Australian and New Zealand Second Generation Satellite Positioning Augmentation System Supporting Global SBAS Concept

The Global Satellite Based Augmentation System (GSBAS) concept, promoted in the last several years by Lockheed Martin and GMV, combines the advantages of the new generation SBAS and PPP technologies to satisfy aviation and other user communities’ needs and distributes the infrastructure and operation costs of the system among different countries. The combined SBAS+PPP solution is possible within the latest SBAS standard currently under development which relies on Dual-Frequency and Multi-Constellation (DFMC) techniques. The use of dual-frequency solutions mitigates ionospheric induced signal distortion, so that a service can be easily established worldwide with a comparatively sparse ground reference station network compared to legacy SBAS implementations. In addition, the definition of the range and resolution of the SBAS DFMC ICD satellite corrections enables the provision of a PPP service. Early 2017, the Australian and New Zealand governments announced the initiation of the 2nd Generation SBAS Testbed including the demonstration of applications transport and other industry sectors. GMV together with Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company and Inmarsat have initiated a two year collaborative project with Geoscience Australia (GA), the Collaborative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI) and Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) for the deployment of a satellite positioning augmentation testbed system. The services to be broadcast include: - SBAS L1 Legacy Service via the GEO L1 Legacy test signal, the same as currently provided by EGNOS in Europe and WAAS in USA; - SBAS L5 DFMC Service via the GEO L5 test signal providing dual-frequency augmentation for GPS and Galileo constellations; and - Precise Point Positioning (PPP) Service transmitted within the SBAS L1 and SBAS L5 message information. The results of the planned demonstrations will provide substantive proof of how this technology can benefit safety, productivity, efficiency and innovation in Australian and New Zealand industrial and research sectors. Additionally, the DFMC SBAS Testbed performance will be used to assess the feasibility of the Global SBAS concept. The paper presents an overview of the Global SBAS concept including scope, schedule and services of the Testbed system and shows the latest results achieved at the date of publication.