The Arctic Testbed – Providing GNSS Services in the Arctic Region

Background The Arctic is a new frontier that opens up new possibilities and industrial potential. However, the Arctic has a fragile marine environment with one of the world’s most fertile ecosystems. In order to have sustainable activity in this region all means contributing to responsible and secure operations should be considered. The activity in the Arctic is increasing. The Northern Passages are predicted to become a more viable shipping route in the future, as a result of the retreat of the Arctic ice cap. 25% of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas resources are expected to be found in the Arctic. The fascinating world of the Arctic attracts an increasing number of tourists, leading to increased hazard of injury to persons as well as environmental impact. Then, on the other hand, the Arctic includes breeding grounds for a significant percentage of the world’s wild fish populations. High latitudes poses special challenges to GNSS systems. Operating in these vast areas with minimal or non-existing infrastructure makes GNSS a crucial asset. There is limited coverage in the Arctic of existing SBAS like EGNOS, WAAS and SDCM. EGNOS coverage is presently defined up to 70 degrees North, and the performance is decreasing when approaching this Northern limit. Objectives The main objective of Arctic Testbed is to contribute to extending secure satellite navigation in the Arctic. In particular, it will complement EGNOS in the North, targeting coverage up to 85 degrees North. Further, it will extend coverage to the West, bridging the gap between EGNOS and WAAS in the Northern Atlantic. The following characteristics of the Arctic are drivers on SBAS performance: • Sparsely populated areas, with lack of infrastructure, limiting the selection of sites for reference stations. • Northern parts not covered by geostationary communication satellites. • Vast areas of sea, limiting available land for location of reference stations. • Specific ionospheric dynamics, making it harder to predict the ionospheric corrections. • Inclination of GNSS satellites at about 55 degrees gives lower elevation of the satellites. Methodology The Arctic Testbed will be an SBAS system prototype. As there are limitations in coverage of geostationary satellites in the Arctic, the broadcast to users will also be by alternative radio means, e.g. non-geostationary satellite system like Iridium, or terrestrial systems. This will help overcoming the lack of coverage of geostationary communication satellites. The Arctic Testbed will allow including both GPS and GLONASS, and could in the future also include Galileo. This will provide corrections to the users for more satellites, and hence provide better geometry and better RAIM capabilities. The Arctic Testbed will target two main groups of users, namely Aviation Users and Maritime Users. Current MOPS (DO229D) applies to single frequency users. Even if GPS L2 cannot be used by aviation users, the frequency can be used by other user groups, like maritime users. Therefore correction data will be provided for both single and dual frequency users. However, for aviation users this will allow investigating the performance of a dual frequency GNSS, hence being an early indication of the performance that can be expected from a dual frequency (GPS L1/L5, Galileo E1/E5) SBAS. The Arctic Testbed will include reference stations data from EGNOS, as well as additional reference stations in the Arctic region. This includes reference stations in Greenland, Jan-Mayen, Spitsbergen and Norway. This network will allow monitoring the specifics of the ionosphere in the Arctic region, e.g. scintillation effects. The generation of the SBAS service will be done at a processing centre in Honefoss, Norway. Processing will be based on the same algorithms that are used in EGNOS, but adapted for the Arctic Testbed. The Arctic Testbed project is initiated by ESA. Kongsberg Seatex is assigned as prime contractor, heading a team of eight partners: GMV Aerospace and Defence, Thales Alenia Space France, Logica, Terma, Norwegian Mapping Authority, Technical University of Denmark, Septentrio and University of Calgary. Anticipated results Implementation of the Arctic Testbed is followed by a period of experiments and demonstrations, with first results expected in 2014. Simulations indicate that the system could provide an SBAS prototype service at APV-1 level from Spitsbergen to Greenland. Conclusion/Significance of the work The experiments and demonstrations will allow collecting valuable experience on the provision of SBAS in the Arctic, and hence provide input for the definition of the next version of EGNOS.

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