Opening the GATE

Germany’s Galileo Test and Development Environment

How can receiver designers and manufacturers develop and test products for new signals or GNSS systems before satellites are on orbit and transmitting? Of course, they can use signal generators and other laboratory test equipment. But those tools cannot fully replicate the experience of receivers operating in a real-world geography. To bridge this gap, Europe’s Galileo program is establishing outdoor test facilities in Germany and Italy. This article by project managers and system designers at Germany’s Galileo Test and Development Environment (GATE) describes architecture, operations, and initial results from field trials there.

Günter Heinrichs, Erwin Löhnert, and Elmar Wittmann
(IfEN GmbH, Germany)

Roland Kaniuth
(Institute of Geodesy and Navigation, University FAF Munich, Germany)

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Nestled amid the slopes and valleys of southeastern Germany’s precipitous Alps, a novel installation has taken form over the past three years that will allow receiver designers and application developers to have real-world experience with Galileo signals years before Europe’s GNSS becomes operational.

Beginning this spring, the Galileo Test and Development Environment, or GATE, has been transmitting Galileo signals from six ground-based transmitters erected on hills and mountains surrounding the picturesque Bavarian town of Berchtesgaden. To obtain a reasonably realistic emulation of the Galileo satellites, the GATE transmitters must be located high overhead to ensure good visibility (low risk of signal obstruction due to vegetation, buildings, topography, and so forth) and angle of arrival for the signals, while also surrounding the test area with simulated satellite transmissions.

This realistic test environment, which will open later this year for commercial activities, provides an opportunity for receiver, application, and service developers to perform field trials of Galileo hardware and software at an early stage. By conducting trials within the GATE facility, researchers and product designers can also incorporate signals from operational GNSS satellites, such as GPS or GLONASS, along with the Galileo test signals. In this way GATE will also support German and European products for Galileo entering the market.

This article presents the current project status and reports on the first experiences and results of the GATE segment acceptance tests as well as results from static and dynamic positioning trials at the facility.

Purpose and Design

Before implementation of GPS, the first full-fledged GNSS, the U.S. Air Force established a ground-based ranging test-bed at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona during the 1970s to prove the concept of satellite navigation. Nearly 40 years later, no one doubts that Galileo will work from a conceptual point of view. However, developing the new GNSS remains an ambitious technological project, introducing a signal structure far more sophisticated than the GPS C/A code. In fact, GATE must fulfill three major mission objectives: signal experiments, receiver testing, and user applications.

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GATE is a terrestrial test environment for developers of Galileo (or Galileo/GPS) receivers, applications, and services currently being built up in the region of Berchtesgaden, Germany. The facility will be operational from autumn 2007.

For further information on GATE please refer to the official project homepage http://www.gate-testbed.com.

(For the rest of this story, please download the complete article using the PDF link above.)

Manufacturers

The Galileo signal generators were developed by EADS Astrium GmbH, Munich, Germany. The GATE Processing Facility (GPF) and the GATE Monitor Receiver (GMRx) were both developed by IfEN GmbH, Poing, Germany. The GATE User Terminal interface runs on a Panasonic Toughbook laptop computer from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Osaka, Japan. The GATE user terminal typically operates in combination with a GPS mouse that incorporates a SiRFstarIII GPS receiver from SiRF Technology, San Jose, California.

Author Profiles

Günter Heinrichs received a Dipl.-Ing. degree in communications engineering from the University of Applied Science Aachen and a Dipl.-Ing. degree in data processing engineering and a Dr.-Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University Paderborn. In 1996 he joined the Satellite Navigation department of MAN Technologie AG in Augsburg, Germany, where he was responsible for system architectures and design, and digital signal and data processing of satellite navigation receiver systems. From 1999 to April 2002 he has served as the head and R&D manager of MAN Technologie’s satellite navigation department. In May 2002 he joined IfEN GmbH, Poing, Germany, where he is currently the head of business development and R&D management.

Erwin Löhnert received a diploma in aerospace engineering from the Munich University of Technology. In 1994 he joined the Institute of Navigation and Geodesy at the Universität Bundeswehr Munich (Federal Armed Forces University, Munich) as a research associate, working mainly on aerogravimetry and GPS/INS integration. In 2000 he joined IfEN GmbH as a project manager for integrity determination. Since 2001 he has been head of IfEN’s mobile applications & services department, managing several projects and currently serving as technical manager of the GATE project.

Elmar Wittmann received a Dipl.-Ing. degree in geodesy from the Munich University of Technology and then joined IfEN GmbH, where he is now working as a systems engineer in the field of GPS/Galileo satellite navigation and software development for mobile applications.

Roland Kaniuth received his Dipl.- Ing. Degree in geodesy from the Munich University of Technology. From 2000 to 2001 he worked as research associate at the German Geodetic Research Institute. Since then he has been a research associate and Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Geodesy and Navigation at the University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich. He is involved in several projects dealing with GNSS system simulation and navigation processing software.