EGNOS and Harvesting

The EGNOS satellite navigation system is now undergoing tests for its use in commercial aircraft navigation as of 2003. The system has been developed by ESA, the European Commission and Eurocontrol, the European air traffic navigation organisation. It provides an overlay to the US-American GPS system making it accurate and reliable enough for civilian airliners. Whereas EGNOS is designed to meet the requirements of commercial aircraft, it will be also very useful for applications on the gorund--and even for farmers. Today's ESA TV Exchange outlines this aspect of EGNOS. The 5-minute A-roll contains split audio with an English guide track and is complemented by a B-roll with clean international sound.

- 0:32 Intro presenting the partners ESA, EC and Eurocontrol behind EGNOS, European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, with video of airplanes landing and taking off from an airport

- 1:30 Satellite navigation has become part of our daily life. But there is a need for better accuracy and service guarantees. Existing systems GPS and GLONASS are not accurate enough for safe critical applications, such as commercial aircraft.

- 1:56 EGNOS monitoring ground stations receive signals from GPS and GLONASS. A special evaluation process is applied on the signals with a correction factor which makes it accurate to 5 metres.

- 2:08 The signal is then beamed back into space and distributed by a system of three civil satellites. In this was the accurate EGNOS system is available to all users with EGNOS receiving equipment.

- 2:21 Different illustrating video pieces of the system and users

- 3:16 Agriculture an also make use of this higher accuracy. At 2001 a test was performed with harvesting equipment equipped with EGNOS receivers, near Cambridge in England.

- 3:28 Rowland Wood, Farmer, explains what precision farming is and the problematic. That is an area which can win from using EGNOS systems.

- 4:52 Another area is the transportation by trains, which will be more and more controlled.

- 5:02 Also the marine sector benefits from EGNOS, which can in particular helps ships in narrow rivers.

- 5:10 Galileo system with 30 satellites will eventually also work with EGNOS. Galileo will greatly improve of quality signal.

- 5:52 End