Kongsberg to lead Galileo alliance

Issue #125, 13 February 2004

Kongsberg Seatex AS has joined the future of European maritime navigationby signing an agreement with the Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU), whichoriginates from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union(EU). GJU is responsible for the development and implementation ofGalileo, Europe's state-of-the-art global navigation system.

Kongsberg will lead the Maritime Galileo (MARGAL) consortium, which willaddress future use and standardisation of Galileo Maritime services basedon early use of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service(EGNOS)

."Kongsberg will take the role of an industrial premise provider in futuremaritime Galileo services, " says Mr. Gard Ueland, VP R&D at KongsbergSeatex. "By leading this work Kongsberg can have a major role in advancingthe future of maritime navigation and will have a golden opportunity todeploy and tailor future product offerings with Galileo in mind."

As part of MARGAL, Kongsberg is jointly responsible for addressingchallenges related to port and harbour approach, navigation, precisenavigation, monitoring, calamity abatement and inland waterwaysmonitoring. Within this remit Kongsberg will address functionality,security, surveillance and safety with key elements involving accuracy,integrity, continuity and availability.

A major challenge faced by MARGAL is to provide identical basic solutionsto both harbours/ports and inland waterways in order to provide aharmonised seamless service for both sectors. MARGAL is now moving intothe design and demonstration phase with testing equipment placed along theDanube as well as in several UK ports.

"The award of the MARGAL contract is another statement in acknowledgingNorway as a leading competence nation in maritime satellite navigation,"concludes Bjørn A. Fossum, President of Kongsberg Seatex AS.

Galileo will provide the first highly accurate, guaranteed globalpositioning services under civilian control. The fully deployed Galileosystem will consist of 30 satellites andassociated ground infrastructureand is scheduled to be fully operational by 2008. While providing autonomous navigation and positioning services utilizing EGNOS, Galileo will also be inter-operable with GPS, which is run by the US government and GLONASS, which is controlled by the Russian government.

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) is Europe'sfirst foray into satellite navigation. It is under development by theEuropean Space Agency (ESA) in a tripartite agreement between the EuropeanCommission (EC) and the European Organisation for the Safety of AirNavigation (Eurocontrol). Complementing existing GPS and GLONASS services, EGNOS will make use of correction data to improve the accuracy of current services. EGNOS will cover all European states but could readily be extended to include other regions such as South America, Africa and parts of Asia and Australia.

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