspace block (FAB): airspace in which air traffic is managed irrespective of national boundaries. Blue Med is one of the nine FABs formed in Europe to reduce the fragmentation of the European air traffic network.

Three-dimensional GNSS approaches are being designed for 11 airports in the Blue Med FAB: four each in Greece and Italy, two in Cyprus and one in Malta.

The primary aim is to harmonize the implementation of required navigation performance approaches among the four countries, CORDIS said. This will enable aircraft to fly along precise flight paths with greater accuracy, and will make it possible to pinpoint aircraft position with precision and integrity.

Three new procedures. So far, substantial progress has been made towards safety and airport accessibility in the target countries. Since the beginning of 2018, three new GNSS procedures have been validated for Italian airports Cuneo, Lamezia and Parma, followed by another two for Larnaca and Paphos in Cyprus.

The poor weather conditions under which the Cyprus GNSS approaches were validated served to demonstrate the benefits of GNSS vertical guidance. Since its launch in 2016, BLUEGNSS has designed and validated 14 GNSS procedures.

Augmented performance of Galileo has been achieved through the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS). EGNOS is a satellite-based augmentation system that improves GNSS positioning. Its three satellites and network of more than 39 reference stations in 24 countries enable it to provide greater accuracy than Galileo alone.

EGNOS’s safety advantages and lower investment costs greatly benefit small and regional airports, which usually can’t afford the high costs of installing and maintaining ground-based navigation aids.

For this reason, BLUEGNSS has promoted its use in this geographically challenging Mediterranean region.

“The southeast Mediterranean region lacks full EGNOS coverage,” said GNSS expert Patrizio Vanni of ENAV S.p.A., project coordinator and Italy’s air navigation service provider. “To make things even more challenging, each airport involved in the project presents a very different operational environment.”

The project hasn’t only focused on designing and validating GNSS approaches at airports where no such procedures have been available up to now. It has also provided the necessary training and monitoring to support implementation by the Blue Med FAB countries.

Now close to completion, BLUEGNSS (Promoting EGNSS Operational Adoption in Blue Med FAB) is the first project of its kind to be coordinated at FAB level. It may serve as a catalyst to spread required navigation performance approach know-how in the region and beyond, to the whole of Europe.

(Photo: EU)

July 16, 2018
University of Nottingham GNSS project to boost precision agriculture in Brazil
Photo: University of Nottingham

The University of Nottingham is working with Brazilian and European Union (EU) partners to solve atmospheric interference problems that hamper satellite-based positioning in equatorial countries like Brazil.

The research network will support the advancement of precision agriculture, which aims to make crop farming practices cheaper, greener and more efficient using satellite positioning and remote sensing.

These technologies rely on GNSS (such as GPS and Galileo) to obtain centimeter-accurate coordinates on Earth. Farmers then use this real-time precise data to optimize fertilizer use, to steer driverless machinery and for soil mapping to maximize crop production in a bid to feed a rising world population.

Despite its revolutionary potential, precision agriculture adoption rates in countries on equatorial regions such as Brazil are hindered by ionospheric scintillation in the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Ionospheric scintillation affects the integrity, availability and accuracy of satellite positioning. Specifically, it causes interference with the propagation of satellite signals as they pass through the ionosphere, making it difficult for GNSS receivers to lock onto satellites and track their signals. This results in not only large errors but sometimes to service outages.

“The strong signal fluctuations that characterize ionospheric scintillation are caused by the irregular behavior of the ionosphere that is typical of the equatorial latitudes, affecting most of the Brazilian territory, hence the importance of the bilateral collaboration in the PEARL network,” said project leader Marcio Aquino from the Nottingham Geospatial Institute at the University.

The PEARL network, which is funded by the European Commission’s INCOBRA project, aims to tackle this problem head on to ensure high-accuracy positioning by satellite is robust and achievable in real time in Brazil.

“Solutions arising from the research will have a positive impact not only in Brazil but in the whole of Latin America, due to its geographical location near the equator and corresponding disruptive ionospheric effects,” Aquino said. “It could play a pivotal role in promoting the uptake of satellite-based positioning and the broad acceptance of the new EU system Galileo, paving the way for service implementation in other similarly affected parts of the world, such as southern China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia.”

Research and industrial partners from both Europe and Brazil will come together on the seven-month initiative to develop strategies to map the causes of ionospheric scintillation and specialized algorithms to model and mitigate their effects on satellite-based positioning.

These strategies will be part of a large Brazil-EU collaborative proposal to be submitted to the forthcoming H2020 SPACE-EGNSS call due out in October 2018.

Network members include small to medium enterprises in Europe and Brazil that are keen to incorporate new solutions that will improve their satellite-based services.

The PEARL network encompasses:
1. University of Nottingham, UK; Sao Paulo State University and Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso, Brazil.
2. National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology and SpacEarth Technology (an SME), Italy.
3. Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland.
4. Three small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): Geo++, Germany, and Alezi Teodolini and MC Engenharia Ltd, Brazil.
The European Commission funds the INCOBRA project to increase and enhance Research and Innovation cooperation activities between Brazil and the European Union. PEARL is one of INCOBRA’s bilateral R&I cooperation networks, led by the University of Nottingham, addressing one of INCOBRA’s priority areas, namely bio-economy, food security and sustainable agriculture.

According to the latest issue of the GSA GNSS market report (issue 5, 2017), revenue for GNSS device sales in precision agriculture will grow to nearly €3 billion by 2025, quadrupling from €750 million in 2013 (based on GNSS receiver sales to just this market segment).
May 30, 2018
Yet Another GNSS — Now for the UK

The United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) continue locked in conflict over Galileo post-Brexit, much akin to a divorce dispute over the children.

The European Commission has initiated proceedings to exclude the U.K. and its companies from security work on Galileo before the country’s exit from the bloc next year, a move that presages exclusion from use of the security features of the Galileo PRS signal.

The U.K. has responded with a demand for repayment of up to 1 billion pounds ($1.34 billion).

Both sides say they wish to continue working together on the GNSS, but the EU insists that it must be under new rules, including those preventing third countries from obtaining access to critical security information. The European Commission, executive arm of the EU, says the U.K. can no longer be trusted with sensitive data providing a secure back-up for the new satellite system.

“It’s simple: Britain is part of Galileo today as an EU member, but won’t be automatically part of Galileo tomorrow as a third-party state,” said an EU advisor. “That’s the mechanical, legal consequence of Brexit.”

The U.K. for its part has made unrestricted access a condition for a broader security collaboration.

There has been speculation that the U.K. would use the $1.34 billion alimony settlement to build a new GNSS, drawing on expertise from Australia — in effect, engendering offspring from a new marriage.

May 28, 2018