Galileo Advanced features for Maritime domain Breakthrough Applications for Safety and Security

Maritime transportation is a backbone of the worldwide economic growth, representing 80% of the worldwide merchant traffic, and a major domain of human and nature activity. The improvement of maritime safety and security has always been a major concern for the global community, and, in the last decades, the protection of environment and the resilience to climate change effects have also appeared in the overall scope.

Considering the size of the maritime domain and the potentially large distances to coasts, the GNSS is a core technology of maritime systems. Getting the best possible information from on-board GNSS receivers and more generally GNSS applications (including Search-and-Rescue payloads and short-messaging capabilities of GNSS satellites) is then beneficial to the maritime community for a minimum additional investment. Galileo system is bringing new assets and functionalities, in particular compared to other GNSS constellations, which appears to be particularly relevant for the maritime community.

The objective of the GAMBAS project is to highlight how Galileo specific features can benefit to maritime domain, to propose implementations and to support demonstrations and disseminations of associated services, for the benefit of maritime domain in terms of security, safety, protection of environment and resilience to major catastrophic events. The project will in particular address the modernization of SSAS Cospas-Sarsat anti-piracy beacon, with unique Galileo return-link features, and the development of solutions for rescue operators and for the vessels to use Galileo robustness to jamming and spoofing (including authentication) and the expected future Emergency Warning Service. The solution will be supported by demonstration at sea, in Europe (Greece and Spain) and outside Europe.