Demonstrator of EGNSS Services based on Time Reference Architecture

Project Information

DEMETRA

Grant agreement ID: 640658

DOI

10.3030/640658

Project closed

EC signature date 4 December 2014

Start date 1 January 2015

End date 31 December 2016

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies – Space

Total cost

€ 4 366 058,75

EU contribution

€ 3 506 477,75

Coordinated by

ISTITUTO NAZIONALE DI RICERCA METROLOGICA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - DEMETRA (Demonstrator of EGNSS Services based on Time Reference Architecture)

Reporting period: 2016-01-01 to 2016-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

DEMETRA aims to demonstrate the feasibility of delivering early EGNSS timing services to end users by utilizing an operational demonstrator and conducting tests with pilot applications. Based on the current practice of national metrological laboratories, DEMETRA will define and develop a prototype of a European time disseminator, based on EGNSS. An array of important service features that are necessary for a wide variety of users will be added. These will include: high accuracy calibrated time transfer to a monitored and certified remote time stamping. Nine different time services are proposed for demonstration by consortium partners. These will be established at INRIM premises for two validation test campaigns: a closed loop test, aiming to validate the performances and the second test will be with user terminals located in a real user environment, integrated into the user application to test the real advantages and feasibility of the new proposed services. Envisaged end users are telecoms, power transmission, banks, and TV broadcasting networks. The DEMETRA partnership, including Scientific Institutions, GNSS Industries, and a service provider cover the different facets of the project, including an analysis of commercial potential in terms of market and business development. DEMETRA fits perfectly the objectives of the work program in relation to: innovation, demonstration of pilot applications, use of EGNOS and Galileo Early Services, intention to commercialise the developed service, certification, legal and societal acceptance fostering EGNSS adoption and Long term potential to set common standards in the field of GNSS applications. The proposed services could become the basis for European timing standards, facilitating the independence from GPS for the timing of critical European infrastructure and fostering the dissemination through Europe of common standardised time services, based on EGNSS.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Main objectives of the project in the first period reporting are as follows:
1. Definition and consolidation on the design of the demonstrator is understood. The schedule is tight and the research and development activity quite challenging and demanding.
2. Looking for timing users and getting in contact to interview and contribute to the user market analysis, defining the project specification and preliminary architecture very difficult to find the technical timing expert in possible user companies, quite demanding keeping the partners always engaged
3. The paper and the poster with title ""The Horizon 2020 DEMETRA project: DEMonstrator of EGNSS services based on Time Reference Architecture"" is presented to the scientific workshop
4. Planning the first User Workshop on Timing and Synchronisation market.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Main and specific objectives of the project are pointed out as follows:
1. To define and design an operational architecture. - Operational concepts and key products for EGNSS Timing Service provision specification will be obtained by a strong interaction between service developers and possible users (Specification Review milestone). The design will be consolidated at the Design Review milestone.
2. To set-up an operational environment for pilot applications prototyping and testing. - The aim will be to validate the end-to-end time service dissemination from the time signal generation to user terminal level. This element will start at the Experimentation Readiness Review and have two intermediate milestones.
3. To assess the impacts on Galileo infrastructure and Galileo service facilities and to support the provision of Galileo timing services.
4. To support the development and test of new applications using these early Galileo timing services.
5. To characterize the operational requirements for time services provision that could be made applicable for the future Galileo Time Service Provider.

The demonstrator that will be developed can be used later as an “incubator” or “test bed” to support the development of new services or potential concepts and to validate them through end-to-end simulations and demonstrations. This demonstrator will pave the way for the development of new EGNSS time services and products (such as user terminals or turnkeys solutions) for mass market applications.

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