EEGS
EGNOS Extension to Eastern Europe

The current EGNOS coverage area – APV-I 99% – does not reach Eastern Europe. EEGS sets out to show that the EGNOS coverage area could be extended to cover all of Eastern Europe. For this, performance analyses on EGNOS (CPFPS) algorithm improvements as well as management studies for the analysis of the best EGNOS implementation strategy will be conducted.

Moreover, a SBAS signal will be provided for Eastern Europe to demonstrate at ground level that the steps necessary to upgrade EGNOS and provide such a service are ready to be implemented in the EGNOS programme. Both facts – proving EGNOS extension capability and providing an EGNOS-like signal in countries where currently there is no SBAS signal – are a remarkable step forward in the current EGNOS state-of-the-art.

The SDCM prime contractor is a participant in the project and it is intended to study how EGNOS and SDCM could be interoperable, which would constitute a second step beyond the current state-of-the-art of the EGNOS service to the east. These studies will conclude with a demonstration on the overlapping EGNOS and SDCM areas to make a practical interoperable exercise between both systems.

In parallel, and to promote the EDAS use for probably the most-promising GNSS market in Europe and Russia, the EGNOS RIMS data via EDAS will be combined with SDCM station data to provide a high-precision positioning service.

Description

EEGS is composed of three main activities:

• Analyse the EGNOS performance for the following three cases: current EGNOS performance, EGNOS performance with improved algorithms and EGNOS performance with additional RIMS.
• Study the necessary actions needed at regional level to achieve the technical improvements identified for the EGNOS programme. Study the EGNOS/SDCM interoperability and the potential benefits of EGNOS and SDCM reference station combinations for a high-precision position service.
• Demonstrate that the conclusions of previous studies are in fact implementable. Three kinds of demonstrations are foreseen:
  • demonstrations at user level of the improved EGNOS service in Poland, Romania and Ukraine;
  • demonstrations of EGNOS/SDCM interoperability;
  • demonstrations of EGNOS/SDCM combined services.

Fundamental to EEGS is the use of GMV’s magicSBAS product. magicSBAS is a PC-based SBAS platform containing CPFPS algorithms. magicSBAS’ fast-replay release allows the study of CPFPS algorithm improvements in an easy manner due to its replay capacity and its multiple input formats (e.g., EGNOS, RINEX). magicSBAS real-time release allows real-time demonstrations of the previously identified improvements due to its real-time nature, its multiple input formats (e.g., EDAS, NTRIP) and output formats (e.g., SISNET, DGPS).

Objectives

EEGS has the following four main objectives:

• prove that EGNOS can be easily extended to Eastern Europe and provide the straightforward actions to be undertaken in the EGNOS programme for an EGNOS upgrade to cover Eastern Europe. Such actions will cover both technical studies (algorithm improvements, new RIMS deployments) and management studies. These studies will end up in three different demonstrations (Poland, Romania and Ukraine) of an EGNOS service extension with a real-time SBAS signal providing service for those and other Eastern European countries;
• assess the level of interoperability between EGNOS and SDCM – Russian SBAS – systems and prove through a practical exercise that EGNOS and SDCM (or improved versions of such systems) can be interoperable;
• promote EDAS as the most-promising GNSS market in Europe and Russia: high-precision positioning. EDAS and its counterpart Russian service will open the possibility of unexplored real-time services – one of the most promising is proposed to be studied in this project. It consists of providing a real-time position service with centimetre accuracy which could be used in multiple applications (high precision agriculture, civil engineering, etc.);
• study the impact of Galileo in the scenarios of an EGNOS service in Eastern Europe and an interoperable EGNOS/SDCM.