The objective of FLARE is to propose a flexible system able to perfomr remote EGNOS/GALILEO system demonstrations. This releas addresses specifically South American Region where there currently is no SBAS available, and where a willing of developing regional SBAS as well as a participation in GALILEO has been shown. In this context, the FLARE project consites on the generation of a low cost system forerunner mainly based on EGNOS legacy able to provide corrections in a service area with a very limited number of receivers (RIMS.
!!you can download here!!
- Flare Summary and FAQ: document presenting the project and the FAQ
- Demonstration User Manual: document explaining how to use the FLARE System for Demonstrations
FLARE Frequently Asked Questions:
WHO IS INVOLVED IN FLARE?
WHAT IS FLARE SCHEDULE?
WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR COLLECTION CENTRE IN LATIN AMERICA?
WHAT DOES THE FLARE COLLECTION CENTRE CONSISTS IN?
WHERE ARE THE STATIONS GOING TO BE LOCATED AND HOW ARE THESE LOCATIONS SELECTED?
WHAT IS FLARE?
FLARE is an European initiative led on behalf of GSA by Thales Alenia Space within FP6 2nd Call in order to promote SBAS and Galileo future benefits in regions currently deprived of any second generation GNSS signal such as Latin America.
The goal of the project is to deploy a test bed augmenting GPS signal in order to demonstrate the added value to multi-modal applications of this systems. Current implementation of FLARE focuses on Latin America in order to support demonstrations in the region which will be performed by other project, based on the signal computed by FLARE.
WHO IS INVOLVED IN FLARE?
A part from the hosting entities in Latin America already listed bellow, the European roles on FLARE are distributed as following:
- GSA: European coordinator of the Galileo international cooperation program acts as customer of the FLARE system;
- Thales Alenia Space France is prime contractor of the FLARE project, as such leads the system development and deployment;
- GMV Aerospace and Defence (Spain) is subcontractor to Thales Alenia Space and contributes to the system development;
- FDC (France), is technically subcontractor to Thales Alenia Space and contributes to the system development;
WHAT IS FLARE SCHEDULE?
The deployment of FLARE capability shall take place in the second half of 2008, targeting a start of operations in the fourth quarter of 2008. Initial set of operation is planned to run from October 2008 until March 2009 (+/- 1 month). Additional 6-months of operations may extend this operation period until October 2009.
WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR COLLECTION CENTRE IN LATIN AMERICA?
Basic infrastructure for FLARE are dispatched between Latin America and Europe, and based on Components-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) as much as possible. The overall behaviour of the system can be summarized as:
- Collect the GPS Signal in Space data and send them batch to a computation facility which remains in Europe;
- Input the data to a FLARE Computation Facility based on EGNOS know-how located in Europe that will then output an Early Galileo regional integrity message for Latin America, known as “NOF” standing for “Navigation Overlay Frame”;
- This NOF shall then be sent back to Latin America and used, together with GNSS signals by demonstration user receivers, to perform the relevant demonstrations, and/or be locally analysed to assess performances of such system in the region
The overall scheme of the presentation is depicted on the figure below.
Currently, no network of monitoring stations compliant with FLARE requirements is immediately available for such demonstration in the considered service area. Operating the system, -even with limited performances- requires at least 6 stations. The initial step of the FLARE demonstration infrastructure plans to deploy its own set of monitoring stations. The data has then to be transmitted to the computation facility –located in Europe for the first phase of the project-. The FLARE system is currently based on Internet network to support the provision of the data from the monitoring sites to the processing facility.
In order to overcome the potential jittering in the data transit delay created by the Internet, the system therefore introduced a single data aggregation point, namely the collection centre, which aim are to:
- Collect monitoring data and aggregate them in a single time-consistent frame;
- Create a single bridge point should the system require an upgrade in the broadcast segment between the processing and the monitoring subsystems,
- Perform a first stage formatting of the data to transmit;
WHAT IS DOES THE A FLARE COLLECTION CENTRE CONSISTS IN ?
In order to impact as few as possible the hosting entity, the collection centre has been designed to be based on as-standard as possible solutions:
- A desktop PC with reasonable computation facility;
- An internet connection;
- An open-source OS (Linux Fedora);
- A dedicated software to automatically perform the centre operations (i.e. without any attendance required);
WHERE ARE THE STATIONS GOING TO BE LOCATED AND HOW ARE THESE LOCATIONS SELECTED?
FLARE System has been designed to support remote demonstration of GNSS-based applications such as:
- Location Based Services;
- Precision Farming;
- Geo Fencing;
- Dangerous / Precious goods hauling monitoring;
- Fishing regulation;
In the case of Latin America, initial demonstration target has been selected to cover at least partial regions of Brazil and Argentina, which forms an area of intense wealth production in South America. The following areas have been designated by actors in the region as preferential zones for demonstration in the above mentioned sectors:
- São Paulo / Rio de Janeiro: as economic heart of Brazil;
- South border of Brazil / North Border of Argentina as major communication corridor;
- Buenos Aires to Cordoba area, as major economic place in Argentina;
- Mouth of the Rio Parana on the Atlantic Ocean, as intense maritime activity area;
A preliminary Targeted Service Area has therefore been initially designed, depicted on Figure bellow encompassing as much interest targets as possible. On the other hand, the coverage of the full targeted service area, which has to be defined with respect to the system design by a “rectangular shape” (on a Mercator projection), would have led to a area too wide with respect to the monitoring network capability, under its current definition.
The left figure shows the Initial Service Area Targeted. The right Panel represents the Service Area Configured.
The actual service area defined as target for the initial instantiation of the FLARE System is therefore defined as follow:
- Longitudes between 42°W and 62°W;
- Latitudes between 22°S and 37°S;
In the current frame of the project (no off-shores monitoring stations), only land masses shall be considered as service targets. Maritime coverage inside the targeted service area will be provided in a best-effort approach.
From the service area targeted, the monitoring stations hosting sites were selected with respect to the following constraints:
- provide the best possible coverage of the service area;
- identify locations where existing sites and partners would provide hosting (no dedicated hosting site to be developed);
6 reference sites have therefore been identified to achieve the service area coverage with the minimum number required of stations. The coverage which is targeted has been assessed through a dedicated qualified tool, which result is depicted on Figure bellow.
Figure: FLARE service Volume Assessment
Local partners were then contacted in order to assess the possibility to host the stations on these sites.
