Expert Advice: Turning from Challenge to GNSS Opportunity

Paul Verhoef

Presented here is a lightly abridged version of the plenary address by the European Commission’s Head of Unit for Galileo, Paul Verhoef, at the ION GNSS conference in Savannah, Georgia, September 16.

After a brief Galileo snapshot of current status, I will proceed as requested with predictions of life in a multiple-GNSS world. We have secured an additional budget of €3.4 billion mainly for developing and launching the Galileo constellation, with the key objective of a full operational capability in 2013.

Here let me talk about our second test satellite, GIOVE-B, launched on April 27. This bird is healthy and flying according to its specifications, although I hear there was a small problem that caused the satellite to go into safe mode. The engineers are currently testing the signals and using the flight and mission data to fine-tune the last parameters for the manufacturing of the 30 satellites of the constellation.

In July the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the procurement for the Full Operational Capability (FOC). As of last week, we have a shortlist of eligible bidders for sector primes, and ESA will now start the second phase. The list will be published in the next few days. I would like to add that we have opened up this procurement internationally in accordance with the European Union’s (EU’s) World Trade Organization commitments, and with some exceptions for areas of the system that contain classified technologies. The net results will be that EU prime contractors will be able to ask for authority to use non-EU suppliers and subcontractors.

We foresee Galileo to become operational in 2013. In the mean time, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) will make up the first element of the European GNSS. Just to recall, EGNOS is the augmentation system improving the accuracy of GPS and warning users of possible outages. EGNOS currently covers Europe, but extensions are being considered.

EGNOS is in its final qualification stage. Its performance is excellent, within 100 percent availability recorded over about nine months now. The European Commission intends to contract a private operator to operate and maintain the system starting next spring. In parallel, certification for aviation use is under way with the target of end of 2009.Let me now turn to market issues that take us through the issue of a multi-constellation world.

In Europe the emphasis has been redirected from focusing on direct revenues for the potential operator toward the possibilities to boost business, research, and the markets for GNSS applications both in Europe and worldwide.

IP and Applications. With this new direction in mind, we are now working on two sectors: intellectual property and application issues.

Intellectual property policy is high on our work plan for later this year and next year, and an analysis advancing on impact of various options in this context. We seek a solution balancing in a fair manner three objectives:

• fair treatment of industries, EU or non-EU,
• reasonable return to taxpayers’ money, and
• ensuring the timely and sufficient availability of Galileo user receivers and downstream services at FOC.

Against the results of a recent stakeholder consultation, we are pursuing a second closely market-related initiative, an Action Plan which spells out Europe’s objectives and plans to develop applications for GNSS.

This will not be a marketing strategy for the European GNSS, but a list of actions that the public sector should take to support the development. For example, promote interoperability of road tolling systems in the EU and facilitate receiver development.In one word, European satellite navigation programs are on track, and we are excited that we have left behind the stormy times, and we hope that we are going to sail in calmer waters in the future.

Spacescape Evolution

This brings me to the GNSS fortune-telling part, as requested.

There will be at least four global systems and at least a half a dozen regional systems in Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

How will this affect GNSS?

The end users have everything to gain. I like to believe those that say that Galileo — even at the paper stage eight years ago — was one of the catalysts for innovation in this sector. We will soon have four for the price of one in your next multi-constellation receiver.

The obvious effect is that new applications will emerge as ever-more robust PNT (positioning, navigation, and timing) data penetrates service packages ranging from logistics to law enforcement.

One cellphone maker summarized the situation for the manufacturers and end users as something between fantastic and awesome. The downstream industries are possibly the big winners, at least in the medium term, until the market reaches a saturation point and consolidation picks up pace.

What about us GNSS providers? What’s in it for us other than footing the bill?

Tougher Customer Requirements. We GNSS providers will need to think hard about things such as backward compatibility, trade-off management of conflicting requirements, manufacturer friendliness and, not least, listening to the users.

We should reduce the time-to-market for new products and ensure a comprehensive and global customer support. At some point soon we need to seriously address the issue of third-party liability.

Regulatory Work. GNSS providers believe that limited and carefully targeted regulation in satellite navigation is actually useful. Examples speak for themselves: public authorities in all four global GNSS nations have taken or plan to take regulatory measures affecting the use of GNSS. Examples: E-911 in the United States, E-112 and livestock transport in Europe, government use in China, and so on.

Competition. Let’s face it: however governmentally, non-commercially, or multilaterally we run our systems, I do believe in the human desire for fame and reward. Each of us will want to be at least that little bit ahead of our neighbor, whatever parameters are used.  In that situation the customer will be the king and can shop around — at least if competition is not distorted with system-specific mandates, cartels, or the like.

Trade Policy. From international competition there is usually a short way to trade policy and disputes. While trade discussions are useful, I hope we can stay clear of disputes as much as possible, as they divert resources from “the main thing.” So far that has worked quite well, yet we may need to put more efforts into verifying whether the current trade regime is sufficient and the playing field is actually level.

Spectrum. Linked to all these developments are the various aspects of radio spectrum, some mentioned earlier today already.

There is the increasing compatibility challenge caused by scarce spectrum, shortcomings of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) mechanism for GNSS, and the desirability of common center frequencies, wider bandwidth, and so on. In short, a lot of work ahead of us.

Cooperation. As you heard in my words, international cooperation will need to underpin this environment in order to ensure proper functioning of the systems.

Evolution of Policies

While the European Commission may be Programme Manager, it is the transport departments of the EU and its 27 member states that actually are behind Galileo. They have done this for specific purposes: they want to use it.

Our research, space, foreign policy, and, believe it or not, finance colleagues tend to push this cart with us — usually in the same direction. As Galileo gets closer to the operational capability, the interest of the other departments, institutions, and stakeholders in Galileo and GNSS in general is likely to increase.

It is here in the United States where you have accumulated the longest experiences in this field. As we have heard, transport and other non-military policies have started to weigh more in the management of GPS over the years.

GLONASS is also diversifying with a higher civilian content. Our colleagues in Asia are moving forward with civil applications of higher density.

I foresee two trends:

• First, whatever the policy mix behind the various systems, we can observe today an element of GNSS patriotism, alive and kicking. We all want our own systems and for quite legitimate reasons. That trend is likely to continue for some time still in the form of states or groups of states deciding to build their own regional or even global systems or integrity networks. In this business, added security or sovereignty qualifies as return on investment just as well as service quality, new jobs, or straight cash.
• This is not the only trend in town. And yes, there is a counter-current hatching in the United Nations International GNSS Committee (IGC). Already the conception years of this new forum have created somewhat the “we are in the same boat” atmosphere among GNSS providers.

The point is that the IGC is becoming the place for all the providers and users to discuss GNSS coordination issues across several sectors (the ITU, International Maritimie Organization [IMO], and International Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO] are sector- or issue-specific).  We have already seen signs of reaching the limits of bilateral coordination, for example, regarding compatibility and interoperability in a multi-constellation world. Deliverables from the IGC so far are encouraging, and the forum helps in communication and transparency between the participants.

I would expect to see cooperation emerging among the providers in constellation and ground-segment management from a pure cost point of view. It is like owning a sports car; as the mileage accrues over the years, the talk shifts from tuning options to maintenance bills.

Conclusions

The evolution of GNSS is bound to foster new applications; the quantum leap in available satellites and services will give end users and manufacturers sizeable benefits. The GNSS providers will need to adapt to this new reality and volatility and have a vision of what it is we actually want to achieve. Considerable investments in security will be needed at different levels of the systems.

That said, where policies are concerned, we will probably be witnessing two conflicting trends: GNSS patriotism and multilateral action through the IGC.

In the GNSS provider states, the mix and evolution of the national policies guiding GNSS development varies considerably. The tendency is towards enlarging, however, the group of stakeholders (government or other) involved in policy-making towards more and more user sectors.

In any case, in Europe we finally believe that satellite navigation is facing a fabulous future: technology trends such as personal computing, mobile communications, and the Internet come to mind.

We need to turn this challenge into an opportunity. There are many global issues to which satellite navigation can bring a small but important contribution such as climate change, reduction of CO₂, reduction of fuel consumption, search and rescue, and much more. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank again our hosts for giving me the opportunity to present our intentions with this conference, and I thank you for your attention.