Australia and New Zealand SBAS and PPP Testbed: Achievements After Three Years of Service

Between May 2017 and August 2020, a second-generation satellite-based augmentation system has been demonstrating SBAS and PPP services in Australia and New Zealand. This prototype system (Testbed) has provided Satellite Based Augmentation (SBAS) and real-time Precise Point Positioning (PPP) capabilities through the SBAS L1 and L5 signals broadcast from the Inmarsat 4F1 geostationary satellite. The Australia and New Zealand SBAS and PPP Testbed was promoted by Geoscience Australia (GA), and Land Information New Zealand (LINZ). The Testbed was developed in collaboration with industry partners, including Lockheed Martin, Inmarsat and GMV. The primary objective of the Testbed wasto assess the benefits of satellite navigation technologies in different transport and industrial sectors. This second-generation SBAS Testbed brings together two of the most demanding augmentation needs for GNSS users: integrity and high accuracy. These SBAS technologies have been designed and implemented to support regional aviation procedures, which have the integrity of the navigation solution as one of its primary requirements. Additionally, multimodal users of the SBAS signal in sectors such as agriculture, maritime, transportation or general industry can benefit from a GNSS signal improving the GPS accuracy performance. PPP services designed to support high accuracy needs with a typical RMS user error in the 10 cm range make for an excellent complement to the safety of life service. The objective of this paper is to provide, from the perspective of industrial system developers, an update on the Testbed service definition, infrastructure status and performance achieved during the more than three years of operation.