Oil was first commercially exploited in the North Sea in the 1960’s. Production is underpinned by regular and reliable helicopter operations enabling the movement of staff and equipment to and from the shore. However, the North Sea environment is challenging for rotorcraft operations from many perspectives, not least its remoteness from the shore, the exacting weather conditions and the changeable nature of rigs…

GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) is a common acronym encompassing all existing and planned satellite-based navigation systems. So far, the US-built GPS dominates the scene completely, but the Russian GLONASS is approaching around-the-clock global operational status, and other systems are being developed (the European Galileo, the Chinese Compass/Beidou and the Indian IRNSS). There are also augmentation…

Current global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) [1] are based on signals lying within the L-band of the radio-navigation satellite service (RNSS) spectrum. Since the need for more systems and signals is emerging, new alternative frequency resources are needed. In particular, the C-band frequency portion is envisioned as an option for future GNSSs…

The Wenchuan Earthquake occurred in Sichuan Province, China on the 12th May 2008 with M 8.0 in Richter Scale and 10km depth which resulted in more than 90,000 dead and missing. It is reported that the total loss is more than 170 Billion US Dollars…

Demand for Satellite Navigation technology and applications keeps on increasing in a wide range of economical, social, technological and environmental sectors. This growing interest in the development of Satellite Navigation Systems is demonstrated by the interest of several countries in starting the development of new systems or contributing to existing ones. The major rational behind is…

GESS (GRAIL Environment and Sensor Simulator) is a real-time software prototyped for analysing the GNSS introduction in rail sector. It has been developed by DEIMOS Space in the frame of the GRAIL (GNSS Introduction in the RAIL Sector) contract, lead by Ineco/Tifsa, for the GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA)…

The Galileo E5 signal employs a complex sub-carrier modulation known as AltBOC(15,10) modulation. The sub-carriers are specially chosen waveforms that result in a split spectrum and a constant envelope after the modulation. Four codes are combined with these specially chosen complex sub-carriers to obtain the modulating signal which then phase modulates the E5 carrier. Alternatively, the complete modulation can be…

A central issue in designing complex networked systems for critical applicative domains is the possibility of keeping each node of the network synchronized with respect to a given system time scale. The problem is even more critical when the synchronization accuracy determines directly the performances of the whole system.

E5 band (1164 -1215 MHz), composed of E5a and E5b bands, is part of the spectrum allocated by ITU for new Radio Navigation Satellite Services in 2000. E5 signal has the wider bandwidth (51.150 MHz) never used in satellite navigation. Galileo E5 signal is composed by two data components and two pilot components broadcasted together by means of the multiplexing scheme AltBOC(15,10). E5a band will be used for Freely/NAV message (Open Service) and the codes of data and pilot components are uncripted, E5b band will be used for Integrity/NAV message for Safety of Life and Open Service. Integrity of signal is probably the most advanced service introduced by Galileo [1]. One of the main feature of E5 band is that the signal can be received in two ways: the first is to filter and demodulate only one of side bands E5a or E5b (see Fig. 1) the second is to process the overall received signal containing the components of both bands [2],[3]. In this sections is considered the second way because it will be adopted by professional receivers and this will avoid to obtain all the advantages of Galileo signal. E5 is the most promising signal in terms of performance in multipath environment and positioning for critical applications but also the most challenging for a receiver or a simulation. In this paper will be presented the simulation of the transmission and reception of E5 signal. It will be first described the generation of codes, then it will be illustrated Galileo AltBOC(15,10) signal structure and its differences with a conventional AltBOC, it will be shown a way for the generation of that signal and some basic characteristics for the development of a software receiver for E5.

GPs is running since more than a decade. There are user groups in all domains relying on the provided information. GPS is even used in safety critical environment, but there have been no certification of the GPS system nor are there any plans to do so. Within aviation, GPS is assumed to fulfill requirement on reliability and availability based on observations of the past. Is the discussion in Europe about certification of the Galileo SIS (Signal in Space) just another proof for the bureaucratic overhead imposed on the Galileo project? NavCert as part of the TÜV SÜD group is focused on certification in the area of positioning and navigation.