Applications induced by regulations as new business opportunities due to GALILEO

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Applications induced by regulations as new business opportunities due to GALILEO

Regulations mandating GNSS application or notably certification of the GNSS signal and guaranteed integrity as intended for GALILEO may pave the way for new GNSS applications and markets not feasible today based on GPS alone thus opening new business opportunities for European industry in the future.
Current GPS technology does not provide any certified localisation or time signal thus limiting GNSS application. Therefore, many applications are using GPS as auxiliary system today. Nevertheless, GPS is also used for time synchronisation of network systems in many countries without any further special certification procedure of the receiver equipment, for example. However, the majority of possible GNSS applications being critical regarding proved localisation or time will only see the market if signal certification is ensured. Other applications possibly may need specific regulations requiring application of GNSS to be introduced on the market.
Reliability and degree of confidence related to GNSS application will come in the future with the redundancy and integrity flag provided by EGNOS/GALILEO, allowing for more demanding services or applications.
In the following several applications are being listed where new business opportunities are likely to evolve due to new regulations:

• Road Applications: car manufacturers are introducing telematic services in their vehicles, and the road sector is a major potential market for GNSS applications. Satellite navigation receivers are now frequently installed in cars as a key tool for providing new services to people on the move such as route guidance, real time traffic information, and fleet management. Emerging or future applications such as electronic road tolling, emergency localisation, or ADAS require a certified time or localisation signal for legal and / or organisational reasons.
  As far as truck tolling is concerned, the currently proposed amendment of Directive 1999/62/EC will lead to a Europe wide application of GNSS for this application.
• Maritime: new maritime applications, especially related to surveillance, will become feasible through GALILEO services, e.g. Vessel Monitoring Systems, Automatic Identification Systems, and possible new applications following future or modified regulations of monitoring and control of fishing.
• Precision Farming: precision farming used for managing of farming activities can also be used for surveillance of levels of fertiliser and locations were insecticides are spread over, and can be audited by responsible entities. Certified GALILEO services may be applied for animal tracking as well. Another application sensitive to regulation and certification is surveying and land registering for checking and approval of farm subsidies.
• Social: people with special needs can benefit from precision and integrity in a way that they can use wearable computers and localisation receivers in order to be guided and use services and support in their activity. This service requires certified localisation in the sense of providing guarantee of confidence and quality of service.
• E112 regulations: there are considerations to introduce in Europe a new requirement for mobile phone operators to locate any caller to the emergency number (usually 112 in European mobile phone networks), similar to the FCC E911 Mandate in the United States, with a rather high position accuracy beyond the accuracy of existing, network-based solutions. In the US this mandate has not yet created a significant market for GPS based products and services. The only exception is the “Snaptrack/Qualcomm” “A-GPS1” system, that has become a standard feature of CDMA chipsets available for all CDMA equipment manufacturers. However, additional revenues resulting from GPS-based E911 applications are rather small and essentially limited to chipset fees.
  Two major reasons for the unsatisfactory market development are:

• Indoor positioning problems : GNSS in general can be received indoors only with very high technological expense. Furthermore, even when a position can be determined, multipath and other effects limit its accuracy. This yields the indoor position unusable;
• Absence of an attractive business model for equipment manufacturers and network operators : there is no sound business model for the carriers and mobile phone manufacturers who are forced to integrate E911 systems into their mobile phones. In fact, the additional cost of the integration of E911 systems into mobile phones is not compensated by any additional revenue stream.

In Europe, there has been less focus on implementing the E112 requirement. To date, the position of an emergency call has to be relayed to the emergency centre “as good as possible” but without any specific accuracy requirement. A mandate forcing industry to introduce more accurate technologies such as GNSS is missing. On the other hand, technological developments are funded mainly through the 5th and 6th Framework Programmes. As regards GALILEO perspectives in mobile communication, more emphasis should be laid on technological developments for indoor GNSS based positioning systems, local elements to support accuracy and availability, and viable business models for accurate emergency services.
The experience from the USA. shows clearly that the introduction of a new E-112 regulation will not automatically trigger substantial new business and location based services, as it has often been assumed. [1]

References

[1] G.Dippel-Hens (GALILEAN working group report)
"GNSS business issues".