Galileo Adoption in Shipborne Equipment

Currently, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is a key element of the navigation system in maritime applications, it is the main source of Position Velocity and Time (PVT) information. The recent development of new GNSS constellations and the emerging threats pushed for urgent update of the maritime standards. In order to assess the readiness of maritime GNSS devices, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) launched a call for expression of interest to test Galileo-enabled ship-borne receivers at the end of 2018. The campaign was completed in second half of 2019 in the GNSS testing facilities of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s in-house science service. The aim of this test campaign was twofold: firstly to assess the correctness of the implementation of Galileo, and secondly, to identify potential performance improvements and non-compliances to the requirements set for Galileo in the International Electrotechnical Committee (IEC) Maritime Standard IEC 61108-3:2010. The paper presents the maritime GNSS receivers test campaign: seven receivers were tested in twenty four test cases covering PVT accuracy, sensitivity, robustness against interference, RAIM/FDE and NMEA support. From the tests, it emerges that all the devices under test (DUTs) exhibit very good performance in terms of position, speed and heading accuracy, and re-acquisition capabilities. In addition, for all the DUTs the performance under interferences is remarkable since the position accuracy performance is always well below the threshold set in the standard. In particular, it emerges that mitigation technique is internally developed and particularly effective. From the analyses it emerges also that the DUTs exhibits proper behavior in terms of RAIM/FDE, but it must be pointed out that the information extracted from GSA and GBS messages are sometime not consistent with what observed in position domain.