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The huge value of the Galileo Search and Rescue (SAR) service was underlined in a live demonstration off the coast of Belgium on Thursday 26 September. Operation Shark Bait showed how this vital service can quickly trigger a rescue operation and save lives at sea. Despite a grey day and choppy sea conditions, an emergency rescue was initiated in just over three and a half minutes after intrepid “volunteer victim”, Australian broadcaster and explorer Tara Foster, operated her Galileo-enabled SAR beacon from a small life raft buffeted by the waves just offshore from the port of Ostend.

Operation Shark Bait was a specially designed demonstration of the capabilities of the Galileo SAR service that took place around the new state-of-the-art Belgian Maritime Rescue and Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Ostend with an invited audience of VIPs and media. The whole operation was streamed live over YouTube and the Europe By Satellite (EBS) TV service.

The scenario was simple. Tara was left alone at sea in a small life raft, but with a 406MHz Cospas-Sarsat personal locator beacon (PLB). On activating the beacon, the stopwatch started. The time to receive the distress signal, compute her position and alert the relevant rescue authorities was recorded. The Belgian fast rescue boat ORKA R6 then dashed out to sea to pick her up. Subsequently a NH90 Cayman SAR helicopter from the Belgian 40th squadron was also scrambled to help transfer “injured” Tara to hospital. 

Read this: World’s first Galileo-enabled PLB launched

Shark Bait was a great success with just 3 minutes 32 seconds elapsing from Tara activating her Galileo-enabled Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) to the moment commanders at MRCC could dispatch the ORKA to her location. The location, with an initial accuracy of 100 metres, is provided by the Galileo receiver inside the PLB to the Galileo satellites in view. The Galileo satellites then forward this information to the Cospas-Sarsat infrastructure, where the position is validated. 

“The PLB used was developed under one of our Horizon 2020 projects and is the first Galileo-enabled beacon on the market,” said Fiammetta Diani, Head of Market Development at the GSA.

Time saver, life saver

The day started at the MRCC in Ostend with a visit to the operations centre, an inspection of the ORKA Fast Rescue Boat and a chance to talk to Tara Foster before she was “castaway” on the waves.

Dries Boodts, Deputy Nautical Director at MRCC, described the role of the centre, which has a single focus on safety at sea. “The globe is divided into Search and Rescue Regions (SRRs), said Boodts. “And the MRCC oversees the Belgian maritime region that extends up to 47 miles off the Belgian coast.”

The region includes major shipping lanes and two large offshore wind energy parks. The MRCC deals with around 450 incidents each year involving a range of craft and issues from collisions at sea to war munitions recovery. It can call on an assortment of assets including its own rescue craft, police and navy vessels and the Belgian air force and the MRCC collaborates extensively with authorities in neighbouring countries.

Galileo is Europe’s contribution to upgrading Cospas-Sarsat – the Global Satellite-based Search and Rescue system. Since its introduction in 1981, Cospas-Sarsat is estimated to have saved some 45 000 lives. The current MEOSAR (Mid Earth Orbit Search and Rescue) upgrade is based on the EU’s Galileo satellite constellation that carries a dedicated Cospas-Sarsat payload for the 406 MHz distress beacons that give users free access to global system.

Watch this: Galileo Search and Rescue (SAR) Service

The addition of Galileo (and other GNSS satellites) to the system has already enabled a dramatic increase in performance in terms of better accuracy to locate activated distress beacons and vastly improved global coverage. “With the Galileo system, all parts of the world will be covered at least every 10 minutes – previously this was up to four hours – and guaranteed location accuracy is reduced from 10 to 2 kilometres,” explained Jolanda van Eijndthoven from the European Commission.

As well as the 23 SAR payloads currently provided by Galileo, with more to come, the EU also provides ground infrastructure including MEO Local User Terminals (LUTs) to pick up the signals relayed from the satellites. These LUTs are not just in Europe, and a fourth facility is o be opened soon on La Reunion island to improve coverage across the Indian Ocean.

Return link reassurance

From the end of the year the Galileo system will also provide a Return Link Service (RLS) that will be able to send an acknowledgement to the victim that their distress signal has been received and help is on its way. This new ability to provide reassurance should deliver a valuable psychological lift to victims and further boost survival rates.

“The PLBs developed under our Horizon 2020 projects will be the first ones on the market to have the RLS capability,” said Fiammetta Diani.

Back on dry land, Tara confessed that the simulation had felt very real to her. “The scariest part was the transfer to the helicopter from the rescue boat,” she said. “The winch was like a lift without a floor and very fast! Stepping from the flimsy life raft to the ORKA was also not easy – those waves were high!”

“The operation went just like clockwork,” concluded Paul Flament Head of the Galileo and EGNOS unit at the European Commission’s DG GROW. 

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

The huge value of the Galileo Search and Rescue (SAR) service was underlined in a live demonstration off the coast of Belgium on Thursday 26 September. Operation Shark Bait showed how this vital service can quickly trigger a rescue operation and save lives at sea. Despite a grey day and choppy sea conditions, an emergency rescue was initiated in just over three and a half minutes after intrepid “volunteer victim”, Australian broadcaster and explorer Tara Foster, operated her Galileo-enabled SAR beacon from a small life raft buffeted by the waves just offshore from the port of Ostend.

Operation Shark Bait was a specially designed demonstration of the capabilities of the Galileo SAR service that took place around the new state-of-the-art Belgian Maritime Rescue and Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Ostend with an invited audience of VIPs and media. The whole operation was streamed live over YouTube and the Europe By Satellite (EBS) TV service.

The scenario was simple. Tara was left alone at sea in a small life raft, but with a 406MHz Cospas-Sarsat personal locator beacon (PLB). On activating the beacon, the stopwatch started. The time to receive the distress signal, compute her position and alert the relevant rescue authorities was recorded. The Belgian fast rescue boat ORKA R6 then dashed out to sea to pick her up. Subsequently a NH90 Cayman SAR helicopter from the Belgian 40th squadron was also scrambled to help transfer “injured” Tara to hospital. 

Read this: World’s first Galileo-enabled PLB launched

Shark Bait was a great success with just 3 minutes 32 seconds elapsing from Tara activating her Galileo-enabled Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) to the moment commanders at MRCC could dispatch the ORKA to her location. The location, with an initial accuracy of 100 metres, is provided by the Galileo receiver inside the PLB to the Galileo satellites in view. The Galileo satellites then forward this information to the Cospas-Sarsat infrastructure, where the position is validated. 

“The PLB used was developed under one of our Horizon 2020 projects and is the first Galileo-enabled beacon on the market,” said Fiammetta Diani, Head of Market Development at the GSA.

Time saver, life saver

The day started at the MRCC in Ostend with a visit to the operations centre, an inspection of the ORKA Fast Rescue Boat and a chance to talk to Tara Foster before she was “castaway” on the waves.

Dries Boodts, Deputy Nautical Director at MRCC, described the role of the centre, which has a single focus on safety at sea. “The globe is divided into Search and Rescue Regions (SRRs), said Boodts. “And the MRCC oversees the Belgian maritime region that extends up to 47 miles off the Belgian coast.”

The region includes major shipping lanes and two large offshore wind energy parks. The MRCC deals with around 450 incidents each year involving a range of craft and issues from collisions at sea to war munitions recovery. It can call on an assortment of assets including its own rescue craft, police and navy vessels and the Belgian air force and the MRCC collaborates extensively with authorities in neighbouring countries.

Galileo is Europe’s contribution to upgrading Cospas-Sarsat – the Global Satellite-based Search and Rescue system. Since its introduction in 1981, Cospas-Sarsat is estimated to have saved some 45 000 lives. The current MEOSAR (Mid Earth Orbit Search and Rescue) upgrade is based on the EU’s Galileo satellite constellation that carries a dedicated Cospas-Sarsat payload for the 406 MHz distress beacons that give users free access to global system.

Watch this: Galileo Search and Rescue (SAR) Service

The addition of Galileo (and other GNSS satellites) to the system has already enabled a dramatic increase in performance in terms of better accuracy to locate activated distress beacons and vastly improved global coverage. “With the Galileo system, all parts of the world will be covered at least every 10 minutes – previously this was up to four hours – and guaranteed location accuracy is reduced from 10 to 2 kilometres,” explained Jolanda van Eijndthoven from the European Commission.

As well as the 23 SAR payloads currently provided by Galileo, with more to come, the EU also provides ground infrastructure including MEO Local User Terminals (LUTs) to pick up the signals relayed from the satellites. These LUTs are not just in Europe, and a fourth facility is o be opened soon on La Reunion island to improve coverage across the Indian Ocean.

Return link reassurance

From the end of the year the Galileo system will also provide a Return Link Service (RLS) that will be able to send an acknowledgement to the victim that their distress signal has been received and help is on its way. This new ability to provide reassurance should deliver a valuable psychological lift to victims and further boost survival rates.

“The PLBs developed under our Horizon 2020 projects will be the first ones on the market to have the RLS capability,” said Fiammetta Diani.

Back on dry land, Tara confessed that the simulation had felt very real to her. “The scariest part was the transfer to the helicopter from the rescue boat,” she said. “The winch was like a lift without a floor and very fast! Stepping from the flimsy life raft to the ORKA was also not easy – those waves were high!”

“The operation went just like clockwork,” concluded Paul Flament Head of the Galileo and EGNOS unit at the European Commission’s DG GROW. 

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

Have you ever wondered how pilots can land a plane when it is snowing or foggy? Or how a taxi drives right up to you and not 10 metres away, even when you are standing in the middle of nowhere? Or have you ever thought about how the exact time and position of your morning tram to work are known? The answers lie just five minutes away from downtown Prague.

The European Space Programmes are closer than you think. Satellites might be an invisible infrastructure spinning many thousand kilometres above our heads, but the services they deliver are more than visible. Look around you! Satellite navigation is used in much of our everyday life and, for all of the services that use satellite navigation, accuracy is of the essence.

Planes land smoothly with precision thanks to EGNOS. Trams, trains and buses #UseGalileo for accurate timing information, tractors use EU satellite-based technology for a greener environment. More than 1 billion Galileo-enabled smartphones are now in your pockets.

Still not convinced? 

Join us on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 of November for the #GSAOpenDays 2019 and experience first-hand why #AccuracyMatters

Be a pilot and land an airbus A350 using EGNOS or discover a satellite mock-up. Are you an adrenaline junkie? Experience a live rescue in the snow-capped Alps with the help of Galileo. If you’re afraid of heights you can always decrypt secret messages or take part in our various workshops running throughout the day.

Not sure how to find us? Let Galileo take care of that. Check if your smartphone uses Galileo here and rest assured you’ll make it to the event on time! After all Accuracy Matters, right?

Follow us on twitter @EU_GNSS and Instagram @space4eu for regular updates.

Use the hashtag #GSAOpenDays to share your experience of this year’s Open Days. 

Over two days in August, to kick off Thai Space Week, GNSS.asia and Thailand’s Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) ran a Galileo and Smart RTK Hackathon – challenging participants to think outside the box. With one hackathon already completed this year, this was a good opportunity to introduce Galileo to a new region and to a new group of enthusiastic innovators.

Participating in the hackathon were 50 undergraduates, entrepreneurs, business owners and PhD candidates with backgrounds ranging from engineering, computer science, and GIS, to marketing, geodesy and business management. Their diversity was fantastic also, with a 45 to 55  female to male ratio. There were 10 teams in total, with 9 mentors helping the teams iron out kinks, understand how to use the technology and turn their ideas into incredible projects.

Watch this: Galileo & Smart RTK Hackathon

In order to give the teams a well-rounded understanding of the technological concepts behind Galileo and Smart RTK, the first day opened with interactive training sessions by Dr Anindya Bose, from the University of Bardwan, India, and Ms Darunee Promchot from GISTDA. They both gave the participants the fundamentals behind GNSS, Thailand’s G-PPS (GISTDA Precise Positioning System) RTK network and some hints about how to incorporate them into their applications. Varadarajan Krish, Managing Director, Induct AS, India, took the hackers through the hard and soft skills needed to take ideas from concept to reality.

The teams were challenged to develop a solution to provide one of the following:

• A user-friendly, fast and cost-efficient A-to-Z transport solution for Bangkok;

• Smart agriculture, focusing on high precision or automatization;

• A smart city solution for citizens who are disadvantaged and/or with health issues;

• Other smart solutions for Bangkok, Thailand or globally (travel, sustainability, logistics, food distribution, new services…) using Galileo or G-PPS;

• A smart mobile application platform for GNSS positioning in real-time, retrieved correction data from G-PPS to improve the accuracy of smartphone positioning called “Smart RTK.”

When it came to pitching time, the hackers did a superb job keeping to time and using the 10 slide template made especially for the occasion. There was a wide range of applications: GNSS-enabled ticketing to reduce traffic accidents; drone delivery for food, medical devices and urgent packages; outdoor/indoor 3D mapping for more effective firefighting; automatic ripeness assessment of fruit combining unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAVs) and GNSS; farming automation to mitigate rural depopulation to sustain farming into the future generations; driverless tractors with low cost GNSS receivers; and, identification of plant diseases using UAVs.

And the winners were…

The judges were impressed with the professionalism of all the pitches. Deliberations to award the prizes were passionate and almost heated, but a consensus was reached.

Smart RTK Prize: Team FarmFellow.

Solution: Digital platform for agricultural farmers for farm mapping, crop selection and farm monitoring.

Galileo Prize: Team Fling RTK.

Solution: Fling is using drones to deliver urgently-needed goods to city residents using multi-constellation GNSS and RTK to prevent jamming and position and land its drones safely and accurately.

Best Prize: Team – Second Eyes

Solution: EmergMap – Reducing costs due to fire damage for complex buildings, using 3D mapping, sensors and G-PPS technology to extinguish the fire efficiently and safely.

Congratulations to the winners and to all the teams involved. The event would not have been the success it was without the energy that they brought, the ideas that they had and the dedication to pitching such well researched and brilliantly delivered solutions using Galileo and the Thai GPPS network.

Read this: GNSS.asia highlights Europe-India cooperation

GNSS.asia

GNSS.asia is a Horizon 2020 project of the European GNSS Agency (GSA) that aims to stimulate the creation of partnerships between GNSS industries in Europe and Asia, while supporting institutional cooperation and encouraging Galileo adoption. It offers several services, including industry matchmaking and international cooperation events. GNSS.asia has permanent teams in Europe, India, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

Over two days in August, to kick off Thai Space Week, GNSS.asia and Thailand’s Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) ran a Galileo and Smart RTK Hackathon – challenging participants to think outside the box. With one hackathon already completed this year, this was a good opportunity to introduce Galileo to a new region and to a new group of enthusiastic innovators.

Participating in the hackathon were 50 undergraduates, entrepreneurs, business owners and PhD candidates with backgrounds ranging from engineering, computer science, and GIS, to marketing, geodesy and business management. Their diversity was fantastic also, with a 45 to 55  female to male ratio. There were 10 teams in total, with 9 mentors helping the teams iron out kinks, understand how to use the technology and turn their ideas into incredible projects.

Watch this: Galileo & Smart RTK Hackathon

In order to give the teams a well-rounded understanding of the technological concepts behind Galileo and Smart RTK, the first day opened with interactive training sessions by Dr Anindya Bose, from the University of Bardwan, India, and Ms Darunee Promchot from GISTDA. They both gave the participants the fundamentals behind GNSS, Thailand’s G-PPS (GISTDA Precise Positioning System) RTK network and some hints about how to incorporate them into their applications. Varadarajan Krish, Managing Director, Induct AS, India, took the hackers through the hard and soft skills needed to take ideas from concept to reality.

The teams were challenged to develop a solution to provide one of the following:

• A user-friendly, fast and cost-efficient A-to-Z transport solution for Bangkok;

• Smart agriculture, focusing on high precision or automatization;

• A smart city solution for citizens who are disadvantaged and/or with health issues;

• Other smart solutions for Bangkok, Thailand or globally (travel, sustainability, logistics, food distribution, new services…) using Galileo or G-PPS;

• A smart mobile application platform for GNSS positioning in real-time, retrieved correction data from G-PPS to improve the accuracy of smartphone positioning called “Smart RTK.”

When it came to pitching time, the hackers did a superb job keeping to time and using the 10 slide template made especially for the occasion. There was a wide range of applications: GNSS-enabled ticketing to reduce traffic accidents; drone delivery for food, medical devices and urgent packages; outdoor/indoor 3D mapping for more effective firefighting; automatic ripeness assessment of fruit combining unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAVs) and GNSS; farming automation to mitigate rural depopulation to sustain farming into the future generations; driverless tractors with low cost GNSS receivers; and, identification of plant diseases using UAVs.

And the winners were…

The judges were impressed with the professionalism of all the pitches. Deliberations to award the prizes were passionate and almost heated, but a consensus was reached.

Smart RTK Prize: Team FarmFellow.

Solution: Digital platform for agricultural farmers for farm mapping, crop selection and farm monitoring.

Galileo Prize: Team Fling RTK.

Solution: Fling is using drones to deliver urgently-needed goods to city residents using multi-constellation GNSS and RTK to prevent jamming and position and land its drones safely and accurately.

Best Prize: Team – Second Eyes

Solution: EmergMap – Reducing costs due to fire damage for complex buildings, using 3D mapping, sensors and G-PPS technology to extinguish the fire efficiently and safely.

Congratulations to the winners and to all the teams involved. The event would not have been the success it was without the energy that they brought, the ideas that they had and the dedication to pitching such well researched and brilliantly delivered solutions using Galileo and the Thai GPPS network.

Read this: GNSS.asia highlights Europe-India cooperation

GNSS.asia

GNSS.asia is a Horizon 2020 project of the European GNSS Agency (GSA) that aims to stimulate the creation of partnerships between GNSS industries in Europe and Asia, while supporting institutional cooperation and encouraging Galileo adoption. It offers several services, including industry matchmaking and international cooperation events. GNSS.asia has permanent teams in Europe, India, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

Over two days in August, to kick off Thai Space Week, GNSS.asia and Thailand’s Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) ran a Galileo and Smart RTK Hackathon – challenging participants to think outside the box. With one hackathon already completed this year, this was a good opportunity to introduce Galileo to a new region and to a new group of enthusiastic innovators.

Participating in the hackathon were 50 undergraduates, entrepreneurs, business owners and PhD candidates with backgrounds ranging from engineering, computer science, and GIS, to marketing, geodesy and business management. Their diversity was fantastic also, with a 45 to 55  female to male ratio. There were 10 teams in total, with 9 mentors helping the teams iron out kinks, understand how to use the technology and turn their ideas into incredible projects.

Watch this: Galileo & Smart RTK Hackathon

In order to give the teams a well-rounded understanding of the technological concepts behind Galileo and Smart RTK, the first day opened with interactive training sessions by Dr Anindya Bose, from the University of Bardwan, India, and Ms Darunee Promchot from GISTDA. They both gave the participants the fundamentals behind GNSS, Thailand’s G-PPS (GISTDA Precise Positioning System) RTK network and some hints about how to incorporate them into their applications. Varadarajan Krish, Managing Director, Induct AS, India, took the hackers through the hard and soft skills needed to take ideas from concept to reality.

The teams were challenged to develop a solution to provide one of the following:

• A user-friendly, fast and cost-efficient A-to-Z transport solution for Bangkok;

• Smart agriculture, focusing on high precision or automatization;

• A smart city solution for citizens who are disadvantaged and/or with health issues;

• Other smart solutions for Bangkok, Thailand or globally (travel, sustainability, logistics, food distribution, new services…) using Galileo or G-PPS;

• A smart mobile application platform for GNSS positioning in real-time, retrieved correction data from G-PPS to improve the accuracy of smartphone positioning called “Smart RTK.”

When it came to pitching time, the hackers did a superb job keeping to time and using the 10 slide template made especially for the occasion. There was a wide range of applications: GNSS-enabled ticketing to reduce traffic accidents; drone delivery for food, medical devices and urgent packages; outdoor/indoor 3D mapping for more effective firefighting; automatic ripeness assessment of fruit combining unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAVs) and GNSS; farming automation to mitigate rural depopulation to sustain farming into the future generations; driverless tractors with low cost GNSS receivers; and, identification of plant diseases using UAVs.

And the winners were…

The judges were impressed with the professionalism of all the pitches. Deliberations to award the prizes were passionate and almost heated, but a consensus was reached.

Smart RTK Prize: Team FarmFellow.

Solution: Digital platform for agricultural farmers for farm mapping, crop selection and farm monitoring.

Galileo Prize: Team Fling RTK.

Solution: Fling is using drones to deliver urgently-needed goods to city residents using multi-constellation GNSS and RTK to prevent jamming and position and land its drones safely and accurately.

Best Prize: Team – Second Eyes

Solution: EmergMap – Reducing costs due to fire damage for complex buildings, using 3D mapping, sensors and G-PPS technology to extinguish the fire efficiently and safely.

Congratulations to the winners and to all the teams involved. The event would not have been the success it was without the energy that they brought, the ideas that they had and the dedication to pitching such well researched and brilliantly delivered solutions using Galileo and the Thai GPPS network.

Read this: GNSS.asia highlights Europe-India cooperation

GNSS.asia

GNSS.asia is a Horizon 2020 project of the European GNSS Agency (GSA) that aims to stimulate the creation of partnerships between GNSS industries in Europe and Asia, while supporting institutional cooperation and encouraging Galileo adoption. It offers several services, including industry matchmaking and international cooperation events. GNSS.asia has permanent teams in Europe, India, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).