AMETRINE

Cospas-Sarsat (C/S) is an international satellite communication system that detects and locates activated emergency beacons and transmits distress alerts to Search and Rescue (SAR) authorities. 

The role of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) in providing precise positioning information will become increasingly central, with continuous technological improvements and increasing penetration of multi-constellation capabilities in SAR beacons. 

Galileo is providing a SAR Service that, since its beginning of operations in 2020, has contributed to saving an average of five lives per day, with greater benefits provided by the Return Link Service (RLS). 

In this context, to foster the uptake of this brand-new Galileo SAR service, the AMETRINE project was conceived with the aim to develop an ultra-compact SAR RLS beacon ready for market, unleashing the benefits of Galileo RLS in life-saving equipment. 

The AMETRINE project concerns the  design, prototyping, and certification of an ultra-compact SAR RLS first Generation Beacon aimed at the deepest market penetration and dissemination to a large market. 

A key point of this project is the development of an enclosure for the Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) to reduce the risk of accidental alarm triggering, and integrating RLS status to minimise the false alarms rate.

Challenges and technical solution

The main challenge addressed during the AMETRINE project in the development of the PLB solution concerns the use of the Return Link Message (RLM) sentence to transfer a return link message received by a RLS compatible GNSS receiver from C/S recognised Return Link Service Provider (RLSP) to an RLS compliant C/S beacon.