TREASURE focused on the emerging area of European GNSS (EGNSS). GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) include systems such as the established US Global Positioning System (GPS) and the Russian GLONASS, as well as new systems like China’s Beidou and most importantly Europe’s Galileo. Galileo is what we call EGNSS, which reached fully operational capability in 2019, a joint initiative of the European Commission (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA). Galileo provides data of unprecedented accuracy and a guaranteed global positioning service under civilian control.
GNSS have a multi-billion Euro world-wide industry – the EC predicted an annual global market for GNSS of €300bn by 2020. However, GPS has been the frontrunner of all these systems, dominating the market for more than two decades - Galileo aims to change this unbalance. The EU’s ambition for EGNSS is to strongly impact European industry and society by incentivizing the various application segments and creating jobs. It is a priority to develop this technology in Europe, and that is why the training of young scientists in this niche area is at the top of the European economic agenda.
Combining GNSS systems to operate together is known as multi-GNSS, which is key to provide instantaneous, high accuracy positioning anywhere in the world. Although GNSS is routinely used in smartphones and in-car navigation with an accuracy of a few meters, it can deliver centimetres in real time if advanced techniques are employed in a multi-GNSS approach. This was the focus of TREASURE, in a bid to boost the use of Galileo worldwide in support of a range of applications and to inspire new ones. The development of EGNSS and its integration with these other satellite systems is key for Europe’s competitiveness in this market, therefore the EU’s interest in funding projects like TREASURE.
An example of a remarkable market is the global Agri-Tech field. By 2025, the world’s population will reach 9 billion people, a surge in growth that presents a unique challenge – global food production must increase by 70% to feed the world. Precision agriculture relies on GNSS to address this challenge, giving farmers access to real-time precise data gathering and analysis, maximising production, reducing costs and minimising environmental impact. Precision agriculture needs instantaneous positioning accuracy of just a couple of centimetres. Another area of interest is high accuracy positioning for offshore operations, such as seabed exploration, tide and current estimation, and oil exploration/production, where demands are constantly growing.
TREASURE achieved the overall research objectives of developing, validating and implementing new models to advance the state of the art in real time high accuracy GNSS positioning. The focus was on two existing GNSS techniques known as PPP (Precise Point Positioning) and RTK (Real Time Kinematic), which potentially meet the real-time high accuracy positioning demands by integrating GPS, GLONASS and Galileo, and this is where TREASURE made a significant and timely contribution. The robust GNSS positioning service developed at the prototype level in TREASURE addresses a multi-frequency multi-constellation approach that contributes to achieving high accuracy exploiting PPP-RTK.
