PATROL - Position Authenticated Tachograph For OSNMA Launch

Around 6.5 million trucks are currently in circulation in the EU (ref ACEA.auto). Control of roads and driver's safety and security has always been a priority for Europe, and the introduction of tachograph and later Smart Digital Tachograph represents the state of the art to prevent driver fatigue by controlling driving time, breaks and rest periods of drivers engaged in road transport. All relevant vehicles manufactured in the EU since 1 May 2006 must be fitted with Smart Digital Tachograph equipment. The Smart Digital Tachograph Regulation (EU) No 165/2014 (and related Implementing Regulations) require the use of Galileo and following a transitional period to allow for its declaration, its Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA) service with the aim to improve robustness against GNSS jamming and proofing attaks.

PATROL delivered a full solution to implement, test and validate the adoption of the Galileo OSNMA in the Smart Digital Tachograph. The solution offers an advanced development of a user terminal building upon a trusted Gaileo/GNSS board, and a management tools board used to assess the performances and to emulate a tachograph. The Galileo/GNSS board includes a state-of-the-art ST Microelectronics chip TESEO V, a dual frequency / multi-constellation L1 and L5 GNSS receiver for the road market. The project also developed a state-of-the-art validation platform and test tools. The validation platform consists of several components such as the OSNMA threat simulator to verify the full coverage of relevant GNSS threats and vulnerabilities for tachograph applications.

Challenge and technical solution

Both GNSS and tachograph have a long history of hacking and tampering. Their combined use require special attantion and security implementation in order to cope with both the applicable regulatory requirements (e.g. (EU) 2016/799) and possible future more sophisticated threats.

With the a availability of the Galileo OSNMA, GNSS threats that pose at risk the authentication of the navigation message are mitigated. In addition, the PATROL User Terminal also features additional receiver-based anti-spoofing techniques providing protection against further threat scenarios, overall increasing the trustworthiness of the PVT solution.