Stakeholder feedback shapes EGNOS OS SDD

When commissioning the EGNOS Open Service on 1 October 2009, the European Commission published the Service Definition Document for the EGNOS Open Service (EGNOS OS SDD). A few months later, in early 2010, a public consultation was organised on the first release of this document to give interested parties an opportunity to express their views.

The objective of this consultation was to ensure that subsequent iterations of the EGNOS Service Definition Documents take the views of GNSS stakeholders and users into account. The feedback received during the consultation process was used to improve the OS SDD and to help prepare the SoL Service Definition Document.

Each version of the Service Definition Documents goes through this process, after which the final documents are published and made available online for the 3 EGNOS services.

The EGNOS OS SDD presents the characteristics of the service offered to users by the EGNOS Open Service, highlighting the positioning and timing performance currently available to suitably equipped users using both the GPS SPS broadcast signal and the EGNOS OS augmentation signal.

Suggested improvements

In general, the stakeholders found the document to be clear and in line with their expectations. However, some areas for improvement were identified, to feed into preparation of the subsequent edition of the EGNOS OS SDD:

• Content should be adapted for each user category, rather than addressing a broad range of EGNOS users with different profiles and interests. Therefore, the users suggested structuring the document in such a way to allow readers to access information targeted at their specific category.

• Users felt that the document focused too much on the aviation sector, while the EGNOS OS can readily be used in a wide range of domains such as road navigation, precision agriculture or for leisure and personal mobility applications. It was felt that these domains should be more fully addressed.

• Finally, the stakeholders recommended using enhanced definition or referring to appropriate external references to explain the technical concepts and terms that are used throughout the document, to make it easier for the reader to understand.

These recommendations were taken on board during the preparation of subsequent versions of the document. To read the most recent version of the EGNOS OS Service Definition Document (EGNOS OS SDD), click here.

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