The PARADISE prototype receiver tests and the user application demonstrations together with the application partners showed the expected advantage of the new PARADISE signal processing algorithms combined with MEMS IMU technology.
The main obstacle to reach full performance of the PARADISE receiver is currently the status of the GPS & Galileo satellite constellations. With the required usage of GPS L1/L5 and Galileo E1/E5a frequencies for the PARADISE signal processing, full performance of the PARADISE signal processing is achievable only come with the availability of the full Galileo and GPS L5 constellations. According to current schedules this will be sometime around the year 2021.
PARADISE is expected to pave the way of using GNSS in all outdoor environments, from open sky to adverse environments, requiring high accuracy and availability.
Extrapolating the achieved results with the currently very limited number of available GPS/Galileo satellites to the year 2021 with full Galileo FOC constellation available, it is confirmed that the results achieved with PARADISE can have a considerable impact on the three target markets.
For the urban case (considered the most ‘simple’ case), the PARADISE results are definitely suited to meet the requirements of the ‘urban under-ground construction/mapping’ application. The challenge here is to achieve a fully integrated and user-friendly solution (position, accuracy, distance measurement, GIS).
For the forest applications only satellites above 30 to 35 degree elevation angle can contribute to an accurate RTK position solution. With full availability of Galileo FOC in 2021 with 30° elevation mask, min. 7-9 satellites will be visible (35° elevation mask: min. 6-8 satellites).
The wood harvesting/transportation application can be definitely covered as planned, as harvester/forwarder/skidder all operate on forest roads or logging trails, where even a small part of the sky is not disturbed by trees. Therefore, this application together with the coming digitalization of forest (knowing position of every tree with a diameter or more than 10-20 cm) is expected to provide a huge impact in wood harvesting market in the future. Today wood logistics using ‘GNSS position’ information is starting after the logs are assembled on the forest roads. With the PARADISE driven position availability, the wood logistics can start now from the beginning with the planning of the selected trees for cutting, harvesting and forwarding the trees to the assembly places, thus enabling for the first time a complete digital workflow. Beyond this economic advantage, also compliance to the forest standards from FSC/PFEC to keep the vehicles within the 4 m logging trail swath can be achieved for the first time now which is beyond state-of-the-art.
For the ‘surveying in forest’ application with its very high requirements on accuracy, a clear beyond state-of-the-art capability could be achieved, for surveying at the ‘edge of forest’ (canopy cover of 50%, one half of the hemisphere) or ‘track forest’ (canopy cover of 70-90%), where PARADISE solution was superior to the current COTS solution.
