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| Sam Wormley... |
 Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 6:08 pm |
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Galileo Will No Longer Require Special Manufacturer's License
http://www.gpsworld.com/gnss-system/galileo-will-no-longer-require-special-manufacturers-license-9083
October 28, 2009
By: Alan Cameron
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN — The International Association of Institutes of Navigation, meeting in
Sweden this year, forms the occasion for what has become ritual in all such meetings: the
updating of status on each GNSS. Today, for the first time in my memory at least, all
three major systems must confess to and make commitments to get around looming obstacles.
GPS and GLONASS both have errant satellites emitting aberrant signals, and Galileo has yet
another construction delay.
As it turned out, only the Galileo program brought anything significant to announce at the
IAIN conference, making a clean breast of schedule postponements and a clear statement of
cause for possible division of the upcoming satellite work order. Galileo’s biggest news
popped out, however, in response to a question posed to the GPS program. Paul Verhoef told
the audience that the EU plans to announce within weeks that a special license to
manufacture and sell Galileo receivers will no longer be required.
The GPS presentation made no allusion to that system’s current satellite and signal
problems; a substitute speaker for GLONASS, which did not send a personal representative,
acknowledged a problem with that system’s satellite(s), but had no details to offer.
Galileo. Paul Verhoef, program manager of the European Union (EU) satellite navigation
programs, opened the IAIN second morning session with an update on EGNOS and Galileo.
“There is a lot going on, as you know. I’m going to give you a bit of insight into the
kitchen.”
Before his planned remarks, however, he paused to refer to the opening keynote given by
David Last of the University of Wales (these remarks may be presented in an upcoming
edition of GPS World magazine).
“I agree with David’s message. It would be an illusion to think that setting up satnav
systems is the one and only solution. Other solutions are necessary. It may well be that
there is no business case for eLoran, but this does not mean that we do not do backup
solutions. There are things like jamming, solar flares, and other things. It becomes
more and more important to discuss and agree on suitable backup solutions.”
He then proceeded with his prepared remarks on EGNOS and Galileo.
“EGNOS is in operation since October 1.” Verhoef displayed plots of results of
comparative measurements taken at the DG-TREN headquarters in Brussels, demonstrating a
“substantial improvement on position” accomplished by EGNOS, closely approximating the
accuracy rendered by differential GPS (DGPS).
“To us a very stringent requirement is to meet the safety-critical aspect of operations
for the Single European Sky [aviation] regulatory package. It will be authorized next
year by the French authority, based in Toulouse.” This will be the first step for wider
certification and implementation, eventually to be taken over by a European aviation
authority based in Cologne, Germany.
“We are currently putting in this service with a rather long-term perspective. It will be
quite a while there before Galileo is there, completely there. We have to take a number
of margins with that. We will need to have EGNOS for at least a 20-year perspective, even
if Galileo is there. Later we will decide whether to integrate it, whether Galileo should
take it over; this is not the moment to have this debate. Somewhere in that 20-year
period, we will have a discussion on where we go with EGNOS. The aviation community needs
at lest a 7-year notice of any change, so that is well taken into account with this
20-year perspective.”
Galileo Update. “This is a slide we are shortly going to change. It says full operational
capability (FOC) in 2013. You now know we are not going to meet that date.”
IOV phase call for 4 satellites, while FOC calls for 27 (+3 in-orbit spares). Five uplink
stations for IOV, later to reach nine for FOC. Two TT&C stations in IOV, Norway will be
the host of three facilities, and the U.S. similarly.
The first two satellites will be launched in November 2010, and the next two in April
2011. The launch pad is under construction in Kouro, Equatorial Guinea, for the Soyuz
launch rockets. The control center there in Kouro should be ready in two weeks from now.
“Then we come to the procurement as it stands at this moment. We are procuring the
capacity through six main work packages. We are on track to announce the satellite
contracts before Christmas, as well as the system support contract. Perhaps the launch
contract, but perhaps not until after Christmas. The other contracts are not time-critical
at this point, therefore we have delayed them slightly; to be announced in the first
quarter of 2010.”
“We have split the total of the 28 satellites we will order into two work orders. In the
first work order we will procure up to 22 satellites, and in the second work order the
rest. The industry bidders are to submit their best and final offer for 8, 14, and 22
satellites. The most crucial decision in the whole procurement will then be for us to go
single-source with one of them, or dual-source with both.” He referred to the similar
process in GPS procurement, although in that case alternating block-to-block, not within
blocks. “A double supplier would mean spending extra money, but it would bring some risk
reduction. Will it be worth the extra money we will have to pay for it. By the end of the
year we hope to have the answer for that.”
By the end of the year we will have under contract the delivery of 22 satellites, and the
launch contract. So by the end of the year we will be able to give a very clear schedule
on Galileo deployment.
“There remains uncertainty on where it will end. Budget questions depend on parliament
and the EC on these matters, which will drive the final aspects of the work. We live in
difficult economic times, and there is some things to be determined in 2014, when the next
funding cycle will begin.”
“By the end of 2013, we will have an initial constellation of 16 satellites, 4 IOV and 12
FOC satellites. This is targeted to provide the open service,” and parts of the other
services: safety of life, PRS, and commercial. Completion of these will depend on the
open funding questions.”
“We have one major problem at the moment, and it is not clear to us why our colleagues are
not addressing this issue at the highest importance. I am referring to compatibility with
all GNSS systems.” He referred to U.S. and Russia systems specifically and said all was
proceeding smoothly in those respects; he did not mention China or the Chinese Compass
system by name, referring to it simply as “the other” or “the others,” and clearly implied
that this is where the difficulty lies.
GPS. Jason Kim from U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Coordination PNT office
gave background on the American system; however, nothing was mentioned about the current
problem with an errant signal from SVN49 and possible solutions under consideration for
that satellite.
The next-generation Block IIF satellite should be ready by July (perhaps this was an old
slide?), but because of launch issues, we cannot launch until June of next year.
The IIR-M 20 has activated the CNAV signal on L2C for testing receiver equipment. The
third civil signal, L5, is also in broadcast demonstration from that satellite.
The director position for the national coordination office is still vacant (since Mike
Shaw’s departure for an industry position).
Kim emphasized the DOC viewpoint that there be a level playing field for all manufacturers
across all GNSS, particularly for receiver markets and applications.
“ELoran is being debated in Congress, and that information is making its way to the
President.”
Big News for Manufacturers. In response to a question from the audience about the U.S.
position on the Galileo interface control document (ICD), Kim reiterated that, for the
Galileo open service, an ICD has been published, but in order to use it for commercial
purposes, a specific license is required from the EC — however the process for obtaining
such a license in far from clear. “We expect Galileo to become a reality very soon. We
think it’s going to be real. We want everyone to be prepared, and to develop
applications, and grow that market. Look at the GPS model, making the information freely
and openly available to everyone. We have an ongoing dialog with our European colleagues
to do the same thing.”
Paul Verhoef of the EU then rose from the front row of the audience to take the microphone
again and add these remarks.
“We published the ICD so companies could do their initial research, use and test things,
but could not sell, since under the previously envisioned public-private partnership, the
private operator was envisioned to have some rights to that. [Since the termination of
the PPP effort] we have had further discussion with our member states. We have an ambition
to become, after GPS, the second system of choice. In order to reach that, the user market
is key. We are currently putting our hands to the last bits and pieces of the
documentation [revising the previous stance], to be published in a few weeks’ time. We
will no longer require a licensing document in order to manufacture and sell devices. We
had to do this bit of work to follow up on the initial [different] preparations made under
the PPP.”
GLONASS. Sergey Revnivykh from Russia sent his apologies to the IAIN Conference, along
with his powerpoint slide presentation, which was presented by one of the conference
organizers, Börje Forssell of Norway.
“The Russians have problems with a specific satellite [on orbit]. The next satellite is
still scheduled for December launch. The details of the problem are not known to everyone,
but it seems to be quite substantial, because the Russians have set up a task force to
solve this problem.”
He then proceeded to give the standard GLONASS presentation that has been seen several
times recently, with no new items. The only note of difference seems to be an attitude of
wishing to co-locate GLONASS ground monitoring stations around the world, perhaps with
those of other systems. No other GNSS targeted by this effort are called out by name, nor
are any specific locations the Russians desire to monitor from — although Diego Garcia
would presumably be of interest. |
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