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The European GNSS Agency (GSA) helps lay the ceremonial first brick to officially commence construction on the Galileo Reference Centre (GRC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

With the laying of the ceremonial first brick, the construction of the Galileo Reference Centre (GRC) has officially commenced. The First Brick Ceremony, a Dutch ground breaking tradition, was held 24 November in Noordwijk, the future home of the GRC.

"With four satellites launched last week, the countdown to Galileo Initial Services has started,” said European Commission DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs Programme Manager for Galileo and EGNOS, Paul Flament. “The GRC will help ensure that Galileo users are provided with very high quality signals that can be used by an array of new navigation applications.”

GSA Galileo Operations and Maintenance Manager, Davide Castellazzi, added to this, noting that the GRC will play an important role in the Galileo service provision. “The GRC is a cornerstone of the Galileo service provision, from Initial Services to full operational capability and beyond,” he said. “It will be instrumental in monitoring the performance of the system and the service operator, and serves as the door through which Member States can contribute to these tasks.”

“Satellite systems like Galileo are opening up new opportunities in every sector – from water to mobility, energy, agriculture, climate change and food security – and the Netherlands is eager to take full advantage of these opportunities,” said Netherlands Space Office (NSO) Director Ger Nieuwpoort. “This is why the NSO is dedicated to stimulating the use of satellite navigation within government processes and why I am happy to join the European space community here in the Netherlands to officially start building the GRC.” Through a commission by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, the NSO serves as project manager for the GRC construction process.

An important facility in the Galileo programme

Announced at last year’s European Space Solutions Conference in The Hague, the GRC’s core mission is to perform independent monitoring of and reporting on Galileo’s performance. Operated by the GSA, the GRC provides the Agency with an independent system to evaluate the performance of the Galileo Services and, consequently, the Galileo Service Operator, and the quality of the signals in space.

The Noordwijk facility, set to become operational in 2017, will actively integrate contributions from the EU Member States, Norway and Switzerland. The facility is charged with generating performance evaluation products, performing dedicated campaign-based analyses, and reporting on their findings.

“By providing the building for the GRC, the Netherlands underlines the importance it attaches to the Galileo programme and the Noordwijk space cluster,” said Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment Director of International Affairs Bart van Bolhuis. He also stressed the excellent cooperation between all the parties involved in the project, including the European Commission, the GSA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the municipality of Noordwijk and various government organisations. “This coordinated effort has resulted in a relatively short definition phase for the building and a rapid start of the building activities,” he said.

“The GSA appreciates the efforts made by the Netherlands to ensure a state-of-the-art GRC building that provides excellent working conditions and is capable of handling the tasks entrusted to it,” added Castellazzi. “We look forward to making use of the new building soon.”

The Galileo Services Operator

The Galileo Services Operator (GSOp), under a contract with the GSA, will operate and maintain the Galileo global component. This includes ensuring that the core Galileo services (Open Service, Commercial Service and Public Regulated Service) are provided in compliance with all performance requirements.

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).

Americká kosmická agentura NASA pořádá na konci února 2017 v Kennedyho kosmickém středisku na Floridě kurz zaměřený na řízení mezinárodních projektů v kosmonautice. Česká kosmická kancelář má příležitost na tento kurz nominovat jednoho účastníka z České republiky. Nominace je možné zasílat až 20. prosince 2016.

France’s Air and Space Academy recognises EGNOS for its significant contribution to European space.

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) was recently recognised by France’s Air and Space Academy (AAE). In honour of its significant scientific and technical contribution to European space, EGNOS was awarded the AAE’s Vermeil Medal during its 25 November 2016 plenary session in Toulouse. The medal is awarded annually to an individual or organisation that has achieved international notoriety in the field of aerospace. 

“I’m pleased to share this distinction with the EGNOS team and the entire GSA, which has dedicated many years to the success of this programme,” says GSA EGNOS Exploitation Programme Manager Jean-Marc Piéplu. “Many of my colleagues have personally contributed to the development of EGNOS, and this medal belongs to all of them.” 

Also read: EGNOS lays the foundation for Galileo

Joining Jean-Marc in receiving the award was European Space Agency (ESA) Head of EGNOS and SBAS Division Didier Flament and ENAIRE (Spain’s air navigation management organisation) Head of International Affairs and SESAR Coordinator Mariluz de Mateo.    

EGNOS also played a role in this year’s Great Prize winner, which went to the EGNOS-equipped Airbus A350-XWB.

About the AAE

Founded in 1983 in Toulouse, the AAE encourages the development of high quality scientific, technical, cultural and human actions in both air and space. To do so, it promotes knowledge sharing across the industry and serves as a focal point for aerospace activities. Its members – who come from all walks of aerospace life and include pilots, astronauts, scientists, engineers, doctors, manufactures, economists, lawyers and artists from France and Europe – work together to achieve these essential goals.

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 ability to access raw GNSS measurements opens up a range of opportunities for mobile app developers, but how do you access the data? During the first European GNSS Agency (GSA) Galileo Hackathon at the WhereCamp ‘unconference’ in Berlin Dr Lukasz Bonenberg from the University of Nottingham explained how app-developers can access raw GNSS measurements on smartphones via the latest release of the Android operating system.

The technical briefing for app-developers at the first GSA Hackathon at Beuth Hochschule für Technik in Berlin covered the latest developments and opportunities for GNSS and Location Based Services (LBS) including both hardware and software.

The hardware that the hackers used in the Hackathon - the Galileo-enabled BQ Aquaris X5 Plus Android smartphone - was described by Alvaro Fructuoso and Olaja Segura from the phone’s manufacturer. At the heart of the phone is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 chip that provides a true multi-constellation GNSS experience.

Digging down in Nougat

The next generation of Android operating system (7.0) is named Nougat and allows access to GNSS raw measurements using a new version of Google’s application programme interfaces (APIs) that give more flexible and deeper access to positioning data. Dr Lukasz Bonenberg from the University of Nottingham opened up the ‘black box’ that is the modern smartphone and shed some light on where hackers and coders needed to look to get access to this data.

Currently, location in Android is accessed via Google Play Services GMS Location providing activity and location awareness that can be easily harnessed by coders to provide enhanced location data (e.g. geofencing, near services etc.) for their apps. New Android Nougat (API v24) adds extra capacities. It directly accesses sensor data via android.location. This data has previously been hidden away in physical drivers, but access now opens up possibilities for higher accuracy and deployment of algorithms currently restricted to more advanced GNSS receivers.

While access to the raw data becomes easier, its use is still a challenging task. The key to reading GNSS measurements is the synching of clocks between the phone and the GNSS satellites to give pseudoranges – effectively the distance from the phone to the satellite degraded by the clock errors. To get an accurate and reliable fix requires signals – and therefore calculated pseudoranges - from at least four GNSS satellites, explained Bonenberg.

MatLab codes

To support this Google has released the MatLlab code demonstrating both the data collection (GNSS data logger application) as well as calculation details for obtaining observations and calculating position. To further support the development community, Bonenberg is developing a version of the processing code in the Python programming language. It is available at his GitHub together with his edits to the original Google MatLab code.

“The ability to access raw data opens up a range of possibilities and opportunities,” claimed Bonenberg. These comprise the use of external corrections including existing differential-GNSS and augmentations services such as EGNOS for high precision. More opportunities come with advanced algorithms to reduce errors in urban areas by, for example, removing satellites that are blocked by buildings from the positioning calculation, and the ability to fuse GNSS data with data from other phone based sensors such as the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU).

Work is also carried out using carrier phase measurements offering even better positional performance. Not only do these developments promise improved accuracy, availability and reliability or data fusion for mass market applications, but also the ability to use those devices in the domains currently reserved for much more expensive and dedicated GNSS receivers Bonenberg concluded.

“The ability to access GNSS raw data on Android devices opens up a range of possibilities and opportunities.”

More information:

WhereCamp
Android Developers: Location
Lukasz Bonenberg’s GitHub on Android GNSS

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).