Environment

January 1, 2007

Rescue Mission: GPS Applications in an Airborne Maritime Surveillance System

Maritime search and rescue (SAR) operations do not fit the usual and customary operational modes for aircraft operations. Consequently, neither do their navigation and flight management system (FMS) requirements.

Maritime search and rescue (SAR) operations do not fit the usual and customary operational modes for aircraft operations. Consequently, neither do their navigation and flight management system (FMS) requirements.

SAR missisions are not based on schedules but rather on ad hoc events and flights. Once the mission control center receives word of an accident (ship disaster, aircraft crash, etc.), an aircraft receives a mission order and begins a high-speed ferry flight to the area of concern. After arrival in the area of the incident, the aircraft typically performs a low-altitude (500 to 1,500 feet), low-speed search flight to locate survivors and the vessel.

In executing this search, the crew employs a suite of surveillance radars, electro-optical sensor, and scanning and direction finding equipment to localize  transmissions of emergency beacons that may have been activated during the accident. Once the target (person, ship, aircraft) is found, the crew drops needed equipment, such as life rafts or pumps, out of the aircraft.

The target position and other details are reported to the mission control center in order to initiate further rescue activities. All of these activities require precise navigation and sensor control, which may be obtained by a number of GNSS/GPS applications on board the aircraft.

This article describes an airborne surveillance system, AeroMission, developed by Aerodata AG, and the GPS/inertial navigation system (INS) that supports its operation.

In addition to SAR missions, AeroMission is also suitable for maritime surveillance, border and anti-smuggling patrols, pollution detection and mapping, fishery control, offshore oil field monitoring, and research applications.

System Overview
AeroMission has been developed to provide high reliability, redundancy, and efficiency. It was designed using modular architecture and state of the art technology.

In supporting AeroMission, an integrated GPS/IMU navigation system — AeroNav — combines the GPS advantages of long-term stability and absolute accuracy with those of inertial navigation — short-term accuracy during phases of high dynamics in which GPS positioning may be lost or degraded.

A separate GPS/INS system also provides attitude reference by using strapdown algorithms providing position and velocity solutions. Turn rates and accelerations given by the IMU are corrected by the GPS pseudorange measurements. These corrections are calculated by a Kalman filter.

The basic system components include:
•    surveillance radar (using the separate GPS-supported INS)
•    forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor (using GPS services provided through AeroNav)
•    infrared/ultraviolet (IR/UV) scanner (using a dedicated GPS-supported INS)
•    Mission management and guidance system (using GPS services through AeroNav)
•    SAR Homing Device
•    HF, VHF, UHF, and satellite communication
•    Intercom including communication relay
•    Photo/video camera
•    Ergonomic operator work stations

Other sensors such as side-looking airborne radar or microwave radiometer can be integrated as options into the suite.

. . .

Sensor Suite
In addition to the navigation system, moving map display, system software, and databases, AeroMission incorporates a number of additional sensors to aid its surveillance and reporting functions.

  • Surveillance Radar . . .
  • Electro-optical/infrared sensor . . .
  • AIS and direction finding . . .

. . .

Mission Management
TheAeroMission management suite is an integrated solution that consists of equipment and software for sensor operation and control; sensor data gathering, storage, and evaluation; mission reporting, and communications control and recording.

. . .

Flight Deck Interface
The mission system has a number of interfaces to the flight deck in order to support the mission and decrease the work load of both the cabin crew and the flight deck crew.

. . .

System Qualification and Certification
The qualification and certification process for the project was quite challenging. All modifications of the airframe have been certified through a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) approved by European Aviation Safety Agency.

. . .

Operational Experiences
During the test flights and also during the first 10 months of operations, AeroMission installed in a DO 328 aircraft has demonstrated its reliability and efficiency with an overall service availability of more than 99 percent . . .

For the complete story, including figures, graphs, and images, please download the PDF of the article, above.

By
July 1, 2006

BOC or MBOC?

Europe and the United States are on the verge of a very important decision about their plans to implement a common civil signal waveform at the L1 frequency: Should that waveform be pure binary offset carrier — BOC(1,1) — or a mixture of 90.9 percent BOC(1,1) and 9.09 percent BOC(6,1), a combination called multiplexed BOC (MBOC). The desire for a common civil L1 signal is enshrined in a 2004 agreement on GNSS cooperation between the United States and the European Union (EU).

Europe and the United States are on the verge of a very important decision about their plans to implement a common civil signal waveform at the L1 frequency: Should that waveform be pure binary offset carrier — BOC(1,1) — or a mixture of 90.9 percent BOC(1,1) and 9.09 percent BOC(6,1), a combination called multiplexed BOC (MBOC). The desire for a common civil L1 signal is enshrined in a 2004 agreement on GNSS cooperation between the United States and the European Union (EU).

For the EU and the European Space Agency (ESA), that decision — and its consequences — will come sooner: with the Galileo L1 Open Service (OS) that will be transmitted from satellites to be launched beginning in the next few years. For the United States, the waveform decision will shape the design of the L1 civil signal (L1C) planned for the GPS III satellites scheduled to launch in 2013. For a background on the process that led to design of the GPS L1 civil signal and its relevance to the BOC/MBOC discussion, see the sidebar L1C, BOC, and MBOC.

The May/June issue of Inside GNSS contained a “Working Papers” column titled, “MBOC: The New Optimized Spreading Modulation Recommended for Galileo L1 OS and GPS L1C”. Authored by members of a technical working group set up under the U.S./EU agreement, the article discussed the anticipated MBOC benefits, primarily improved code tracking performance in multipath. The column also noted that, while lower-cost BOC(1,1) receivers would be able to use MBOC, it would come at the cost of a reduction in received signal power.

An article in the “360 Degrees” news section of the same issue of Inside GNSS noted that some GNSS receiver manufacturers believe MBOC is not best for their applications and perhaps should not have been recommended. (This point was noted on page 17 of the May/June issue under the subtitle “MBOC Doubters.”) See the sidebar “Other Observers” (below) for additional comments from companies with concerns about MBOC recommendation.

This article, therefore, continues the discussion of a common signal waveform by asking several companies with different product perspectives whether they consider the proposed MBOC waveform to be more or less desirable for their applications than the BOC(1,1). Currently, BOC (1,1) is the baseline defined in the June 26, 2004, document signed by the U.S. Secretary of State and the vice-president of the European Commission (the EU’s executive branch): “Agreement on the Promotion, Provision and Use of Galileo and GPS Satellite-Based Navigation Systems and Related Applications.”

Maximum benefit from MBOC will be obtained by receivers using recently invented technology that employs computationally intensive algorithms. Although such receivers clearly will provide benefits to their users because of the BOC(6,1) component of MBOC, the practical value of the benefits have not been quantified, which is one purpose of the questions raised in this article. For the moment, let’s call all these prospective MBOC users “Paul”.

Meanwhile, patents on the most widely used multipath mitigation technologies today, such as the “narrow correlator” and the more effective “double-delta” techniques, will expire about the time the new signals are fully available, making these techniques more widely available. Unfortunately, the double-delta technology cannot use the BOC(6,1) component of MBOC. In addition, narrowband receivers, which today dominate consumer products, also cannot use the BOC(6,1). Let’s call all these users “Peter”.

Therefore, the fundamental question raised by this article is whether we should rob Peter to pay Paul. If the amount taken is quite small and the benefits are large, then the answer should be “yes.” If the amount taken creates a burden to Peter, now and for decades to come, with little benefit to Paul, then the answer should be “no.” The in-between cases are more difficult. The purpose of this article is to explore the tradeoffs.

To address this issue, we invited engineers from companies building a range of GNSS receivers to take part in the discussion. We’ll introduce these participants a little later. But first, let’s take a look at the technical issues underlying the discussion.

BOC/MBOC Background

The RF spectrum of a GPS signal is primarily defined by the pseudorandom code that modulates its carrier and associated data. A pseudorandom code appears to be a completely random sequence of binary values, although the sequence actually repeats identically, over and over.

For the C/A code on the L1 frequency (1,575.42 MHz), the state of the code (either +1 or –1) may change at a clock rate of 1.023 MHz. We call this binary phase shift keying, or BPSK(1), meaning BPSK modulation with a pseudorandom code clocked at 1.023 MHz. Note that the bits of a pseudorandom code often are referred to as “chips,” and four BPSK chips are illustrated at the top of Figure 1. (To view any figures, tables or graphs for this story, please download the PDF version using the link at the top of this article.)

Among many other topics, the 2004 U.S./EU agreement settled on a common baseline modulation for the Galileo L1 OS and the GPS L1C signals: BOC(1,1). (The BOC(n,m) notation means a binary offset carrier with n being a 1.023 MHz square wave and m being a 1.023 MHz pseudorandom code.) Like BPSK(1), the BOC(1,1) waveform also is a BPSK modulation, meaning there are only two states, either a +1 or a –1. The timing relationships of the code and the square wave are illustrated by Figure 1.

Although the agreement defined BOC(1,1) as the baseline for both Galileo L1 OS and GPS L1C, it left the door open for a possible signal “optimization” within the overall framework of the agreement. As documented in the paper by G.W. Hein et al., “A candidate for the GALILEO L1 OS Optimized Signal” (cited in the “Additional Resources” section at the end of this article) and many other papers, the EC Signal Task Force (STF) after much study initially recommended a composite binary coded symbols (CBCS) waveform.

Because the agreement made it desirable for GPS L1C and Galileo L1 OS to have an identical signal spectrum and because GPS III implementation of CBCS would be difficult, a search was made by a joint EC/US working group to find an optimized signal that was acceptable for both GPS and Galileo. The result is MBOC (discussed in the May/June “Working Papers” column and the like-named IEEE/ION PLANS 2006 paper by G. W. Hein et al. cited in “Additional Resources.”).

Like all modernized GPS signals — including M-code, L2C, and L5 — L1C will have two components. One carries the message data and the other, with no message, serves as a pilot carrier. Whereas all prior modernized GPS signals have a 50/50 power split between the data component and the pilot carrier, L1C has 25 percent of its power in the data component and 75 percent in the pilot carrier.

The L1C MBOC implementation would modulate the entire data component and 29 of every 33 code chips of the pilot carrier with BOC(1,1). However, 4 of every 33 pilot carrier chips would be modulated with a BOC(6,1) waveform, as illustrated in Figure 2. The upper part of the figure shows 33 pilot carrier chips. Four of these are filled to show the ones with the BOC(6,1) modulation. Below the 33 chips is a magnified view of one BOC(1,1) chip and one BOC(6,1) chip.

The BOC(1,1) chip is exactly as illustrated in Figure 1 while the BOC(6,1) chip contains six cycles of a 6.138 MHz square wave. With this image in mind, we can easily calculate that the pilot carrier has 29/33 of its power in BOC(1,1) and 4/33 of its power in BOC(6,1). Because the pilot carrier contains 75 percent of the total L1C signal power, then the percent of total BOC(6,1) power is 75 × (4/33) or 9.0909+percent. Conversely, the data signal has 25 percent of the total L1C signal power; so, the calculation of BOC(1,1) power is 25 + 75 × (29/33) or 90.9090+ percent.

Because the Galileo OS signal has a 50/50 power split between data and pilot carrier, the implementation is somewhat different in order to achieve the same percentages of BOC(1,1) and BOC(6,1) power. For the most likely time division version of MBOC for Galileo, 2 of 11 chips in the pilot carrier would be BOC(6,1) with none in the data component. Thus, the percent of total BOC(6,1) power is 50 × (2/11) or 9.0909+ percent. Similarly, the percent of total BOC(1,1) power is 50 + 50 × (9/11) or 90.9090+ percent. This makes the spectrum of Galileo L1 OS the same as GPS L1C.

Code Transitions. The fundamental purpose of MBOC is to provide more code transitions than BOC(1,1) alone, as is evident in Figure 2. (A code loop tracks only the code transitions.) However, these extra transitions come on top of the increased number in BOC(1,1) compared to the L1 C/A signal.

Taking into account that the pilot carrier has either 75 percent of the signal power with GPS or 50 percent with Galileo, GPS with BOC(1,1) has 2.25 times more “power weighted code transitions” than C/A-code (a 3.5-dB increase). Galileo with BOC(1,1) has 1.5 times more (a 1.8-dB increase). MBOC on GPS would further increase the net transitions by another factor of 1.8 (2.6-dB increase), and the most aggressive version of MBOC on Galileo would increase the net transitions by a factor of 2.2 (3.4-dB increase).

Therefore, given the improvement of BOC(1,1) over C/A code, the question raised by this article is whether a further improvement in number of transitions is worth subtracting a small amount of signal power during all signal acquisitions, for all narrowband receivers, and for all receivers using the double-delta form of multipath mitigation.

A portion of Table 1 from the May/June “Working Papers” column is reproduced here, also as Table 1. Of the eight possible waveforms in the original table, only three are included here. These are representative of all the options, and they include the two versions of MBOC considered most likely for implementation in Galileo and the only version GPS would use.

Two new columns have been added in our abbreviated version of the table. The first is an index to identify the particular option, and the last identifies whether GPS or Galileo would use that option.

Receiver Implementations

Most GNSS receivers will acquire the signal and track the carrier and code using only the pilot carrier. For GPS L1C this decision is driven because 75 percent of the signal power is in the pilot carrier. Little added benefit comes from using the data component during acquisition and no benefit for code or carrier tracking, especially with weak signals.

For Galileo, the decision is driven by the data rate of 125 bits per second (bps) and the resulting symbol rate of 250 symbols per second (sps). This allows only 4 milliseconds of coherent integration on the Galileo data component (compared with 10 milliseconds on the GPS data component). Because coherent integration of the pilot carrier is not limited by data rate, it predominantly will be the signal used for acquisition as well as for carrier and code tracking.

Reflecting the reasons just stated, Figure 3 compares the spectral power density in the pilot carrier for each of the three signal options listed in Table 1. In each case the relevant BOC(1,1) spectrum is shown along with one of the three MBOC options. These plots show power spectral density on a linear scale rather than a logarithmic dB scale, which renders small differences more prominent.

The center panel shows the GPS case with either BOC(1,1) or TMBOC-75. (The BOC(1,1) peaks are arbitrarily scaled to reach 1.0 Watt per Hertz (W/Hz). The BOC(1,1) peaks of TMBOC-75 are lower by 12% (-0.6 dB) in order to put additional power into the BOC(6,1) component of TMBOC-75, primarily at ±6 MHz.

All three panels of Figure 3 have the same relative scaling. The reason the peaks of the BOC(1,1) components in panels 1 and 3 are at 0.67 W/Hz is that GPS L1C will transmit 75 percent of its total signal power in the pilot carrier whereas Galileo will transmit 50 percent. The difference is simply 0.5/0.75 = 0.67 (-1.8 dB).

The first panel of Figure 3 also shows the Galileo TMBOC-50 option in which the BOC(1,1) component peaks are lowered by 18 percent (-0.9 dB) in order to provide power for the BOC(6,1) component, primarily at ±6 MHz.

The third panel shows the same Galileo BOC(1,1) power density but with the CBOC-50 option. In this case the BOC(6,1) component exists in the data channel as well as the pilot carrier. That is why it is half the amplitude at ±6 MHz as in panels 1 and 2. That also is why less power is taken from the BOC(1,1) component for the BOC(6,1) component; in this case the reduction is 9 percent (-0.4 dB). This is not considered an advantage by those who want to track the BOC(6,1) component, and it also reduces the data channel power for narrowband receivers by the same 9 percent or 0.4 dB.

As stated before, the fundamental question raised by this article is whether we should rob Peter to pay Paul. As with all such top-level questions, the answers lie in the details and in the perceptions of those affected. Inside GNSS posed a series of questions to industry experts in order to explore their perspectives and preferences.

The Questions and Answers

Q: What segment of the GNSS market do your answers address? Describe your market, including typical products and the size of the market.

Fenton – High precision survey and mapping, agriculture/machine control, unmanned vehicles, scientific products, and SBAS ground infrastructure where centimeter accuracy is very important. NovAtel sells at the OEM level to software developers and system integrators and calculates its present total addressable market (TAM) at $300-$400 million USD, again at the OEM level.

Garin – We are focused on consumer electronics where very low cost and very low power are of critical importance, such as personal navigation devices (PNDs), cellular phones, and in general applications where the power consumption is at a premium. These objectives should be reached with little to no impact on the user experience. The loss of performance due to design tradeoffs is mitigated by assisted GPS (A-GPS).

Hatch /Knight – NavCom supplies high-precision, multi-frequency GNSS receivers that employ advanced multipath and signal processing techniques, augmented by differential corrections from our StarFire network. These receivers are widely used in the agriculture, forestry, construction, survey, and offshore oil exploration markets. Current market size is on the order of 100,000 units per year.

Sheynblat/Rowitch – Our answers address wireless products for the consumer, enterprise, and emergency services markets. There are over 150 million Qualcomm GPS enabled wireless handsets in the market today, and this large market penetration and heavy usage is primarily driven by low cost, low power, and high sensitivity. The vast majority of other GPS enabled consumer devices worldwide are also cost driven.

Stratton – Rockwell Collins is a leading provider of GPS receivers to the U.S. military and its allies, and we are also a major supplier of GNSS avionics to the civil aviation industry. The civil aviation applications demand high integrity and compatibility with augmentation systems, while the military requirements range from low-power, large-volume production to high-dynamic and highly jam-resistant architectures (as well as civil compatible receivers). Military receivers are impacted due to civil compatibility requirements. Our company has produced over a half million GPS receivers and has a majority market share in military and high-end civil aviation (air transport, business, and regional) markets.

Studenny – Our market is commercial aviation where continuity of operation and integrity are the most important performance parameters.

Weill – I and a colleague, Dr. Ben Fisher, of Comm Sciences Corporation, are the inventors of a new multipath mitigation approach which we call Multipath Mitigation Technology (MMT), so our primary product is technology for improved multipath mitigation. MMT is currently incorporated in several GPS receivers manufactured by NovAtel, Inc. Their implementation of MMT is called the Vision Correlator.

Q: Which signal environments are important for your products: open sky, indoor, urban canyon, etc.

Fenton – In general, most of our customers operate in open sky environments. However, a significant number are operating under or near tree canopy and in urban canyons.

Garin – Ninety percent of our applications are or will be indoors and in urban canyons.

Hatch /Knight – Our receivers are mostly used in open sky and under-foliage conditions.

Stratton – Our products use civil signals mainly in open sky conditions, although civil signals may be used to assist the acquisition of military signals in a broad variety of environments.

Studenny – Aircraft environments, with particular attention to safety-of-life. Also, ground-based augmentation system (GBAS) ground stations.

Weill – Any environment in which multipath is regarded as a problem, including precision survey, indoor (911) assisted GPS, and military and commercial aviation.

Q: Which design parameters are most critical for your products: power, cost, sensitivity, accuracy, time to fix, etc.

Fenton – In general, our products service the high end “commercial” markets. Our customers in general have priorities in the following order: a) accuracy, b) robust tracking, c) cost, d) power, e) time to first fix.

Garin – The most important criteria are, from the highest to the lowest: power, cost, sensitivity, time-to-first-fix, and finally, accuracy.

Hatch /Knight – Accuracy is most important.

Sheynblat/Rowitch – We have invested substantial engineering effort to achieve market-leading sensitivities (-160 dBm) while maintaining very low receiver cost. Engineering investment, focus on sensitivity, and close attention to cost models is probably also true for other vendors focused on mass market, AGPS enabled devices that have to work indoors. All of these GPS vendors go to great lengths to improve sensitivity for difficult indoor scenarios. Every dB counts and may make the difference between a successful or a failed fix, which is of particular concern for E-911 and other emergency situations.

Stratton – The tradeoff in relative importance of these parameters varies widely depending on the particular application, though life-cycle cost (including development and certification) arguably is most significant.

Studenny – Actually, all parameters are important. However, we focus on safety-of-life and the drivers are both continuity of operation and integrity (hazardously misleading information or HMI).

Specifically, we believe cross-correlation, false self-correlation, and the ability to resist RFI, as well as improving multipath performance, are signal properties of great interest to us. A well-selected coding scheme minimizes all of these and HMI in particular. Finally, HMI may become a legal issue for non-aviation commercial applications, especially if those applications involve chargeable services, implied safety-of-life, and other such services.

Weill – MMT is most effective in receivers that have high bandwidth and are receiving high-bandwidth signals. However, it can substantially improve multipath performance at lower bandwidths.

Q: Do you really care whether GPS and Galileo implement plain BOC(1,1) or MBOC? Why?

Fenton – Yes, we expect that the MBOC signals combined with the latest code tracking techniques will provide a majority of our customers a significant performance benefit for code and carrier tracking accuracy in applications where multipath interference is a problem.

Garin – I do not believe that MBOC will significantly benefit our short-term market. The MBOC expected multipath performance improvement will be meaningless in the urban context, where the dominant multipath is Non Line of Sight and where the majority of the mass market usage is concentrated. However we believe that a carrier phase higher accuracy mass market will emerge within a 5 year timeframe, with back-office processing capabilities, and wireless connected field GPS sensors. This will be the counterpart of the A-GPS architecture in cell phone business. MBOC would have an important role to play in this perspective. We envision this new market only in benign environments, and not geared towards the surveyors or GIS professionals.

Hatch /Knight – The MBOC signal will significantly improve the minimum code tracking signal to noise ratio where future multipath mitigation techniques are effective. The expected threshold improvements will be approximately equal to the best case improvements indicated by this article. MBOC will be less beneficial to very strong signals where the noise level is already less than the remaining correlated errors, like troposphere and unmitigated multipath.

Designing a receiver to use the MBOC code will be a significant effort. The resulting coder will likely have about double the complexity of the code generator that does not support MBOC. There will be a small recurring cost in silicon area, and power consumption will increase significantly. Overall, MBOC is desirable for our high performance applications. For many applications the costs are greater than the benefits.

Sheynblat/Rowitch – Yes, we do care about the decision of BOC versus MBOC. The proposed change to the GPS L1C and Galileo L1 OS signal to include BOC(6,1) modulation will perhaps improve the performance of a very tiny segment of the GPS market (high cost, high precision) and penalize all other users with lower effective received signal power due to their limited bandwidth. We prefer that GPS and Galileo implement the BOC(1,1) signal in support of OS location services.

Stratton – This decision does not appear to have much influence on our markets when viewed in isolation, but we would like to see GPS make the best use of scarce resources (such as spacecraft power) to provide benefits that are attainable under realistic conditions.

Studenny – Yes, we do care. GPS L5 needs to be complemented by a signal with similar properties at L1, the reason being that a momentary outage during precision approach on either L1 or L5 should not affect CAT-I/II/III precision approach continuity or integrity. We understand that there are constraints in selecting a new L1 signal; however the proposed MBOC waveform better supports this. This is keeping with supporting the FAA NAS plans and transitioning to GNSS for all phases of flight including precision approach.

Weill – Yes. Comm Sciences has established that the performance of current receiver-based multipath mitigation methods is still quite far from what is theoretically possible. It is also known that GNSS signals with a wider RMS bandwidth have a smaller theoretical bound on ranging error due to thermal noise and multipath. Since multipath remains as a major source of pseudorange error in GNSS receivers, I feel that the use of an MBOC signal for GPS and Galileo is an opportunity to provide the best possible multipath performance with evolving mitigation methods that take advantage of the larger RMS bandwidth of an MBOC signal as compared to plain BOC(1,1).

Q: Are the GNSS receivers of interest narrowband (under ±5 MHz) or wideband (over ±9 MHz)?

Fenton – Wideband. High precision GNSS receivers typically process all available bandwidth ~20 MHz (±10 MHz).

Garin – Our GNSS receivers are narrowband today, but we expect the widening of the IF bandwidth (or equivalently their effective bandwidth) to ±9 MHz, in the next 3-5 years, with the same or lower processing and power consumption.

Hatch /Knight – Our receivers are primarily wideband.

Sheynblat/Rowitch – The receivers of interest are narrowband. Low cost GPS consumer devices do not employ wideband receivers today and will most likely not employ wideband receivers in the near future. Any technology advances afforded by Moore’s law will likely be used to further reduce cost, not enable wideband receivers. In addition, further cost reductions are expected to expand the use of positioning technology in applications and markets which today do not take advantage of the technology because it is considered by the manufacturers and marketers to be too costly.

Stratton – All of our markets require wide-band receivers; however, the civil receiver/antenna RF characteristics are adapted to high-bandwidth C/A processing (where the bulk of RF energy is at band center). So the MBOC signal does raise some potential compatibility questions.

Studenny – Wideband.

Weill – I believe the trend will be toward wideband receivers for most applications. If one looks at the history of GPS receiver products, it is clear that there has always been competitive pressure to increase positioning accuracy, even at the consumer level. Not only is better accuracy a marketing advantage, but it has also opened up entirely new applications. The availability of wide bandwidth signals is a key factor in continuing to improve positioning accuracy. Although currently available receivers that can take advantage of wider bandwidth signals cost more and consume more power, the rapid rate of improving digital technology should make low-cost, low-power, wide bandwidth receivers available in the not-so-distant future. The availability of an MBOC signal would maximize the capability of such receivers.

Other Observers

Inside GNSS invited comments from a broad range of companies representative of most GNSS markets. In addition to those who fully responded to our questions, several offered abbreviated remarks:Garmin International, Inc. did not identify a spokesperson, but it submitted the following official statement: “It is Garmin’s policy not to disclose any information about future designs. However, we would like to indicate that we support the BOC(1,1) implementation over the MBOC.”Sanjai Kohli, Chief Technology Officer of SiRF Technology Inc., submitted the following official statement: “The existence of the BOC(6,1) chips in the MBOC signal won’t matter very much to SiRF. Still, to maximize the availability of weak signals, it would be preferable not to suffer any loss of signal power. Therefore, SiRF would prefer that all chips be BOC(1,1). Furthermore, it is doubtful that any advanced method of multipath reduction will be of much benefit for urban and indoor signal reception, since it is likely that the line-of-sight component of the weak signal is blocked.”

European Company – A large and well known European consumer products company could not obtain internal approval to answer the questions, but the following unofficial communication from a technical manager is of interest: “Our understanding about the pros and cons of MBOC as compared with BOC(1,1) is . . . that narrow-band receivers are not able to utilize the higher frequency components of the MBOC signal and they thus represent wasted power from their viewpoint. This is especially true for acquisition, because the acquisition bandwidth many times seems to be narrower than the tracking bandwidth, especially in those parallel acquisition receivers that are used in consumer products specified for weak signal operation. For such receivers the received signal power is critical in the acquisition phase, not so much in the tracking phase.”

L1C, BOC, and MBOC

Pertinent to the subject of this article is the remarkable way in which the L1C signal was designed. The original C/A- and P-code signals were designed by a small group of technologists under the direction of the GPS Joint Program Office (JPO). Although from the beginning GPS was understood to be a dual-use (civil and military) system, the signals were designed primarily from a military perspective.

Design of the L2C civil signal was led by a JPO deputy program manager representing the Department of Transportation (DoT) — but the process took place under extreme time pressure. The RTCA, Inc., with authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), initially defined the L5 signal. The RTCA is a consensus-driven open forum, but its focus is almost exclusively on aviation.

In contrast, development of L1C was funded by the Interagency GPS Executive Board (IGEB), now superseded by the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Executive Committee. Representatives of the Department of Defense (DoD) and DoT co-chair the PNT Executive Committee: so, the central focus is on managing GPS as a dual-use utility. Reflecting this, the L1C project was co-chaired by a DoD representative and by a civil representative. (The civil co-chair was Dr. Ken Hudnut of the U.S. Geological Survey. A sequence of JPO officers represented the DoD: Captains Bryan Titus, Amanda Jones, and Sean Lenahan. Tom Stansell of Stansell Consulting served as project coordinator throughout.)

L1C development consisted of two key activities. The first was a study of the wide range of civil requirements and development of five signal structure options. A technical team conducted this part of the work, drawing on experts in all aspects of the signal, including spreading code, data modulation, forward error correction, and message format.

Several team members had deep experience developing civil user equipment, from consumer chipsets to high-precision survey receivers. Others were experts on aviation requirements. The second key activity is, to our knowledge, unique: a worldwide survey of GNSS experts to determine which of the five options to choose. The design process is complete, and a draft specification (IS-GPS-800) has been published.

The innovative MBOC proposal was developed quickly by a group of very competent U.S. and EU signal experts with both civil and military backgrounds. However, this team apparently had only one person with extensive experience in receiver manufacturing, and the timeline did not allow the opportunity for a broad survey to assess equipment manufacturers’ opinions about the design. Informal conversations with some industry representatives also revealed dissatisfaction with MBOC. Therefore, Inside GNSS decided to consult a number of experts from companies that build GNSS equipment to determine their thoughts about the MBOC concept.

Additional Resources

1. Agreement on the Promotion, Provision and Use of Galileo and GPS Satellite-Based Navigation Systems and Related Applications, June 26, 2004, http://pnt.gov/public/docs/2004-US-EC-agreement.pdf

2. Hein, G. W., and J-A. Avila-Rodriguez, L. Ries, L. Lestarquit, Issler, J. Godet, and T. Pratt, “A candidate for the GALILEO L1 OS Optimized Signal”, Proceedings of ION GNSS 2005 – 13-16 September 2005, Long Beach, California

3. Hein, G. W., and J-A. Avila-Rodriguez, S. Wallner, J. W. Betz, C. J. Hegarty, J. J. Rushanan, A. L. Kraay, A. R. Pratt, S. Lenahan, J. Owen, JL. Issler, T.A. Stansell, “MBOC: The New Optimized Spreading Modulation Recommended for Galileo L1 OS and GPS L1C”, Inside GNSS, Volume 1, Number 4, pp 57–65, May/June 2006

4. Hein, G. W., and J-A. Avila-Rodriguez, S. Wallner, A. R. Pratt, J. Owen, J-L. Issler, J. W. Betz, C. J. Hegarty, S. Lenahan, J. J. Rushanan, A. L. Kraay, T.A. Stansell, “MBOC: The New Optimized Spreading Modulation Recommended for GALILEO L1 OS and GPS L1C”, IEEE/ION PLANS 2006, April 24-27, 2006, San Diego, California

5. IS-GPS-200: NAVSTAR GPS Space Segment / Navigation User Interfaces; IS-GPS-705: NAVSTAR GPS Space Segment / User Segment L5 Interfaces; Draft IS-GPS-800 for new L1C signal; http://gps.losangeles.af.mil/engineering/icwg/

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March 1, 2006

Carrier Phase Ambiguity Resolution, GNSS Use In Cellular Telephone Systems, and New Antennas?

Q: Will I need a new antenna for the new GPS and Galileo signals? Will one antenna work for both systems?

A: To answer these questions, information will be presented on the GPS and Galileo signal formats, some antenna basic fundamentals with various user applications in mind, followed by some predicted performance assessment.

Q: Will I need a new antenna for the new GPS and Galileo signals? Will one antenna work for both systems?

A: To answer these questions, information will be presented on the GPS and Galileo signal formats, some antenna basic fundamentals with various user applications in mind, followed by some predicted performance assessment.

The well known “Basic GPS” signals are centered at L1 (1575.42 MHz) and L2 (1227.60 MHz), with the GPS Coarse/Acquisition (C/A) code, at a chipping rate of 1.023 Mcps (million chips per second) on L1. The Precise (P) code is transmitted with a chipping rate of 10.23 Mcps on L1 and L2; if encrypted, it is then called the P(Y) or Y-code when broadcast at the 10.23 Mcps rate.

For these binary phase shift key (BPSK) modulated signals we often use the null-to-null bandwidth (twice the chipping rate) to characterize the signal bandwidth, which is 2.046 MHz and 20.046 MHz for the C/A and P(Y) codes that are transmitted in phase quadrature, respectively. Note that for many high performance applications we often require additional signal bandwidth to include the power in the sidebands of the signal spectrum. This is a very important factor in considering antenna bandwidth for a particular application.

(For the rest of Dr. Chris Bartone’s answer to this question, please download the complete article using the PDF link above.)

Q: How will the new frequencies in GPS and Galileo affect carrier phase ambiguity resolution?

A: In the years to come, GNSS users will benefit from the availability of more satellites and signals with the coming of Galileo and the modernization of GPS. Galileo will consist of a brand new constellation of 30 satellites transmitting their signals on four frequencies. Four different navigation services will be offered, meaning that some of the signals and information is available for free to every user, but other services are either to be paid for or are only available to certain authorities.

The first milestone for GPS modernization is the availability of the L2C code for civil users. In the next phase, the L5 signal will also be available.

GNSS positioning will thus be possible with improved precision, reliability, availability and integrity. Still, for rapid and high precision positioning, carrier phase ambiguity resolution remains indispensable. Only with the ambiguities fixed to their correct integer values do the carrier phase observations start to act as very precise pseudorange observations. This implies that the probability of correct integer estimation, generally referred to as the success rate, should be very close to unity.

(For the rest of Sandra Verhagen’s answer to this question, please download the complete article using the PDF link above.)

Q: Aside from E-911 and E-112, how is GNSS used in cellular telephone systems?

A: While mobile positioning for E-911 and E-112 emergency services are becoming more pervasive, other important applications of GNSS exist that are less obvious. These fall into two main categories: namely, those associated with direct mobile user applications based on the mobile’s location and those associated with enhancing the performance of the overall cellular network.

A plethora of user applications based on mobile location are rapidly emerging including street map and direction finding, fleet position data logging and targeted advertising. No dominant “killer application” has emerged at this stage, but the steady accumulation of these minor location-sensitive services is rapidly making GNSS an indispensable component of cellular functionality and markets.

The other main application category of GNSS in cellular telephony is associated with the enhancement of the overall performance of the wireless network infrastructure from the perspective of network capacity and quality of service. First-generation cellular wireless systems were based on time division or frequency division multiplexing.

(For the rest of Dr. John Nielsen’s answer to this question, please download the complete article using the PDF link above.)

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January 1, 2006

GLONASS: The Once and Future GNSS

Once widely written off as another victim of the economic and political disarray following the collapse of the USSR, Russia’s GLObal NAvigation Satellite System (GLONASS) has arguably demonstrated the most stability of the world’s three GNSS programs in recent years.

Once widely written off as another victim of the economic and political disarray following the collapse of the USSR, Russia’s GLObal NAvigation Satellite System (GLONASS) has arguably demonstrated the most stability of the world’s three GNSS programs in recent years.

GLONASS followed the Global Positioning System into space with its first satellite launch on October 12, 1982, 4½ years behind the first GPS satellite went up. After reaching a high point in 1996 with more than two dozen operating satellites in orbit, GLONASS dwindled over the next five years to a nadir of seven operational satellites.

Strapped for cash and expecting a greater role in Europe’s Galileo project, Russia allowed paying commercial payloads from foreign customers to get in line ahead of GLONASS at its launch facilities. A dispute with newly independent Kazakhstan over maintenance, operation, and funding of the Baikonur launch facility further complicated the picture. Meanwhile, the relatively short design life of the spacecraft (three years compared to 7½ years for GPS) contributed to a rapid decline in operational satellites.

In 2001, a new Russian government under President Vladimir Putin reassessed its commitment to space-based positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), and refashioned its development timeline to more sustainable dimensions. An August 21, 2001, decision committed the government to a 2002-2011 program to rebuild and modernize GLONASS.

A schedule of annual launches since then has doubled the constellation to 13 operational satellites. As a result, since 2001 the gap in worldwide navigation with GLONASS declined from 14 to 2 hours as of November with coverage 98 percent of the time over Russia, according to Sergey Revnivykh, an official with Roscosmos’ Satellite Navigation Department at the Mission Control Center of the Central Research Institute of Machine Building.

Picking Up the Pace

On December 25, Russia placed three more spacecraft into orbit and brought the system within striking distance of an 18-satellite constellation, which should be in place late next year with all satellites in service by early 2008. Under the current plan, the frequency of launches would increase over the next two years to provide a 24-satellite constellation by 2010–11.

The day after the December 25 launch, however, Putin expressed support for accelerating the GLONASS effort. According to the Russian Information Agency Novosti, Putin told government members, “The GLONASS system should be created before 2008, as it was originally planned. We have the possibility. Let us see what can be done in 2006-2007.”

RIA Novosti subsequently quoted Anatoly Perminov, head the Russian Federal Space Agency, as saying a proposal for earlier completion of the system would go to Putin before January 15, 2006.

Modernized GLONASS spacecraft (GLONASS-M) with a 7-year design life have flown on the launches since 2003. Two more went up with the most recent launch. Not well known is the fact that these include a second open civil signal at L2.

The availability of a second full open signal provides little practical benefit, however, because of the lack of user equipment outside the GLONASS control segment that can process the GLONASS L2 civil signal. New 72-channel chips recently announced by Javad Navigation Systems (the GeNiuSS) and Topcon Positioning Systems (Paradigm – G3) employ a common technical design that can process the GLONASS L2 signals, both C/A-code and P-code, as well as the new Galileo signals. Topcon has launched a new line of surveying equipment based on the technology, with the first product to be released as the NET-G3 receiver for reference station installations.

Technology, Policy, and Budgets

Unlike the Global Positioning System and Galileo, in which each satellite broadcasts a distinct code on the same frequency, GLONASS broadcasts the same code on different frequencies. At the L1 frequency, for example, the GLONASS open signal is spread between 1598.0625 MHz to 1607.0625, in sub-bands with signal peaks separated by 0.5625 MHz. This RF strategy requires broader swaths of increasingly rare radio spectrum and, at one point, brought the Russian system under pressure from radioastronomers and satellite communication systems that wanted to operate at the upper end of its RF allocation.

An agreement in the late 1990s committed Russia to an “antipodal” signal strategy that halved the number of bands on which satellites transmit their signals by assigning the same frequency to spacecraft orbiting on opposite sides of the Earth. This ensured that GLONASS receivers would not see conflicting signals on the same frequency, while allowing the bandwidth that it required to be compressed toward the lower portion of its allocation.

A 1999 presidential decree formally established GLONASS as a dual-use (civil and military) system, as is GPS. An Interagency Coordination Board comprised of civil and military agencies provides inputs from user communities, similar to the U.S. Interagency GPS Executive Board and its successor, the Space-Based PNT Executive Committee. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) maintains and controls the system’s ground and space assets, although Roscosmos – the Russian Space Agency – acts as the program coordinator.

GLONASS receives funding directly from the Russian federal budget through line items in the MoD and Roscosmos agency allocations. Until recently, however, getting the funds through the civil agency remained problematical, according to Russian sources. The run-up in oil prices over the past couple of years has benefited Russia substantially. The nation produces and sells on the world market large quantities from its central Asian petroleum fields. President Putin has primarily used the funds to pay down indebtedness to the International Monetary Fund. Military programs, however, have received higher levels of support, which has translated into more stable funding for GLONASS, too.

Closing the Performance Gap

Shorter satellite survival on orbit has exacerbated the difficulty of sustaining the GLONASS constellation. All of the current operational spacecraft have been launched since 2000, and the mean mission duration (actual operational lifespan) is 4.5 years – about half that of GPS satellites.

Moreover, GLONASS performance has lagged behind GPS. A March 2005 study by the Swiss Institute of Science Research and Engineering, cited in a Tokyo symposium in November, reported that the accuracy of GPS ephemerides (the orbital locations of satellites broadcast as part of the navigation message) averaged about one meter compared to postprocessed tracking data from monitoring stations. In contrast, GLONASS ephemerides averaged about seven to eight meters.

In part, that reflects the more difficult challenge of tuning multiple signal/frequency combinations and accounting for the different propagation effects of carrier waves with slightly varying lengths. But the quality of on-board atomic clocks and system timekeeping, as well as weaknesses in the satellite navigation payload software and ground monitoring network, also contributed to the problem.

Now Russia is implementing an accuracy improvement program with modernization of satellites and ground infrastructure. Beginning with the GLONASS-M, manufactured by Reshetnev Applied Mechanics Research and Production Association (NPO-PM) in Krasnoyarsk, on-board clock stability over 24 hours has improved from 5×10-13 to 1×10-13. An improved dynamic model in the satellite navigation software will produce a lower level of unpredicted accelerations.

GLONASS-M spacecraft use previously reserved bytes in the navigation message to provide additional information, including the divergence of GPS and GLONASS time scales, navigation frame authenticity (validity) flags, and age of data information. Moreover, improved filters have been installed to reduce out-of-band emissions.

On the ground, GLONASS will also gain 3 stations from military tracking facilities and 9 to 12 from the Roscosmos network, much as the United States has done by incorporating National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency monitoring sites into the GPS tracking network. Both the United States and Russia are evaluating the utility and security of adding facilities from the International GNSS Service, an extensive network coordinated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

New system clocks with high stability and improved systemwide synchronization will further improve GLONASS timing. Definition of the GLONASS coordinate system will tie it to the International Terrestrial Reference System, an international standard. As a result of these modernization efforts, Russian officials predict that GLONASS performance will equal that of GPS by 2008.

A new generation of satellites — GLONASS-K — is planned for launch beginning in 2008. These satellites will have a 10-year design life and carry a third civil signal at L3 frequency band, with a couple of frequency schemes under consideration in the 1198 to 1208 MHz band. Current plans for GLONASS-K include providing GNSS integrity information in the third civil signal and global differential ephemeris and time corrections to enable sub-meter real-time accuracy for mobile users.

Renewed Initiative

The recent progress in rebuilding and modernizing GLONASS appears to have bolstered the confidence of Russian officials in promoting the system internally and internationally. Russian state policy enacted last June mandates that, beginning in 2006, federal GNSS users employ only GLONASS or combined GLONASS/GPS receivers on Russian territory for aerospace and transport vehicles as well as for geodesy and cadastral surveying. And even before Putin’s recent remarks, Russia had re-engaged in several initiatives

The most recent round of talks with the United States led to a joint statement in December 2004 confirming that direct user fees would be imposed on civil GLONASS or GPS services and committed the two nations to ensuring the compatibility and interoperability of the two systems, implementing search and rescue functions using GNSS positioning, and cooperating on GNSS issues at international organizations.

On December 6, Russia and India signed an intergovernmental pact on the protection of classified military technologies during long-term cooperation under an agreement reached a year earlier for the joint development and peaceful use of GLONASS. This includes cooperation in GNSS ground infrastructure development and launch of GLONASS-M satellites on India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). The GSLV design incorporates Russian rocket engine technology.

Finally, consultations with the European Union continue on a prospective Galileo/GLONASS agreement, with a technical working group scheduled to submit a proposal in April on signal compatibility and interoperability at the GLONASS L3 and Galileo E5b bands. Russian rockets will help launch Galileo satellites, including a Soyuz-Fregat used in the successful first launch of GIOVE-A on December 28 (See article on page 16.), and laser retro-reflectors produced by NIIPP, the Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Precision Instrument-Making, will measure the altitude of both GIOVE spacecraft to within centimeters.

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The Perils (and Pearls) of Galileo

Successful launch of the first Galileo satellite on December 28 marks the culmination of a process that began almost exactly 13 years earlier.

Successful launch of the first Galileo satellite on December 28 marks the culmination of a process that began almost exactly 13 years earlier.

On January 19 the European Space Agency and Galileo Industries GmbH, the European company steering a consortium of more than 100 subcontractors, signed a €950 million (US$1.15 billion) contract that will pave the way for the operational deployment of Galileo. The contract calls for a mini-constellation of four satellites backed by an extensive network of tracking and control stations that will validate the design of the Galileo space and ground infrastructure. Four satellites are the minimum required to generate three-dimensional positioning and precise timing over the selected showcase sites.

In December 1992, however, Galileo was just a glimmer in a few visionaries’ eyes. That was the month that two European Commission (EC) directorates-general — those for transport and science, research, and development – decided to fund a modest study of satellite navigation options for Europe. The intervening years produced a kind of programmatic version of “The Perils of Pauline,” the cliffhanger serial movie in which each installment ends with the title character – a perpetual damsel in distress – placed in a situation that threatens her imminent demise, only to be rescued at the beginning of the next episode.

Galileo’s most recent “peril” revolved around a dispute between Germany and other members of the European Union (EU) over the allocation of contracts and responsibilities that they would have during the deployment phase of the system. A December 5 agreement on sharing Galileo operational and control centers among five nations rescued Galileo from the months-long impasse.

The next (but probably not final) act of the “Perils of Galileo” remains to be played out: the signing of an agreement with a consortium of companies that will complete the development of the space and ground segments and operate the system for the next 20 years. Current estimates place that milestone in the latter half of 2006, reflecting delays that have dogged the program since its inception and finally pushed its timeline for completion to 2010 – two years beyond the date long proposed by the EC and its Galileo partner, the European Space Agency (ESA).

Nonetheless, the launch of GIOVE-A, the experimental Galileo spacecraft built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., marks a major—and probably irrevocable—step forward for the European GNSS. The start of transmissions from GIOVE-A and a second testbed satellite, GIOVE-B, manufactured by Galileo Industries, will allow the system to lay claim to use of the radio frequencies allocated at World Radio Conferences in 2000 and reaffirmed in 2003.

They will also allow ESA to evaluate on-orbit performance of several new satellite components and technologies and, significantly, also enable GNSS receiver developers to work with real signals in space. For example, GIOVE-B will be launched in the first half of 2006 and will have a passive hydrogen-maser clock as an additional payload, the first such clock ever flown into space. Current spaceborne clocks are cesium and rubidium frequency standards. Galileo satellites will also have rubidium clocks on board.

Political Merry-Go-Round

Several aspects of the €3.8 billion (US$4.6 billion) Galileo program distinguish it from its U.S. and Russian counterparts, GPS and GLONASS: full civilian control, a so-called public-private partnership (PPP) in its deployment and operation, international participation, and a multitude of services, including some that will be fee-based with guaranteed delivery of service. Indeed, the political challenges have long eclipsed the technical ones.

Fusing the interests of 15 (later 25) EU member-states, three additional non-EU ESA participants, and their leading industrial factors into a single enterprise has required a sustained exercise in what’s sometimes called “concertation.” Galileo represents the first Europe-wide infrastructure project and, consequently, challenged the EU and ESA to achieve a new level of political capability — within themselves and between one another. After the original 1992 satnav study, it took nearly seven years before Galileo even got its name in a February 1999 EC document, “Involving Europe in a New Generation of Satellite Navigation Services.”

Until then the program had been known rather generically as GNSS 2, distinguishing it from GNSS 1, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), a satellite-based augmentation of GPS and GLONASS. In May 1999 the ESA Ministerial Council approved the GalileoSat program; in June 1999 the EU Transport Council endorsed a first resolution on Galileo.

A November 22, 2000, EC communication to the European Parliament and European Council laid out the financing, organization, R&D, and implementation plan. In November 2001 the ESA Ministerial Council approved the development of Galileo (Phase-C/D, with a budget of €550 million). In May 2002 the Council authorized a joint undertaking, an institutional entity envisioned under Article 171 of the European Community Treaty but only implemented once previously, which allows the EU to collaborate in a single enterprise with non-EU bodies.

ESA and the EC (on behalf of the EU) comprised the initial membership of the Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU), which has as its primary task the completion of a concession contract. Subsequently, non-EU governmental organizations representing China and Israel signed on with the GJU. Other nations, including Ukraine and India, are expected to join soon. The concessionaire will complete deployment of the Galileo satellites and ground infrastructure and operate the system over the next 20 years, monitored by a Galileo Supervisory Authority.

Final action to deploy the system only came with European Council action on December 10, 2004. Along the way, however, the growing EU-ESA cooperation on Galileo led to a broader initiative on a common European space policy. Late in 2003 the two institutions issued a White Paper on Space and signed a “framework agreement” for cooperation in space activities. Under the agreement, “the EC and ESA will launch and fund joint projects, participate in each other’s schemes, create common management agencies, carry out studies and jointly organize conferences and training of scientists, exchange and share experts, equipment and materials, and access to facilities.”

The overall cost of the Galileo system was first estimated at €3.4 billion, with a public investment for the development and validation phase of €1.1 billion divided between the EC and ESA. This phase was re-evaluated in 2005 at €1.5 billion.

The Art of the Deal

Currently, a “grand coalition” of leading European aerospace, telecommunications, and banking interests is negotiating with the GJU in a formerly competitive process that saw the merger of the two leading consortia in March 2005. Last month’s agreement on Galileo’s operational and administrative direction saw Eurely — a grouping led by Alcatel, Finmeccanica, and Vinci Networks — and the iNavSat consortium headed by the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), Thales, and Inmarsat, joined by a new consortium of Munich, Germany–based companies. The latter group, TeleOp, includes the commercial arm of the German Space Agency (DLR), the LfA Förderbank Bayern, and subsidiaries of EADS and T-Systems.

But the agreement didn’t come easily. Multi-sided talks by representatives of eight companies and five governments (France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain) would reach tentative accords at one level or with one group of negotiators but then fall apart when brought to another forum. Coloring the dialog were national ambitions to be seen as leading the Galileo program and the sensitivity to geographic return — the practice of spreading contracts and revenues among program participants in a proportion close to the contributions made by the various nations.

“Finally, we realized we can’t keep on fighting over these assets without getting an agreement,” Martin Ripple, director of Galileo Program for EADS Space Services, told Inside GNSS. “So, EADS said let’s put the all industrial players in one room and get the five governmental players into the same room. And lock them in until they come out with something.”

What they came out of the room with was a plan that reallocated key components of Galileo operations among the five leading space nations in Europe. The headquarters of the Galileo concessionaire will be located in Toulouse, France, with administrative and market development responsibilities. Inmarsat will have overall management leadership of the operations company based in the United Kingdom and responsible for global network operations, including performance monitoring and operations security. The two control centers (for constellation and mission) will be located in Germany (near Munich in Bavaria) and Italy (Fucino space center in Abruzzo region) along with two performance evaluation centers supporting the concessionaire headquarters. Spain will host backup control centers as well as facilities related to Galileo safety-critical applications.

“It’s a major step toward a concession contract,” says Ripple.

The Same, Only Different

On the technical side of the program, Galileo has entered the in-orbit validation (IOV) and development phase using the two GIOVE experimental satellites to test out ESA’s spacecraft design and ground control. The IOV phase will conclude with the deployment of four operational satellites in 2008. According to the current schedule, an additional 26 satellites will then be launched over the following two years with full operational capability (FOC) declared in 2010.

Galileo operational satellites will transmit signals in a variety of bands clustered around the 1176-1207 MHz spectrum near the GPS L2 frequency, 1775.42 MHz centered at the GPS L1 frequency, and 1278.75 MHz. The latter band lies at some distance from the GPS L2 signals at 1227.6 MHz, but would fall within one of the bands that Russia is considering for the third civil GLONASS signal that will begin broadcasting with launch of its new satellites in 2008.

Galileo signal structures include a combination of biphase shift keying (BPSK) and binary offset carrier (BOC) designs. (Current GPS signals are BPSK variations, but future signals will also be BOC-based.) Recently, the Galileo Signal Task Force has proposed the addition of a composite binary coded symbols (CBCS) design that superposes BOC and a binary coded symbol waveform with the same chipping rate.

Galileo will offer five services: a free open service; a fee-based, encrypted commercial service offering higher accuracy and service guarantees; a safety of life service the includes signal authentication and integrity alerts (targeting, for example, commercial aviation); a search and rescue service operating in near-real time with a return communications link possible; and an encrypted governmental service known as the “public regulated service” or PRS, which will be used by public safety agencies and, conceivably, military forces. Certification for safety of life services is scheduled to occur within a year after FOC.

This final point and the liability issues that it raises probably is the largest complication for the final negotiations in the concession contract. Sizing and sharing the risk associated with service guarantees introduces a problematical element to the Galileo project not faced by its GPS and GLONASS counterparts. As one participant in the deliberations has posed the dilemma: What do you do if a hiker in the Rocky Mountains gets lost and sues Galileo in front of a U.S. judge? Once signed, the concession agreement will lead to the phasing out of the GJU and the advent of the Galileo Supervisory Authority’s role. The concession contract also represents the turning point of the public-private partnership that marks Galileo as a different kind of beast from publicly funded GPS and GLONASS. The framework for negotiating the concession contract assumes a two-thirds contribution from the private sector for the €2.2 billion deployment phase and all of the €220 million annual expense of operating and maintaining Galileo.

Given the past history of the European GNSS initiative persevering and escaping perils — including self-created ones, the Galileo project will probably manage to solve the PPP riddle and get on with the (comparatively) simple task of building and operating a system.

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