OEGNOS

Austrian EGNOS Data Server

Aims

Industrial and scientific research and development to implement an EGNOS data service for Austria, which shall provide higher positioning performances.

Brief Description

The Austrian EGNOS data server (OEGNOS – Österreichischer EGNOS Datenserver) provides an EGNOS correction data service especially tailored to the requirements in Austria. For that purpose, improved EGNOS correction data are provided to the users via a terrestrial communication connection. Especially in Austria, this service will induce a significant added value due to the challenging topography and thus the arising EGNOS satellite signal shading. By the integration of local meteorologic parameters (atmospheric corrections – ionosphere, troposphere), derived from real measurements, the quality of the EGNOS correction data is improved significantly. Therefore, the EGNOS correction data are decoded, supplemented by the computed local ionospheric and tropospheric corrections, encoded into an RTCM format, and provided via an authenticated GSM/GPRS (TCP/IP) connection. Due to the improved absolute accuracy of the single point positioning new application areas arise (e.g. agrarian area determination, special inland waterway navigation applications, first GPS/EGNOS based driver assistance functions etc.), which can not be covered by conventional GPS/EGNOS positioning in Austria.

The main goal of the project is the industrial and scientific research and development regarding the generation of an Austrian EGNOS data service which provides improved accuracy. Thus, a data server and a test user terminal will be developed and tested in order to evaluate the complete system. The first version of this service will cover a local area in the surroundings of Rottenmann (Styria).

A future planned development (at present not part of the project) aims at the back coupling of the test user terminal. This means that the approximate coordinates (single point position solutions) of the terminal are transmitted to the EGNOS data server in order to be able to compute, assign, and re-transmit the corresponding correction set to the test user terminal. Furthermore, the transmission of the improved EGNOS correction data via a radio broadcasting service is envisaged in order to provide them e.g. for automotive applications.