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Thales Alenia Space has been awarded a grant under the European GNSS Agency’s (GSA) Fundamental Elements funding mechanism for the development of the GIANO (Galileo-based TIming Receiver for CriticAl INfrastructure Robustness) receiver, which aims to make critical infrastructure more robust against interference, jamming and spoofing.

In an increasingly complex GNSS environment in which there is both unintentional and deliberate disruption of satellite signals, the GSA is funding the development of a timing receiver for professional applications to address the needs of the critical infrastructure user community, mainly energy generation and distribution, telecommunications and financial operators. 

Improved resilience

The GIANO receiver will leverage Galileo and EGNOS-driven innovation to improve the resilience of the receiver against interference, jamming and spoofing and increase the accuracy and reliability of the time transfer service. The timing platform prototype to be developed and validated will integrate all the latest innovative technologies, including professional products from Thales Alenia Space, paving the way for future Galileo-based timing receivers that offer improved resilience and accuracy at a reasonable cost.

Read this: GSA funding opportunity: Enhanced GNSS Receiver/User Terminal

“Critical infrastructure operators use GNSS for timing and synchronisation and are an important target segment for GSA Market Development because Galileo can make a difference. By funding the development of the GIANO receiver, the GSA aims to provide technological solutions to this community for robust and reliable timing,” said GSA Head of Market Development Fiammetta Diani.

Towards this goal, outreach activities have been conducted among potential final users in the main commercial target groups to collect and analyse their needs. Then, following the definition and consolidation of stakeholders’ needs and the platform specifications, the project conducted a Preliminary Design Review at the end of November 2019.  

Europe-wide cooperation

The two-year project, funded under a GSA grant related to the Development of a Galileo-based timing receiver for critical infrastructures (GSA/GRANT/05/2017), will be coordinated by Thales Alenia Space in Italy, in collaboration with four European partners: Business Integration Partners S.p.A (BIP, Italy), PIKTime Systems (Poland), Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Science (SRC PAS, Poland) and DEIMOS (Portugal).

And this: Orolia selected for Galileo resilient time receiver initiative

The project will also benefit from the support of the European Commission’s in-house science service - the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Italian National Metrology Institute (INRIM), which will make available its test facilities for verification activities on the developed equipment.

Thales Alenia Space has been awarded a grant under the European GNSS Agency’s (GSA) Fundamental Elements funding mechanism for the development of the GIANO (Galileo-based TIming Receiver for CriticAl INfrastructure Robustness) receiver, which aims to make critical infrastructure more robust against interference, jamming and spoofing.

In an increasingly complex GNSS environment in which there is both unintentional and deliberate disruption of satellite signals, the GSA is funding the development of a timing receiver for professional applications to address the needs of the critical infrastructure user community, mainly energy generation and distribution, telecommunications and financial operators. 

Improved resilience

The GIANO receiver will leverage Galileo and EGNOS-driven innovation to improve the resilience of the receiver against interference, jamming and spoofing and increase the accuracy and reliability of the time transfer service. The timing platform prototype to be developed and validated will integrate all the latest innovative technologies, including professional products from Thales Alenia Space, paving the way for future Galileo-based timing receivers that offer improved resilience and accuracy at a reasonable cost.

Read this: GSA funding opportunity: Enhanced GNSS Receiver/User Terminal

“Critical infrastructure operators use GNSS for timing and synchronisation and are an important target segment for GSA Market Development because Galileo can make a difference. By funding the development of the GIANO receiver, the GSA aims to provide technological solutions to this community for robust and reliable timing,” said GSA Head of Market Development Fiammetta Diani.

Towards this goal, outreach activities have been conducted among potential final users in the main commercial target groups to collect and analyse their needs. Then, following the definition and consolidation of stakeholders’ needs and the platform specifications, the project conducted a Preliminary Design Review at the end of November 2019.  

Europe-wide cooperation

The two-year project, funded under a GSA grant related to the Development of a Galileo-based timing receiver for critical infrastructures (GSA/GRANT/05/2017), will be coordinated by Thales Alenia Space in Italy, in collaboration with four European partners: Business Integration Partners S.p.A (BIP, Italy), PIKTime Systems (Poland), Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Science (SRC PAS, Poland) and DEIMOS (Portugal).

And this: Orolia selected for Galileo resilient time receiver initiative

The project will also benefit from the support of the European Commission’s in-house science service - the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Italian National Metrology Institute (INRIM), which will make available its test facilities for verification activities on the developed equipment.

The upstream space market, with its rocket launches and high-tech satellite payloads, may seem at a first glance to be the most exciting segment of the space industry. But when it comes to innovation, job and revenue creation and the provision of services that change people’s lives for the better, the downstream market is where the action is. This was the key message delivered by European GNSS Agency (GSA) Executive Director Carlo des Dorides at the New Space Economy forum in Rome on December 12.

We are living in the Golden Age of GNSS. Space-based technology is driving innovation and supporting service delivery in almost all sectors of the global economy – from agriculture and transport to healthcare and telecoms. Satellites and the location-based services that they enable are transforming the way that we live and work. 

Downstream driving the space economy

Delivering a keynote address on GNSS markets, applications and data at the NSE forum, the GSA Executive Director noted that downstream users are directly benefitting from Galileo. “Over 50,000 jobs are supported annually in the downstream GNSS industry,” des Dorides said, adding that European companies account for 27% of the global GNSS market and that this share is set to grow.

“GNSS downstream is driving the space economy. Global revenue generated by the GNSS downstream market is forecast to reach EUR 150 billion in 2019 and increase to EUR 325 billion in 2029,” des Dorides said, citing the latest edition of the GSA GNSS Market Report. “Over 50% of this GNSS revenue comes from added-value services,” he said.

Read this: Europe’s economy is increasingly dependent on space

With the evolution of the GSA into the European Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) it will be possible to fully exploit synergies between the EU space programmes to deliver applications and services in a wide range of sectors, from security and emergency response, to urban planning, agriculture and energy and critical infrastructure, des Dorides said.

“With its expanded mandate, the GSA will continue to support entrepreneurship and stimulate the EU downstream market to deliver applications with tangible social benefits, such as improved environmental performance, better transport efficiency and more effective emergency response,” he said.

Driving innovation in transport

One sector in particular in which new possibilities are opening up is road transport, which is a huge GNSS market segment. The road segment is forecast to dominate all other market segments and account for 93.3% of cumulative revenue in 2019-2029. In her keynote at the NSE forum, the GSA’s Head of Market Development Fiammetta Diani spoke about GNSS and the road sector and, in particular, the state of play in autonomous vehicles.

Noting that almost 97% of new vehicles are equipped with GNSS-enabled in-vehicle systems, which provide PNT for a wide range of in-vehicle applications, Diani said that these systems are currently able to support navigation, remote diagnostics and assisted driving. “In the future, IVS will support even more complex applications, including automated driving,” she said.

And this: First Galileo-enabled autonomous vehicle successfully demonstrated

In terms of the state of play with autonomous driving, the GSA’s Head of Market Development said that preparations are currently underway for Level 4. At this level, a highly automated vehicle performs all driving tasks and monitors the environment under limited conditions, but the driver may still be required to intervene. Level 4 is the penultimate stage before full automation at Level 5.

Diani also noted the recent live demonstration of a Galileo-enabled autonomous vehicle. As part of this demonstration, a Renault ZOE electric car fitted with an innovative positioning engine developed by the ESCAPE project was autonomously driven on tracks at the University of Technology and on public roads in Compiègne, France. The EGE leverages Galileo signals and services to provide a core positioning component in autonomous vehicles.

"This successful test of the ESCAPE positioning engine based on Galileo, at automation Level 4, means that we are getting closer to provide the high accurate and reliable absolute positioning that will be needed for full automation,” she said.

More generally, Galileo will support new road safety functions that will become mandatory from 2022, including accident data recording, intelligent speed assistance, lane keeping assistance and vulnerable road user detection. 

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).

Helsinki was the cool venue for European Space Week 2019. From 3 to 5 December Europe’s leading space event brought together business leaders, policymakers, international experts and the space application user community to gain first-hand insights into the EU’s Space Programmes Copernicus, EGNOS and Galileo. They discussed how space solutions can contribute to a more sustainable future for Europe and the world. 

This year’s European Space Week focused on four central themes: how space solutions can help to strengthen the EU’s position as a global leader in climate action; the new space economy for sustainable growth; how to save space for future generations; and space solutions for a sustainable Arctic environment.

Opening the EU Space Week plenary under the banner ‘Sustainable Space, Sustainable Europe, Sustainable Future’ former Finnish President Tarja Halonen highlighted how “Space applications observe own blue planet, enable us to find our way, communicate and connect, more sustainably.”

Christophe Grudler, MEP stated: "Major investments by the EU have enabled progress that no Member State could have achieved on its own.” He highlighted the need to defend and grow the space allocation in the forthcoming European Union budget negotiations. “An ambitious budget will be the only way to ensure Europe's global leadership and strategic autonomy," he concluded.

Pierre Delsaux from the European Commission agreed saying: “We must continue to invest in space.” 

Space for climate action

The new European Commission will have a clear focus on climate action, but how can space solutions help? Pierre Delsaux highlighted a future Copernicus mission to monitor CO2 emissions, while GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides outlined the contributions of Galileo and EGNOS to improve resource and energy efficiency and sustainable agriculture through more accurate positioning by enabling the maxim: “Doing more with less.”

“At GSA’s core is the development of products and services,” he continued. “We are funding concrete projects delivering solutions to specific questions and organising events such as hackathons to inspire young developers. The limit to projects is human creativity.”

Sustainable space ecosystem

A new economic ecosystem has been created in Europe as more talent and investment see the space sector as a cool place to do business. Pekka Laurila of Iceye, a small satellite company in Finland building a new digital infrastructure to enable real time knowledge of where everything is at all times, acknowledged that their success has been enabled by others. “We are the product of an ecosystem; we are standing on the shoulders of giants including institutions funded by public money plus a high-quality education system,” Laurila said. 

Investor Uli Fricke, founder of Triangles, agreed that there was a viable and thriving commercial space market in Europe and “The funding ecosystem from start-up to IPO is the bottleneck for many companies.” The key factor for any young space business was to have a clear business model and value proposition. “Often you need to take the space angle out of the question, when talking to investors,” she added.

Pascal Claudel, Chief Operating Officer at the GSA highlighted the agency’s role in delivering services 24/7 to users and in fostering users across all market sectors. “We can support SMEs in this ecosystem across the whole EU,” he said. “And there is no need to have space experience to work in the space market nowadays.” But there was a need to work together and involve all EU Member States and public and private investors to grow and sustain the market.

Saving Space

Space – especially low Earth orbit – is becoming a congested space noted keynote speaker Professor Minna Palmroth of the University of Helsinki. And more satellites are being launched with a mega trend towards very large fleets of small commercial satellites. Space debris is becoming a priority issue and she also highlighted the lack of knowledge of space weather in the near-Earth environment. “We still do not fully understand the environment that we launch into,” she commented.

But how to clear the debris? Newer satellites will have limited lifetimes and include de-orbiting technology, while older satellites might require third party action. Could there be a market established for deorbiting space debris and is international legislation a way forward or is standardisation the right route? “The sustainable future in space requires every one of us to work together on this topic,” she concluded.

Sustainable Arctic

The final Space Week plenary examined how EU space solutions can protect the arctic environment and support sustainable growth as the climate changes. Jouni Pulliainen, Director of Space & EO, at the Finnish Meteorological Institute saw three main issues where space can help: gaps in monitoring the climatic changes that are happening, improved communications and more accurate navigation information. Session moderator Professor Heidi Kuusniemi of Vaasa University reinforced the growing importance of robust and reliable navigation services in the Arctic.

Improved synergies between space services could help boost their use in the Arctic said Dan Chirondojan, Director at the Commission’s Joint Research Centre that has conducted a study on space solutions and the region. Improved satellite navigation and communication would be needed to enable future remote control and autonomous vessels in the arctic said Karno Kenovuo, Co-founder and CEO of Awake.AI so evolution of EGNSS services in the region was important. Wider coverage of the Galileo Search and Rescue (SAR) service would be very useful due to its enhanced performance.

Mauro Facchini of the European Commission agreed and indicated that the EGNOS Safety of Life service was currently supported to 72 degrees North but may be extended to 75 degrees North soon and could be deployed over the entire arctic by 2030.

Concluding the plenary sessions Finnish Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Katri Kulmuni thanked all participants in EU Space Week 2019 and stated that: “Space activities must be pursued in a sustainable and responsible manner,” but that the week’s debates had shown that “Space is truly a channel for sustainable growth.”

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).