Galileo, a big opportunity for the EU's economy
Galileo, the EU's strategic global navigation satellite system (GNSS), is set to be operational in 2014. This is good news for European enterprises, as Galileo's advanced technological features will make it a valuable tool for nearly all economic sectors. It is also good news for European citizens who will enjoy more accurate positioning technologies and greater safety in the air, on land and at sea.
The European satellite navigation market is tangible proof that the best way to deal with a recession is to be bold and reach for the stars. While many sectors of the European and global economy have stagnated or even shrunk, the GNSS market – which includes such things as the navigation devices in vehicles – has grown at a healthy rate.
Between 2009 and 2013, GNSS markets are expected to grow at impressive compound annual growth rates of around 24%. This builds on years of sustained growth which saw GNSS-based products and services generate around €20 billion in direct revenues in Europe in 2007.
The longer-term future also looks extremely promising. A market study carried out by the GSA, the EU’s GNSS agency, predicts that the global GNSS civilian market will amount to some €235 billion by 2025.
In fact, the GNSS market provides a wealth of opportunities for upstream and downstream European enterprises and public services in a variety of sectors, including space technologies, software, hardware, social services to all kinds of citizens, real time information to people on the move, road transportation, public transport management, aviation, agriculture, energy, the protection of the environment, civil engineering, security, and much more.
Traditionally, the GNSS sector has been reliant on American infrastructure, in the form of the GPS system. This dependence not only means that Europe loses out on certain economic opportunities, it also leaves the EU vulnerable to disruption, as the US system is a military one that could potentially be brought offline for technical or political reasons.
Given the huge potential of the GNSS sector and Europe’s vulnerability to external suppliers, the EU has, for the past few years, been developing its own independent global system, Galileo. Other countries in the world are following the same policy. For example, Russia is reviving the old Soviet system, GLONASS, while China is building the new COMPASS system. However, unlike Galileo, which is a civil-oriented system, all the others are military ones.
Positioning the EU on the global navigation map
The Galileo story began over a decade ago, at the end of the 1990s, when the EU decided to set up its own GNSS infrastructure for civil and commercial use. Named after the famous Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, the ambitious system is a great achievement in space engineering. With a fully deployed configuration of 30 satellites in medium Earth orbit, it will provide unprecedented positioning precision and accuracy down to a few metres.
In addition to its high precision, the Galileo constellation will improve the availability of positioning services in cities where tall buildings can obstruct signals from satellites that are low on the horizon. Galileo’s navigation signals will also be more available than GPS at high latitudes, such as in Scandinavia.
Moreover, not only will Galileo provide both its European and global users with guaranteed uninterrupted service – something GPS and GLONASS do not – it will also possess a built-in reliability check to warn of any loss of integrity in the system, a crucial feature for emergency and other critical services, such as police and search and rescue units.
As a pre-cursor for Galileo, the EU officially launched its first venture into satellite navigation, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS). EGNOS, an augmentation system, makes GPS more accurate and reliable for European users.
EGNOS will offer three services. The EGNOS Open Service – which is free and available to all – was launched on 1 October 2009. The EGNOS Safety-of-Life Service is due to be certified in 2010 for the purposes of air and maritime transport. The service will make GPS suitable for safety-critical applications, such as flying aircraft or navigating ships through narrow channels. EGNOS is also providing a terrestrial commercial data service: EDAS (EGNOS Data Access Service), which disseminates EGNOS data in real time and is the single point of access for the data collected and generated by the EGNOS infrastructure. This service is currently being beta-tested.
Galileo takes off
As for Galileo itself, the satellite navigation system has reached the most advanced stages of development. Two experimental satellites were successfully launched in 2005 and 2008. In addition, in November 2009, the Kourou ground station was inaugurated. This marks an important milestone in the in-orbit validation phase of the Galileo programme.
And the process is gathering pace. In January 2010, three of the six contracts for the delivery of Galileo’s full operating capability phase were signed. The remaining three contracts are due to be awarded later this year. This latest phase will build up Galileo’s operational infrastructure and will allow three of Galileo’s five services – the open service, search and rescue, and public-regulated services – to be fully operational by 2014 using an initial constellation of 18 satellites.
So far, €5.8 billion has been earmarked for Galileo and EGNOS. Although this is a substantial amount of money, given the expected impact of Galileo (the European market for GNSS civil applications is expected to be worth at least €60 billion in 2013), this is relatively modest. This is especially the case when one considers that public infrastructure projects on terra firma, such as the €47-billion rail link between Berlin and Palermo, routinely cost considerably more.
And European public opinion is firmly behind Galileo. According to an EU survey 
[4 MB] , 80% of citizens are in favour of an independent European satellite navigation system and nearly two-thirds are in favour of allocating public funds to the initiative.
SatNav in action
Galileo Applications Day (GAD), which will take place in Brussels from 3 to 5 March 2010, will demonstrate around 40 cutting-edge satellite navigation applications developed with EU funding. These include a GNSS tracking device for the elderly and those suffering from Alzheimer's, the geo-tagging of photos on mobile EGNOS-enabled devices, as well as a container tracking system.
GAD will also feature the Galileo Masters competition, which rewards and recognises innovation in satellite navigation. With new regional prizes being launched for this year's Galileo Masters, more than 300 entries to the competition are expected.
GIANT step for air safety
The EU-funded GIANT demonstration project sought to pave the way to the introduction of EGNOS and Galileo services in the aviation sector. The project demonstrated to airline operators both the short- and long-term benefits of switching to the new European satellite navigation systems.
Test flights in Italy, Spain and Switzerland using aircraft and helicopters, were, for the first time, guided by the EGNOS signal. The trials went very smoothly and showcased the promising use of Galileo for future safety-critical applications.
On track with tracking
One important GNSS application is the tracing and tracking (T&T) of sensitive assets, such as nuclear material. The EU-funded MENTORE project demonstrated the current and future applicability of EGNOS and Galileo technology for T&T activities.
The project carried out five demonstrations, focusing on a number of areas including the transportation of nuclear materials and livestock, multi-modal freight transport, as well as urban logistics.
The demonstrations were such a success that the Italian oil and gas giant, ENI, decided to install EGNOS on almost 2 000 trucks in its fleet.
Galileo: who's who
A number of institutions and agencies are involved in Galileo. They include:
- The European Commission which is responsible for the management and coordination of the European satnav programme, including both EGNOS and Galileo. It also owns the assets of both systems on behalf of the European Union.
- The European Space Agency (ESA) which, as the architect and integrator of the system, manages the suppliers developing the technology underpinning Galileo.
- The European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA) which manages all public interests related to Galileo and other GNSS programmes. It also works on the marketing strategy for Galileo and EGNOS, under the supervision of the European Commission.
- The European Satellite Services Provider (ESSP) which is a company set up to operate the EGNOS Open Service and its Safety-of-Life functionalities.
The text only of the articles can be republished as long as the source of the article is quoted: Enterprise & Industry magazine (http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/magazine/index_en.htm), © European Union, 2008 - 2012
