The BELS Pproject: an opportunity for setting collaboration links between Europe and South East Asia in the field of GNSS

In 2016 the European Global Navigation Satellite System (EGNSS) Galileo should start initial services that will make it available for practical use together with other existing Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). South East Asia (SEA), which is the Region in the world with the highest multi-GNSS coverage, but has not developed any of them, is the ideal place to promote EGNSS solutions and related technologies to facilitate business while supporting sustainable development. This paper describes the opportunities offered by the project BELS to companies, institutions, researchers from Europe and SEA working in the field of GNSS. The project is funded by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) under the European Union’s Research Framework Programme Horizon 2020.

Ionosphere Monitoring in South East Asia in the ERICA Study

The ERICA study aims to find out signatures of the interplay between the magnetosphere‐geomagnetic field and the ionosphere that degrade trans‐ionospheric signals such as those transmitted by GNSS satellites. The project activity focuses on the characterization of the ionospheric variability of the Equatorial Ionospheric Anomaly in the South East Asian region through the analysis of datasets collected with an ad hoc measurements campaign. The campaign has been conducted with ground‐based instruments located in the footprints of the Equatorial Ionospheric Anomaly and Equatorial Ionospheric Trough. This paper presents some of the relevant results achieved by the project, in terms of ionospheric climatology and weather assessment over the interested area. In particular, the paper describes the average condition of the Equatorial Ionospheric Anomaly recorded during the entire campaign and provides interesting insights on relevant scintillation events.Published273-2871A. Geomagnetismo e Paleomagnetismo2A. Fisica dell'alta atmosferaJCR Journa

Analysis of the Regional Ionosphere at Low Latitudes in Support of the Biomass ESA Mission

Biomass is a spaceborn polarimetric P-band (435 MHz) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) in a dawn-dusk low Earth orbit. Its principal objective is to measure biomass content and change in all the Earth’s forests. The ionosphere introduces Faraday rotation on every pulse emitted by low-frequency SAR and scintillations when the pulse traverses a region of plasma irregularities, consequently impacting the quality of the imaging. Some of these effects are due to Total Electron Content (TEC) and its gradients along the propagation path. Therefore, an accurate assessment of the ionospheric morphology and dynamics is necessary to properly understand the impact on image quality, especially in the equatorial and tropical regions. To this scope, we have conducted an in-depth investigation of the significant noise budget introduced by the two crests of the Equatorial Ionospheric Anomaly (EIA) over Brazil and South-East Asia. The work is characterized by a novel approach to conceive a SAR-oriented ionospheric assessment, aimed at detecting and identifying spatial and temporal TEC gradients, including scintillation effects and Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances, by means of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) ground-based monitoring stations. The novelty of this approach resides in the customization of the information about the impact of the ionosphere on SAR imaging as derived by local dense networks of ground instruments operating during the passes of Biomass spacecraft. The results identify the EIA crests as the regions hosting the bulk of irregularities potentially causing degradation on SAR imaging. Interesting insights about the local characteristics of low-latitudes ionosphere are also highlighted

GMSK transmitter impairments

CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems), P1E Fall meeting, Annapolis, October 2002, paper P1E-02-3

The NAVKIT: A European Multimedia Tool forProfessional Training in the Field of SatelliteNavigation Technology

Satellite Navigation and its applications are becoming more and more important. In Europe, the European Commission confirmed the public funding of the European Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Galileo. In this framework, new educational needs have arisen. A recently conducted survey has highlighted a general lack of educational material on GNSS-related subjects. The NAVKIT represents a first answer to the educational needs of the GNSS community. It has been designed to be a self-consistent tool for engineers or technicians not trained in navigation but it can be used also as supporting material in university lectures. The NAVKIT consists of audio-video lessons, two sets of exercises (solved exercises and problems statements), and a self-evaluation test. Ancillary parts are: Glossary, Bibliography and Questions&Answers section. The NAVKIT is HTML-based. It has been used during specific courses in Europe and in post-graduate courses in Asia. The tool was designed in a web 2.0 vision

GMSK transmitter impairments

CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems), P1E Fall meeting, Annapolis, October 2002, paper P1E-02-3

Work in Progress - GnssEduPack: an Innovative Approac to Education and Training in the Field of Global Navigation Satellite Systems

paper T4C-

Growing NAVIS - EU-SEA Cooperation Action in the field of GNSS

Growing NAVIS (G-NAVIS), a EU-FP7 funded project, has been designed to boost scientific activities and international links of the NAVIS Centre, an International Collaboration Centre for Research and Development on Satellite Navigation Technology in South East Asia. This Centre, opened on 1st October 2010, is located in the Hanoi University of Science and Technology and was set up in the framework of a previous EU-FP7 project. One of Centre goals is to facilitate the cooperation between European and South East Asian Institutions in any aspect of GNSS technology. For this reason, G-NAVIS is carrying on some R&D activities on: algorithms for Multi-GNSS receivers, Precise Point Positioning, and GNSS applications to Intelligent Transport Systems. Some of the results obtained so far are related to the exploitation of the multi-GNSS environment, that is now becoming available in South East Asia, and to the study of the ionosphere, that deserves particular features over Vietnam. In order to promote both the NAVIS Centre and the GNSS technology in the region, G-NAVIS is also organizing many education and awareness activities. The project foresees three international workshops hosted in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. To maximize the impact of these actions, the G-NAVIS project partners are collaborating with other important players in the region such as the Malaysian National Space Agency (ANGKASA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the Japanese Satellite Positioning Research and Application Center (SPAC). With them G-NAVIS coorganized the 4th Asia Oceania Regional Workshop on GNSS in December 2012 and will co-organize the 5 thedition in December 2013 in the premises of HUST. The paper presents the results achieved so far to foster the cooperation between South East Asia and Europe in the field of GNS

N-FUELS and SOPRANO: Educational Tools for Simulation, Analysis and Processing of Satellite Navigation Signals

In recent years, research activities in the field of Satellite Navigation have boosted worldwide. At the same time, it has become evident that few educational opportunities in the field were available for students and there was a need to develop dedicated tools for hands-on sessions. To partially answer this need, the NavSAS Group has developed N-FUELS and SOPRANO. N-FUELS, a MATLAB-based signal simulator, allows students to understand the physical layer of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals and to learn how to manipulate them via software. SOPRANO, a collection of ANSI C language routines, implements the whole chain of GNSS signal elaboration in post-processing and enables testing and validation of new GNSS signal processing algorithms and architectures. Both tools are used in post-graduate courses at Politecnico di Torino with a high degree of internationalization, which opens interesting points of discussion concerning the introduction of novel educational tools able to meet the demand and the learning styles of students with different educational backgrounds and culture