Colloquium on scientific and fundamental aspects of Galileo

Since 2007, the worldwide scientific community has met every two years to discuss the possibilities for boosting the scientific use of Galileo and for contributing to the development of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).

The event is always organised in one of the 20 ESA Member States, and makes an essential contribution to the Agency’s implementation and definition of the evolution of the European GNSS. The gathering of major academic players provides a scientific reference for institutional executives and industry, as well as offering a unique platform for promoting innovative GNSS initiatives at large.

The colloquium focuses on four major areas of research:

• Scientific applications in meteorology, geodesy, geophysics, space physics, oceanography, land surface and ecosystem studies, using either direct or reflected signals, differential measurements, phase measurements, radio occultation measurements, using receivers placed on the ground, in aircraft or on satellites.
• Scientific developments in physics, dealing with future GNSS, particularly in testing fundamental laws in astronomy and in quantum communication. Relativistic reference frames and relativistic positioning will be addressed.
• Aspects of metrology such as reference frames, onboard and ground clocks, and precise orbit determination.
• Scientific aspects of satellite navigation and positioning such as signal propagation, tropospheric and ionospheric corrections and the means to model and mitigate multipath and interference.

The various possibilities to use navigation satellites such as Galileo for scientific purposes will be reviewed and the use of scientific applications to contribute to make the most of the present systems and define their evolution will be scrutinised.

The conference is being organised as a series of plenary talks and two parallel half-day sessions.

Online submission of abstracts is open until 14 June 2013 through the colloquium website, where other detailed information is also available.