SEGRA - Shipborne receiver EGNOS Related Activities

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) will soon launch a new maritime solution that will make legacy and costly coastal ground-based augmentation systems redundant. Meanwhile, the next generation EGNOS V3, featuring dual-frequency, multi-constellation (DFMC) services, is set to come online by 2028, once GPS L5 is declared operational.

Maritime transportation remains the backbone of worldwide economic activity, with Europe being one of the world’s leading maritime hubs. Shipping around the extensive European coastline relies on differential GNSS (DGNSS) signals for navigation and safety. These signals depend on a network of fixed, ground-based reference stations to broadcast the difference between the positions indicated by GNSS and known fixed positions. Today, almost all commercial GPS receivers, even hand-held units, allow DGNSS data inputs, and DGNSS is commonly used in maritime settings. However, the cost of maintaining this aging infrastructure is high, and the long-standing debate over what to do with this service is unresolved. Hence, the demand for cost-effective solutions. 

SEGRA (Shipborne receiver EGNOS Related Activities) aims to support manufacturers with specific guidelines for new SBAS DFMC receivers.

The SEGRA project proposed a set of Guidelines for Manufacturers for the implementation of SBAS Dual-Frequency Multi-Constellation (DFMC) open service in shipborne receivers, including augmentation to GPS and Galileo constellations for L1 and L5 frequencies. 

These guidelines include the minimum receiver requirements for SBAS DFMC processing, along with the required testing to validate the safe use of SBAS for maritime applications, hence supporting the firmware development (for both the SOLAS and non-SOLAS) installed in a shipborne receiver to process SBAS DFMC guidelines and used to test and verify them.

Challenge and technical solution

Building on the results and the experience of past projects (i.e., the MAREC project), the main issues addressed by SEGRA concerned the: 

• compliance to IMO Res. A. 1046 operational requirements for harbour entrances, harbour approaches and coastal waters.
• Receiver and firmware requirements specifications, starting from existing products already available in the market
• IEC 61108 test standards for GPS, Galileo and DGPS receiver requirements
• Current non-availability of SBAS DFMC service from EGNOS, which led to sound simulations in order to enable testing.