Europe’s space policy is already delivering results for businesses and citizens. The European Parliament held a conference on 6 March, on how agriculture is the new frontier. The event was hosted by Eric Andrieu MEP, who is the S&D (The Progressives) co-ordinator for Agriculture and Rural Development.
Whether it is dual frequency chipsets or new smartphones, European GNSS was behind many of the technology announcements made during Mobile World Congress 2018.
The launch of Galileo Initial Services last year has paved the way for new services and applications that can foster the adoption of Galileo in markets outside Europe. Participants at the Munich Satellite Navigation Conference on March 6 discussed support available to European GNSS companies to develop these markets.
The European GNSS Agency (GSA) hosted the second Fundamental Elements Info Day on March 14, 2018, welcoming 55 participants from 38 organisations to its headquarters in Prague. The info day focused on upcoming FE funding opportunities and provided a status update on the funding programme.
GNSS is just one component of autonomous driving systems, along with other sensors like inertial navigation systems (INS), odometers, radar, cameras, gyroscopes and others. However it is a critical component providing much needed redundancy, according to participants in the Munich Satellite Navigation Conference on March 6.
EGNOS and Galileo were at the World Air Traffic Management (ATM) Congress in Madrid from 6 to 8 March to highlight the vital and increasing role of European GNSS (EGNSS) in the aviation sector enabling simplified, safe and integrated ATM for all aircraft from civil airliners to autonomous drones. On 6 March, funding for research, development, innovation and implementation opportunities worth more than €300 million for EGNSS related aviation projects were presented in a special conference session.
A call for proposals has been opened under the Fundamental Elements funding mechanism, targeting the development of GNSS receiver technologies for premium and general mass markets.
The Munich Satellite Navigation Summit opened on March 5 with a discussion about who stands to win from competition and cooperation in satellite navigation. After a lively debate it was decided that, ultimately, the end user will be the winner in what one panellist described as ‘the Golden Age of GNSS.’
The European Commission, with the support of the GSA, is launching the EGNOSHA project to determine under what conditions it would be beneficial to implement an EGNOS high accuracy service in 2020-2035.
Registration for the 4th Farming by Satellite Prize was officially opened at the conference “Agriculture: a new frontier for the European space policy” in the European Parliament on March 6. The aim of the prize is to promote Europe’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and Earth Observation (EO) services in agriculture.
The European GNSS Agency (GSA), in cooperation with the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), has launched the Young GSA – Space Systems Synergy Scholarship, giving students and young professionals the chance to explore synergies between GNSS and Earth Observation.
With over 30 smartphone models currently on the market being Galileo-enabled – and many more on the way – chances are your phone is already taking advantage of all that Galileo has to offer. But how exactly does it work? Here, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) pulls back the curtain on Galileo functionality in smartphones.
Airbus has been selected as the main contractor to develop EGNOS V3, the next generation of Europe’s Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS). The company was awarded the contract by the European Space Agency (ESA), which manages EGNOS development under a working arrangement signed with the European GNSS Agency (GSA).
