Four funding opportunities currently open within the Fundamental Elements: a research and development funding mechanism to development of GNSS chipsets, receivers and antennas building on Galileo and EGNOS differentiators.

In 2015, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) launched FundamentalIf you missed the recent Receiver Manufacturers’ Workshop, you can find all the relevant information at the new Fundamental Elements resource centre. Elements, a research and development (R&D) funding mechanism supporting the development of innovative GNSS chipsets, receivers and antennas technology building on Galileo and EGNOS differentiators.

To accelerate the integration of Galileo and EGNOS into market-ready devices,  in February 2017 GSA has launched four new funding opportunities across all market segments:

Road, Smart Tachograph

Galileo will provide a Navigation Message Authentication feature over its Open Service (OS). By means of this feature, known as Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OS-NMA), the user will be able to know that the source of the navigation message is authentic, namely it is the Galileo satellites and not any other potentially malicious source.

Tenders should aim at developing a robust “close to market” OS-NMA User Terminal implementing an adequate level of anti-spoofing capability and meeting Smart Tachograph application requirements, together with an end-to-end validation platform to assess the achieved performance.

Aviation

Integrity is essential for safety critical applications. The Advanced RAIM (Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring, - ARAIM), concept is aimed at providing global integrity based on multiple GNSS constellations, at least Galileo and GPS.

GSA is launching a call for proposals with the main objective to develop an ARAIM prototype for aviation applications, including Horizontal as well as Vertical ARAIM concepts and threat allocation and mitigation, as well as testing the performance in real scenarios.

Maritime

Nowadays, the majority of sea ships use GNSS as the primary means for obtaining Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) information at sea.  However, to date there is no maritime standard or guidelines for the implementation of SBAS in shipborne receivers and the majority of these implementations do not take into account the information related to the system integrity messages that is already broadcasted by the SBAS systems.

GSA is launching a call for proposals to develop SBAS L1 receivers for maritime use compliant with IMO Resolution A.1046(27), including demonstration activities,  and the preparation of a guideline for receiver manufacturers for the implementation of the solution developed and to the standardisation process at RTCM and IEC.

Search and rescue

Galileo Search and Rescue (SAR) service contributes to MEOSAR COSPAS-SARSAT system. The integration of Galileo enables nearly real-time detection and localisation of the distress alarm. 

GSA is launching a call for proposals to secure the availability of commercial products from European manufacturers of MEOSAR Beacons including the Return Link Service capabilities implemented by Galileo, thus increasing the European industry’s innovation capacity and investing on E-GNSS differentiators for MEOSAR.

Proposals should aim at developing MEOSAR beacons and its technology building blocks and shall include testing and demonstrating the product capabilities (ELT, EPIRB and PLB) and obtaining the type approval.

On March 29th 2017, in support of the companies interested to bid, the GSA organised four webinars, each dedicated to the open calls/tender. If you missed the webinars, you can find all the relevant information in the resource page, including the presentations, tips on how to prepare proposals/tenders, and Q&As. 

About Fundamental Elements

The GSA’s Fundamental Elements programme is an R&D funding mechanism supporting the development of chipsets and receivers. The programme runs through 2020 and has a projected budget of EUR 111.5 million. The main objective of the initiative is to facilitate the development of applications across different sectors of the economy and promote such fundamental elements as Galileo-enabled chipsets and receivers. 

The programme offers two types of financing:

  • Grants: with financing for up to 70 % of the total value of the grant agreement, with intellectual property rights staying with the beneficiary (with conditions).
  • Procurement: used only in cases where keeping intellectual property rights allow for the better fulfilment of the programme’s objectives. These are 100 % financed.

Fundamental Elements is in addition to, and complements, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research programme, which aims to foster adoption of Galileo via content and application development, and thus focuses on the integration of services provided by Galileo into devices and their commercialisation.

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