ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO9044
Open Date: 13/07/2017
Closing Date: 22/09/2017 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 17.154.03
Prog. Ref.: EGEP1
Budget Ref.: E/0360-10 – EGEP1
Special Prov.: BE+DK+FR+DE+IT+NL+ES+SE+CH+GB+IE+AT+NO+FI+PT+GR+LU+CZ+RO+PL
Tender Type: C
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Products: Ground Segment / Mission Operations / Mission Control / Engineering Support (GS S/W dev. and maintenance, …)
Techology Domains: RF Systems, Payloads and Technologies / Radio Navigation Systems/Subsystems / Ground Receivers
Establishment: ESTEC
Directorate: Dir. Galileo Prog & Nav related activiti
Department: EGNOS & GNSS Evolution Programme Departm
Division: GNSS Evolution Programme & Strategy Divi
Contract Officer: Schubkegel, Anja
Industrial Policy Measure: N/A – Not apply
Last Update Date: 03/08/2017
Update Reason: Loaded a new Clarification (English version)

The recording and digitization of GNSS data allows one to re-process it at will, at any computational speed offline, using any signal processing technique (e.g. acquisition and tracking algorithms), including those yet to be developed. This might permit the recovery of much more information that can be obtained using current observables. Short samples of this type of data may be useful for GNSS monitoring or identification of vulnerabilities, but also for permanent archiving and later processing for innovative techniques or future scientific applications. Some regional/local networks are now collecting IF data for this purposes, often over to very limited periods of time; other projects focus on interference detection and reporting and receiver testing, getting rid of the majorityof the recorded data. There is also COTS equipment in the market able to perform these type of recordings, but it is either high cost, and difficult to use and requiring high maintenance and specialized engineers, or others of lower quality and cost aiming at (software defined) radio-amateurs. No attempt to optimization of terminal quality, adoption of standard storage, processing, access to data, and continued permanent recording for multiple applications exists (the equivalent to what IGS and other CORS networks are doing for basic GNSS observables code and phase, however in this case requiring hundreds of TeraBytes of data per terminal if all bandswere to be recorded continuously) exists. This activity attempts to develop an initial pilot to demonstrate such possibility in thelong term which is expect to open large new potential still already identified and still to be explored. The objective of this activity is to demonstrate, through a pilot testbed, the potential of continuous or adaptive recording of GNSS RF Signal-in-space (baseband recording) at reference and mobile stations, with distributed or centralised processing, with applications at: common innovativeprocessing techniques assessment, identification of environmental effects, interference and other natural or man-made vulnerabilities, liability aspects, feared-events assessment, scientific long-term archiving. In particular, the activity aims to achieve at cost-effective RF equipment, identification of ideal configuration (signal frequencies, bandwidth, number of bits, …), effective methods for storing/reducing/processing the large amount of data, identification of relevant test cases.

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