GALILEO TECHNOLOGICAL STANDPOINT

From INVESaTWIKI

1 History : What is GALILEO
- 1.1 Phases of the GALILEO project
2 The system
3 Future trends and expected technological evolution
- 3.1 Technological trends
- 3.2 Development of new and challenging applications
4 References

History : What is GALILEO

Already back in the 1980's, the EU identified the political and economic need for an European-owned satellite based navigation system similar to the one in the USA known as GPS (Global Positioning System). As a consequence of these findings, the European company Galileo Industries has been established in 2000 as a joint venture of leading European space companies to act as the industrial prime to develop and deliver the GALILEO infrastructure.

In 2002, the European Union (EU) and European Space Agency (ESA) set up a joint public body called Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU) in charge of supervising the implementation of the GALILEO project and selecting the future commercial operator of GALILEO.

The GSA's predecessor, the GALILEO Joint Undertaking (GJU) was set up in May 2002 by the European Community and the European Space Agency to manage the development phase of the GALILEO Programme. On January 1st 2004, Galileo Supervisory Authority officially took over all the tasks previously assigned to the GJU. The GSA was established as a Community Agency on 12 July 2004, by Council Regulation (EC) 1321/2004, status amended in 2006 by Council Regulation (EC) No 1942/2006.

GALILEO is Europe's contribution to the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). It is scheduled to be fully operational worldwide before the end of this decade with overall costs estimated at € 3.7 billion. GALILEO will consist of 30 satellites positioned in three orbits at an altitude of approx. 23.000 km and a worldwide network of ground infrastructure. GALILEO is to be seen as an independent but complementary system to existing ones such as GPS (USA) or Glonass (Russia). The objective is to make the already existing and future satellite-based navigation systems inter-operational and compatible for the benefit of the user world.

In contrast to the military GPS and Glonass systems, GALILEO will be designed around the needs of civilian users:

GALILEO will be a civil-controlled system
The availability of the GALILEO signal will be guaranteed allowing for reliable and sound business cases based on satellite-based navigation technology
The GALILEO system will offer an integrity signal (knowing that the signal you receive is correct)

GALILEO will offer five services:

Open Service
Commercial Service
Safety of Life Service
Public Regulated Service
Support for Search and Rescue

GALILEO will give the European economy an important impulse for growth and create numerous high-tech jobs. The European Commission estimates the market potential for satellite navigation in Europe at € 10 billion p.a. by 2015 and predicts the creation of more than 100.000 new jobs in the applications industry related to navigation. [1]

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Phases of the GALILEO project

Fig.1 Galileo calendar [2]

The IOV (In Orbit Validation) phase with a budget of approx. € 1.5 billion is co-funded by the EU and ESA. Until year-end 2008, four GALILEO satellites will be launched and the ground infrastructure necessary to verify the system will be installed. Furthermore, EGNOS will be integrated into the GALILEO system. During this phase the important GSTB V1 and GIOVE B contracts have been awarded to Galileo Industries. The objective of the IOV phase is to verify the proper functioning of the overall system before entering the next phase.

Galileo Industries played an active role in the GALA (1999-2001) and GALILEI (2002-2003) studies funded by the European Union.

The FOC (Full Operational Capability) phase will start once the generic functioning of the GALILEO system has been verified during IOV phase. The costs for this second phase are estimated at more than € 2 billion and will be financed via a Public Private Partnership (PPP). During FOC phase, the full deployment of 30 GALILEO satellites will take place in order to have the GALILEO system fully operational worldwide by 2011.

Once the FOC phase has been accomplished, the system will enter in its routine operations phase. From then on, GALILEO will be continuously updated and replenished accordingly to the market needs. [1]

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The system

In this chapter, we provide first some detailed information on the EGNOS V1 Project status, information on the formal technical qualification, and the start of initial operations. Next, we will provide information on EGNOS V1 measured and qualified performances, showing they are excellent, exceeding in several cases the expected requirements. Finally, current views on the EGNOS infrastructure evolution plans will also be described here. [3]

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Future trends and expected technological evolution

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Technological trends

Miniaturisation and receiver advances improve price versus performance and favour its use in portable devices.
Advances in geographical information systems and digital mapping provide the necessary data to support new Location Based Services.
Mobile communication technologies push the markets for positioning and timing services.
The European GPS overlay infrastructure (EGNOS) in a first stage as well as Galileo in a second stage provide for quantum leaps in satellite navigation performances, hence stimulating demand and supply industries. [4]

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Development of new and challenging applications

Like other technological domains new GNSS applications may be created by new combinations of existing elements. In the case of GNSS new technical elements such as increased availability and accuracy or integrity and service guarantee may enable new classes of applications, e.g. in public regulated or safety critical areas. A number of such new applications are already known on research level, others will be developed in the future. An important issue to be solved for transferring such applications into marketable products or services is their operational feasibility, e.g. safety certification or legal accountability.
Marine and aviation industries have traditionally accepted that their markets are governed by legislation, liability and type approval issues and have accepted these constraints when adopting GPS technology. The land navigation and personal location markets have not been subject to the same level of intervention. As the accuracy of GPS systems develop and especially when GALILEO is operational there will be situations where the technology will be providing critical information. A current example of use of GPS for time and location is in the ambulance services, where the U.K. Government has introduced a requirement on response times. Presently the information obtained by using GPS and associated equipment is used to audit response times but it is not yet mandatory nor is the equipment used subject to type approval. However it is not inconceivable that in the future this will be introduced. Current certification of a product can be by either self certification or an independent third party, and it could be argued that approval and certification could be a means of raising revenue.
One field in rather cheap, high volume applications where GPS has found only little success is personal security in emergency cases: GPS devices are currently not suited for personal emergency alarm systems carried on person. Mainly practical issues hinder this kind of use: in-house positioning, antenna not in a suitable position, long start-up time, power supply, expensive up-link, and more.
This enumeration leads to an important point: many challenging applications require an up-link to work. Neither GPS nor GALILEO provide this kind of service. Typical up-link media are the GSM network and satellite data networks. Both of these up-links have their specific advantages and disadvantages: e.g. GSM does not work world-wide or off-shore while satellite links require larger antennas and have a very limited data throughput. One example of such an application is the localisation of overseas containers. Currently such systems built with GPS receivers and satellite transceivers are hardly usable. Firstly, the energy supply is not solved (batteries have a very limited lifetime, solar panels are not suitable), secondly, there is no ideal up-link media. This example shows that limitations coming from other system parts hinder or at least slow down the break though of new challenging applications.
What is the consequence from this? Application of GPS or GALILEO must be analysed in a whole system context. The positioning function alone does very unlikely lead to new challenging mass applications. This may be different in fields where the positioning itself is the main function like avionics applications. The latter may be very important but are limited to quite small volumes. [5]

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