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To prepare the next EGNOS Maritime Safety Service, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) in collaboration with the European Commission seek general feedback from users and, specifically, insight on the experiences of the maritime community.

For several years, the maritime community has been using EGNOS without standardised EGNOS receivers or a dedicated EGNOS maritime safety service. Instead, maritime users have used the EGNOS Open Service. Although the Open Service provides timing and positioning services, it lacks specific receiver certification and, consequently, does not come with specific guarantees for use in safety-critical maritime applications.

That being said, EGNOS has the potential to provide positioning performance better tailored to the unique needs of the maritime community. This potential will be reached once the new version of EGNOS (EGNOS V3) is operational and able to augment Galileo, thereby providing higher accuracy and higher availability than what EGNOS can currently deliver.

In preparation for this, at the beginning of 2017, the European Commission launched the SEASOLAS project to study what such an EGNOS Maritime Safety Service should provide, based on new shipborne receivers that utilise EGNOS Dual Frequency GPS/Galileo capability. The SEASOLAS service can be tailored to a new integrity information concept at the user level based on the requirements of the maritime community. The project is consulting with maritime users to determine what new concepts of operation require safe and guaranteed navigation performance at the user level (with a special focus on port operations and navigation in inland waterways). This will determine which EGNOS information is required to enable these operations to utilise SBAS.

SEASOLAS is fully financed by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation and within the allocated budget for the evolution of the EGNOS mission. The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG-GROW) has appointed GMV, supported by Valdani Vicari & Associati, Kongsberg Seatex, European Satellite Services Provider, and General Lighthouse Authority for the UK and Ireland, to perform the study. The GSA is providing technical supervision on behalf of the European Commission.

The SEASOLAS project will last 18 months. The results of the study, available by mid-2018, will directly feed discussions on the evolution of the EGNOS mission.

The main interrelated steps of the study are:

• Analysis of the Maritime Domain: This task aims to answer a set of crucial questions, including:
  • What is the maritime operational context in which the EGNOS maritime safety service will be provided?
  • What are the key drivers for the introduction of the EGNOS maritime safety services?
  • What are the environmental conditions under which the EGNOS receiver installed on-board a vessel will operate?
  • What is the concept of integrity that users need for the most-demanding types of maritime operations?

• GNSS Technical Analysis: This task evaluates which combination of technologies is best suited to complement SBAS within a multi-system shipborne radio-navigation receiver in order to meet users’ maritime safety needs.
• GNSS Requirements Definition: The requirements for EGNOS will be derived by apportioning user requirements between EGNOS and the other radio navigation technologies as defined in the previous step.
• Definition of the Service Roadmap: The cost benefit analyses that will influence the decision-making process of each stakeholder (i.e. device manufacturers, service providers, maritime authorities and users) will be assessed, and a roadmap for system and service validation and for standardisation of the EGNOS safety maritime service will be developed.

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).

To determine the requirements for the next generation of EDAS, the European Commission is launching a study EDAS-N to build on the EDAS users’s experience.

At the beginning of 2017, the European Commission has started a study called EDAS-N to determine user requirements for the next generation of the EGNOS Data Access Service (EDAS) and to identify and define value-added services and products for the future EDAS. The study is fully financed by the European Commission under the H2020 programme, within the budget allocated to the evolution of EGNOS’ mission. The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG-GROW) has appointed VVA, supported by DEIMOS, to perform the above-mentioned study. The European GNSS Agency (GSA) is in charge of the technical supervision of the project on behalf of the European Commission.

The study comprises three interconnected steps:

• User Domain Analysis: Key industry experts and experienced stakeholders from across the GNSS downstream segments will be interviewed to define key services and products that have the potential to provide benefits for EDAS-N users. This two-step interview process dovetails with a comprehensive market analysis, during which VVA will assess the initially identified services in the light of other services on the market that could potentially provide similar benefits to users. Finally, the results of the preceding tasks will be combined to create a forecast of the estimate uptake of the new EDAS services.
• EDAS Service Scheme: Performed by DEIMOS, this task will lead to the identification of the main characteristics and differentiating factors of the suggested new services as well as the associated EDAS architecture upgrades. Requirements and constraints will be validated with the support of the experts identified in the first step to ensure that the final definition of the evolved service schemes matches user needs and expectations.
• Cost Benefit Analysis: VVA will incorporate the results of the preceding steps to conduct a multi-level Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA): at User level, at EDAS Service Provider level and at overall level. The outcome of the CBA will highlight the key factors that influence the user uptake of the evolved EDAS service and will support an informed decision about the implementation of the new EDAS services and products.

The EDAS-N Service Analysis will have a duration of nine months. The results of the study, available by the end of 2017, will directly feed into discussions at the level of the European Commission on the evolution of the EGNOS mission.

Key industry experts and experienced stakeholders from across the GNSS downstream segments are invited to provide their views and ideas about the evolution of EDAS to EDAS@vva.it. Further information can be found here.

More about EGNOS and EDAS in particular

EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) currently provides augmentation to the Global Positioning System (GPS) using the L1 (1,575.42 MHz) Coarse/ Acquisition (C/A) civilian signal function by broadcasting correction data and integrity information for positioning and navigation applications over Europe.

EGNOS provides three services:

• Safety of Life (SoL) Service, which is intended for transport applications in different domains where lives could be endangered if the performance of the navigation system is degraded below specific accuracy limits without giving notice to the user within the specified time to alert.
• Open Service (OS), which provides timing and positioning services to any user equipped with an appropriate GPS/SBAS compatible receiver with no specific receiver certification required.
• EGNOS Data Access Service (EDAS), which provides EGNOS products through the internet or via a dedicated Point-To-Point (PTP) line.

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).