4 Business and Innovation Magazine for Satellite Navigation provides reliable information on positioning in terms of availability, continuity, and integrity. A wide variety of applications can now benefit from EGNOS signals – from civil aviation to agriculture and sciences, from any mode of transport (aviation, roads, railways, maritime) to any application requiring positioning accuracy and reliability. The EGNOS signal is totally free of charge and broadcasts all over Europe. Every affordable massmarkets GPS device brought to news Real-time rescue: personal GNSS tracker When considering safety at sea, rescuing boat crew members fallen overboard is fraught with difficulty. Handling a boat and returning to a position near enough to the casualty to get visual contact in bad weather conditions – all while dealing with the stress of the emergency – is obviously a situation those working at sea hope never to experience. Existing electronic systems that assist with this type of emergency raise an alarm on the boat, or focus on alerting shore-based or remote rescue services. The POB (Person Overboard) System – developed by the British company Sci-Tech Systems, which won both the UK regional prize and the EGNOS special topic prize in the European Satellite Navigation Competition 2008 – is different: after raising the alarm, it guides the remaining crew on board back to the casualty. It uses the boat’s own familiar navigation equipment, so there is nothing new to learn, no time-consuming hesitation and uncertainty. It enables localised rescue by the casualty’s own boat or by any boat nearby fitted with the system. The system is comprised of two components: the Crew Unit and the Ship Unit. The casualty wears the Europe improves the GPS signal The EGNOS system qualification is now complete With the assistance of Thales Alenia Space, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) successfully passed its qualification review. This essential milestone was reached in mid-September 2008 at the Paris-based headquarters of the European Space Agency. Along with the ESA, the European Commission, ESSP, Eurocontrol, and Civil Aviations attended the review. Continuing to pave the way to Galileo, EGNOS is Europe’s first step in GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems). EGNOS augments GPS signals and improves their performance down to meterlevel accuracy. It also improves and Crew Unit, which can track position in real time using a GNSS receiver. This is transmitted back to the ship unit, which feeds into the boat’s navigation systems. The embedded software deals with cold start for the crew unit, as well as loss of signal. It also intelligently manages transmissions between the casualty and the boat to ensure the position gets through and to conserve the crew unit’s power. In addition, the software can handle multiple casualties. The accuracy of both the boat and the casualty’s position is critical, since rescue will usually be attempted in bad weather, possibly at night, and with little or no visual contact to the casualty. Use of The Crew Unit is a small electronics device worn by each crew member, either built in to a lifejacket, or with its own float and tether system. EGNOS makes it possible to use satellite positioning in crucial “safety-of-life” transport applications, including aviation. market in the past two years is compatible with EGNOS, and the market demand for these receivers goes growing. EGNOS: A forerunner of Galileo EGNOS relies on a network of 40 ground stations monitoring GPS signals, four processing and monitoring stations, and three geostationary satellites broadcasting the signal over Europe. As of today, the improvements offered by EGNOS © bilderbox – Fotolia.com are bringing services with the highest possible added value to users. A precursor to Galileo in a variety of domains (infrastructure, industry, standards, markets, etc.), EGNOS enables Europe to develop the technologies, services and institutional framework necessary to the success of Galileo and all other large satellite-navigation programmes in the world. EGNOS: Main players EGNOS is led by the European Space Agency (ESA), with Civil Aviations, Eurocontrol, and the European Commission as key contributors. The European Satellite Service Provider (ESSP) is responsible for system operations. Thales Alenia Space is the Prime Industrial Contractor. A leader in European satellite navigation, Thales Alenia Space heads a European consortium of 40 companies in 11 member-states in Europe. EGNOS: Main achievements This important milestone concludes six years of development activities (from 1999 to 2005), and three years of necessary evolutions and updates (from 2005 to 2008). Special issue: Navigation World 2008 No. 3 – October 21 st , 2008 EGNOS is considered essential. The system will be targeted at commercial fishing boats, merchant shipping, offshore exploration (oil rigs) and passenger vessels, and subsequently the leisure market. Proof of concept with a basic prototype has been achieved, and the next step is to build a pre-production-level prototype. This will enable extensive real-life tests – preferably with the involvement of organisations dedicated to safety. After realisation, this project could evolve into mobile tracking and land-based rescue work with the Galileo Search and Rescue capability. www.scitechsystems.co.uk ●● ●● EGNOS // Jean-Claude Dardelet, Vice President Institutional Business at Thales Alenia Space Dardelet will provide more details on EGNOS as chairman of the dedicated Navigation World session on October 22 nd , 10:30 am–12:30 pm. Based on its successful review, EGNOS can now begin its certification process, opening the door to uses in civil aviation. Thales Alenia Space is a co-enterprise of Thales (67%) and Finmeccanica (33%). Forming the Space Alliance with Telespazio, Thales Alenia Space is a worldwide reference in a number of fields in civil and defence telecommunications, earth observation and optical radars, navigation, and science. With 7,200 employees and 11 industrial sites, Thales Alenia Space is present in France, Italy, Spain and Belgium. www.thalesaleniaspace.com
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