Real-time PPP with Galileo Demonstrated by Fugro

Fugro Seastar AS has been looking forward to demonstrating Real-Time Precise Point Positioning (PPP) based solely on Galileo signals since the last two satellites were launched October 12, the company said.

Those two satellites brought the constellation to a total of four satellites, the minimum required to permit calculation of a Galileo-only position. Fugro achieved this task on March 18, within a week of all four Galileo satellites being activated. Fugro is now generating Galileo orbit and clock corrections, which can be used in conjunction with the Fugro G2 decimeter-level corrections associated with its GPS/GLONASS PPP service.

The plot below shows performance of the Fugro orbit and clock service using GPS, GLONASS and Galileo satellites between 06:00 and 08:00 UTC,  March 18, 2013, in Oslo, Norway. Between 07:00 and 07:30 UTC, only the four Galileo satellites were used for the solution, which achieved a similar accuracy to Fugro’s existing service, the company said.

“It is interesting that the noise level of the position is better with Galileo alone than when GPS and GLONASS satellites are also used,” Fugro said in a statement. “This is very encouraging as with only four satellites to choose from, the geometry of the Galileo-based solution is much weaker than the solutions before and after the Galileo-only period. This performance exceeds our expectations and suggests a strong future for Fugro’s Galileo PPP solution.”