Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ELAASTIC (European Location As A Service Targeting International Commerce)

Teaser

Having the knowledge of a devices location is becoming more and more necessary in today’s high tech world. Devices from smartphones, routers to parking meters are being made location aware. This opens up a whole world of use cases such as proof of location when a device is...

Summary

Having the knowledge of a devices location is becoming more and more necessary in today’s high tech world. Devices from smartphones, routers to parking meters are being made location aware. This opens up a whole world of use cases such as proof of location when a device is when it malfunctions, navigation, to marketing based on location. This increased reliance on location has resulted in the need to have assistance data along with a variety of different location technologies to enable a device to provide a consistent and reliable location experience. The objective of European Location as A Service Targeting International Commerce (ELAASTIC) is to provide a service which delivers a consistent and high accuracy positioning solution.

ELAASTIC was developed to be an EU-based, worldwide location solution for Location Based Services (LBS) and Machine to Machine (M2M) applications. To accomplish enhanced performance, the ELAASTIC project combined mature assisted-GNSS and Wi-Fi based location techniques together with new features based on GALILEO signal specific features. These features are delivered from EU based servers via two interfaces supporting different industry protocols. Clients will have the choice between using a SUPL 2.0 interface or an HTTP interface based off or RRLP/LPP specs. The LaaS server is hosted in TELESPAZIO France premises in Toulouse, with the assistance data being provided by Rx Networks’ servers in Canada.

LBS and M2M clients and applications will use the following assistance data in order to determine more precisely and more rapidly their location.
1. Coarse position (determined from Wi-Fi and/or cell tower information),
2. Real time assistance data: it is the real time data broadcasted by the satellites, there are several types of assistance data: ephemeris, almanac, on-board clock correction, etc. ELAASTIC supports GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and BeiDou.
3. Predicted assistance data: this is Extended Ephemeris and is delivered via a seed. A seed is a block of data used by a client to created Extended Ephemeris for up to 14 days. Extended Ephemeris can be used when real time assistance data is not available. For the Teseo III chipset the seed is transported to the GNSS chipset in the user terminal where it will be used by the chipset to create the ephemeris. There is also a library available to create the ephemeris at the OS level.
4. Differential corrections via EGNOS and Galileo Open Service Authentication (demonstrator)
5. ELAASTIC also provides specific algorithms for the GNSS chipset (Teseo III) that use GALILEO signal specific features (e.g. CBOC) in order to get a better accuracy on location and better sensitivity, e.g. a C/N0 of 11 dBHz on tracking. These specific algorithms also include multi-path processing (5 to 10 points) and integrity (based on comparison of position computed from each GNSS constellation).
6. The LaaS server is also connected to an EGNOS receiver (NOVATEL propack6 receiver) in order to provide differential corrections, either for GPS or for GALILEO (for GPS , differential corrections are also obtained from the EGNOS signals acquired by the Novatel receiver). The GPS corrections are applicable over Europe, while the GALILEO corrections are available 100 km around the location of the Novatel receiver in Toulouse.

With the conclusion of this project there is now a LaaS server available for customer development and testing. This server is ready to be switched to a production feed and SLA when a commercial engagement is undertaken. All these services have been fully integrated with the ST-M Teseo III platform and 3 clients are available for customers to use as a baseline for their integrations. For devices using a different hardware configuration there are two ELAASTIC LBS Client integration options:
1. ELAASTIC LBS client HTTPS – Available for Android and windows
2. ELAASTIC LBS Client - SUPL – Available for Android.
3. ELAASTIC M2M platform fo

Work performed

SUPL system (TPZ)
- The real time assistance data and the seeds for all constellations are periodically retrieved by the SUPL server and successfully exchanged with the SUPL client (Android smartphone) over the SUPL interface.
- The SUPL client provides these real time assistance data and the seeds to the TESEO III via the NMEA/USB interface for fix determination.
- On SUPL client cold start, the SUPL server provides to RXN (XYBrid server) the list of detected Wi-Fi/cell tower access points, the coarse position computed by RXN is then provided to the SUPL server and SUPL client to support the first fix determination.
- Donation mechanism implemented: providing the XYBrid server with the detection and location of Wi-Fi and cell tower access point to allow RXN to update its databases.
- The end to end system tests for SUPL seem to be performed correctly in lab. Further tests to be performed outdoor in order to fully validate the system.

HTTPS system (RXN)
-The delivery of assistance items for the HTTPS interface is completed including the following items:
• Seeds and supporting data to generated Extended Ephemeris is now available via the ELAASTIC Product Interface (EPI). Supported constellations are GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou. The data is being requested from Rx Networks PGPS 8 by the EPI and is being cached for faster response times.
• Real-Time Assistance data (Navigation data and Almanac data) for GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, and BeiDou is now available via the ELAASTIC Product Interface (EPI). The data is currently being requested from Rx Networks GRN core servers and the EPI is caching the data every 5 seconds to ensure the latest data is available for use.
• Wi-Fi and CellID location requests are supported as part of the EPI. This includes the ability to submit observation data to ensure that the Wi-Fi and Cell ID database is up to date. Because of the decline in WCDMA usage this network type is no longer a requirement within the EPI.
• The basic authentication (client authentication module (CAM)) functionality is included within the EPI allowing for users to be added and removed. Currently a user is able to access all features. The interfaces have been defined such that the requirement to filter users based on products can be turned on when required.
• Logging is currently being done on the EPI and will enable developers and administrators to search for usage stats and errors.
• Monitoring consists of external end to end service availability and interface availability. Intermapper probes are being used to verify the EPI availability for each assistance type as well as combined requests to ensure that data is available and being downloaded. In addition, where data is cached, stale data monitors are in place to ensure that we are notified when data is not being updated. Because the service is not in production yet, the alarms for these services are not set to P1 (which requires immediate attention)

In support of the SUPL 2.0 server the following items have been delivered in Rx Networks infrastructure.
• RINEX data is available for GPS, GLONASS (V2.10) and Galileo and BeiDou (V3.02) from Rx Networks SFTP. As a post project item, GPS and GLONASS will be updated to (V3.02) if required by the SUPL server.
• The interface has been updated to allow the SUPL server to submit Wi-Fi and Cell ID Observation data.

Assistance data quality has undergone continuous improvements throughout the project in parallel with the on-going constellation improvements. These improvements and adjustments will continue as Galileo releases new satellites and the constellation continues to evolve to the production service.

LBS Client – HTTPS (RxN)
The LBS Client – HTTPS has been updated and tested to perform the following.
• Download data from ELAASTIC server.
o RT-GNSS ephemeris
o Seed and supporting data for predicted GNSS
o EGNOS data for DGNSS.
• Provide real time GNSS assistance, predicted GNSS assistan

Final results

The ELAASTIC LaaS service has been implemented to provide the following improvments to the current state of the LaaS service landscape.
• The norm for LaaS was to have LaaS services from key areas. ELAASTIC has created a European based LaaS service, involving major European companies and worldwide actors in the LBS field, which expands the promotion and availability of European focused LaaS services.
• Service operation from a European base, Telespazio Toulouse, thus ensuring European non-dependence at the A-GNSS support infrastructure level providing independence, in response to the invasive attitude of non-European web giants.
• ELAASTIC provides an offer of services based on Galileo signal distinguishing features and usable already with Galileo Early Services, to promote E-GNSS. This enables European organizations to adopt the ELAASTIC LaaS service and optimize there use for their purposes.
• ELAASTIC will promote and help adoption of E-GNSS by provide the community of the GNSS chipsets providers, with a set of APIs allowing them to take advantage of Galileo signal distinguishing features.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.elaastic-H2020.eu.