Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MAGNIFIC (Multiplying In Africa European Global Navigation Initiatives Fostering Interlaced Cooperation)

Teaser

MAGNIFIC Project main objective is to promote an African EGNOS and Galileo Early services with EGNSS awareness. MAGNIFIC covers strategic domains including the export of EGNOS for Africa and key priority applications identified in the GSA Action plan on GNSS applications:...

Summary

MAGNIFIC Project main objective is to promote an African EGNOS and Galileo Early services with EGNSS awareness. MAGNIFIC covers strategic domains including the export of EGNOS for Africa and key priority applications identified in the GSA Action plan on GNSS applications: road, aviation, maritime, precision, agriculture/environment protection, civil protection and surveillance, and LBS.
SBAS in Africa is part of the EU cooperation policy on transport and of the First Action Plan (2008-2010) for the implementation of the Africa-EU Strategic Partnership and was specially mentioned at the 3rd Africa-EU summit. Countries from West Africa have been selected for their highest growth largely bigger than in Europe. This growth needs to be accompanied by solutions, such as EGNSS, that allow the African continent to develop fast. Europe is also linked with Africa by years of cooperation.
The key added values of the proposed “EGNOS for Africa” and GALILEO services are expected to convince the African decision makers (business, authorities) to adopt EGNSS as it will ease their growth and bring social benefits to the African citizens (new services in protection, LBS, smart transport…). Thus, MAGNIFIC maximizes both the export roadmap of EGNOS in Africa market sectors. In return, solving new needs linked to the African context (scintillation problems) will also foster the European innovation.

Work performed

The technical work performed during the project comprised the setup, execution and post-processing of all the demonstrations.
•ASMGCS: the benefits of EGNOS in the field of airport ground surface surveillance in African airports: Dakar and Maputo.
The e-TrakAir application was upgraded and used to run two demonstrations in parallel and the vehicles were equipped with the hardware platforms. The data collected during the evaluation period were provided by the equipment deployed by M3S and the EGNOS’ simulated correction was provided by Telespazio.
The added value of EGNOS has clearly been highlighted: reduction of the margin on the size of the restricted area, reduction of the number of false alarm, increase of availability of the system, etc.
The results were presented at a dissemination event organized in Dakar on the 13th July 2017.
•Oil Exploitation: the objectives of this demonstration were to apply innovative bi-frequency EGNSS algorithms in order to provide a PPP solution robust to scintillation.
The equipment was installed on a drilling boat of TOTAL in Guinean Gulf. GNSS data have been collected and several analysis were performed and it was concluded that Galileo signals are 2 to 10 more times robust to scintillation than legacy GNSS signals. EGNOS correction reduces the positioning error by a factor 2, even better in mono-frequency in some cases. Sub-metric accuracy (CEP) is reach using real-time PPP corrections. Galileo E1 signal better than L1 C/A by a factor 2 to 3 when using CBOC and pilot signal. E5 signal is even better by a factor 3 to 5.
•Civil Aviation: two LPV procedures have been designed at Lomé airport. A minima of 250ft was achieved while existing LNAV procedures has a minima of 400ft.
The flight campaign took place in November 2016 and it consisted of:
-a route between Dakar and Lomé at night with ASECNA ATR42-300 to collect GPS and Galileo data. It was the first time in Africa that an aircraft was positioned using Galileo signal only.
-4 SBAS approaches flown to Lomé Airport. The procedures were designed by PildoLabs and ASECNA procedure designers and flown by ASECNA ATR42-300 with PildoLabs flight validation platform.
The demonstration campaign was a good way of demonstrating the benefits of SBAS from the operational point of view to A-Sky Airlines and Air Force pilots, involved in the flight campaign. The LPV improves Decision Height compared to LNAV at both runway ends and the feedback from the pilots was extremely positive. The results of the flight campaign were presented during the final conference in Lomé.
•Natural Resources: a precise positioning solution without the need of local DGNSS stations was proposed by CNRS.
The field campaign was performed by CNRS and the Togolese team during almost the whole duration of the Project. It was possible to determine the topography, the variations in water level and the differences in water levels between the surfaces of the different water bodies. The information collected allowed to better understand the hydrological functioning of the lagoon system of Lake Togo. This method can help the Togolese authorities to strengthen their knowledge of the Togo Lake functioning and improve the management of water resources in maritime in Togo.
A seminar was organized at EcoLab in Toulouse in April 2016 where Australian researches attended. They confirmed the relevancy of the method for the study of coastal environments with a lagoon system and a very flat topography.
•Secured Multimodal Tracking: three types of activities have been carried out:
-CDMA-GPS tracking deployment and demonstration: the demonstration consisted of real time tracking survey of the 10 deployed CDMA-GPS trackers. A on the field demonstration was organized on the 16th and 17th November 2016 in Yaounde.
-EVDO-GALILEO tracking deployment and demonstration: Saphyrion included a Galileo tracker to be tested in Cameroon. Validation tests were performed in Europe first and

Final results

MAGNIFIC aspires to catalyst the development of an EGNOS in Africa. It also aspires to develop an important panel of applications (A-SMGS, Emergency services, Multimodal transportation, etc…) supported by key technological improvements (Multi Constellations, Multi frequency, integrity taking into account local propagation effects, robust receiver technology, SAR signal optimization, etc…), whose global adoption will benefit from Africa pioneering.