https://www.epo.org/en/news-events/press-centre/press-release/2017/451417

Radio signals for better satellite navigation: Laurent Lestarquit, José Ángel Ávila Rodríguez and their team named European Inventor Award 2017 finalists

26.04.2017

in Press release

Laurent Lestarquit, José Ángel Ávila Rodríguez and their team nominated for EPO prize for work in developing core signalling technology
Team's contribution boosts accuracy of the EU's Galileo Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), saves power and ensures interoperability
Designed for civilian use and expected to start in 2020, Galileo is to secure Europe a greater share in the global satellite navigation market
EPO President Battistelli: "The signalling technology developed by Laurent Lestarquit and his team forms an important component of Europe's satellite navigation system, which will set new levels in accuracy."

Munich, 26 April 2017 - The number of devices utilising information from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) is expected to double from just over 4 billion to almost seven billion by 2022. This growth is spurred by a surge in new applications that have moved far beyond simple navigational and positioning uses. Helping chart this new direction, the EU is launching its next-generation GNSS Galileo. The system relies on a new signalling technology developed by French engineer Laurent Lestarquit, his Spanish colleague José Ángel Ávila Rodríguez and a European team from the Galileo Signal Task Force. In addition to shaping nearly all of the signalling technology used on the Galileo project, this team designed and had modulation and spread-spectrum technologies patented that further improve Galileo's high accuracy and ensure its interoperability with other leading navigation satellite systems.

For this achievement, Laurent Lestarquit, José Ángel Ávila Rodríguez and their team have been nominated as finalists for the European Inventor Award 2017 in the category "Research". The winners of the 12^th edition of the European Patent Office (EPO)'s annual innovation prize will be announced at a ceremony in Venice on 15 June.

"The signalling technology developed by Laurent Lestarquit and his team forms an important component of Europe's satellite navigation system that will set new levels in accuracy," said EPO President Benoît Battistelli, announcing the European Inventor Award 2017 finalists. "Galileo promises significant benefits for Europe, from fostering economic growth and delivering a basis for important technological development to helping improve the daily lives of hundreds of millions of people here."

A global system with universal applications

Currently in initial operational capacity with 18 of its planned 30 satellites in orbit, Galileo is set to join the US-led Global Positioning System (GPS) and Russia's GLObal NAvigation Satellite System (GLONASS) as the world's third GNSS. Unlike its predecessors, the new Galileo does not have roots in the military, and most of its services are intended for civilian use. As the newest and most-advanced navigation satellite system, Galileo will also provide improved performance and several new features and services that are not available from its peers. For example, Galileo will deliver better positioning services at high latitudes, which GPS limits to commercial aviation applications. It will furthermore offer an entirely new global search-and-rescue (SAR) function that will enable medical and rescue workers to better locate persons in need and come to their help faster. Galileo's satellites can pick up signals from emergency beacons carried on ships, planes and even people, accurately locate them, and send the information to rescue centres.

Galileo is designed to support both current and developing GNSS-based applications, extending from improved efficiency and safety in mobile communication devices, aviation, maritime and road-based travel to uses as varied as multimodal logistics (a more efficient movement of cargo), 'smart city' management (for more efficient urban management and planning), and agriculture. Recent advances in automated-driving technology and trends in location-based service "apps" give an indication of the direction that navigational and positioning technology is headed.

However, to meet the growing need for higher positioning accuracy, Galileo required some novel signalling solutions. In 2004, the EU and the US signed an agreement enabling the coexistence of GPS and Galileo, but the European system was allotted a rather restrictive frequency range, which also presented constraints and a challenge for Lestarquit and team. "From the start, we wanted to find signals that would still be valid 20 years into the future," says Ávila Rodríguez. "Our ambition was to develop a navigation system that could be used for many decades - a system that wasn't just as good as GPS, but even better."

New waveform opens many options

One of several design and development challenges the Galileo signal team faced was delivering much greater accuracy while retaining interoperability with exiting GPS signals and their planned upgrades. "We also had to share the same transmission frequencies without causing interference," says Lestarquit. "And [...] there was the performance of the Galileo signal itself." Tasked with finding solutions was a team that include Lestarquit and Ávila Rodríguez, along with German academic Günter Hein, French-Belgian engineer Lionel Ries and team lead Jean-Luc Issler from the French Space Agency (CNES).

To deal with the issues of compatibility and interoperability - making sure GNSS signals would not interfere with signals from GPS or GLONASS and that receivers could use these signals along with those of Galileo - the team created a new waveform called the Composite Binary Offset Carrier (CBOC) signal. This signal is created out of (a composite of) two sub-signals: a narrow bandwidth signal, which can be readily implemented in today's standard GNSS receivers, and one with a much larger bandwidth that is designed for new generations of high-end technology. "This is a concept that gives a lot of flexibility," says Ávila Rodríguez. "Receiver manufacturers have the freedom to choose whether they want to use only part of the signal or exploit the full signal for very high accuracy." CBOC is broadcast in the same general frequency band of GPS and GLONASS, ensuring interoperability. At the same time, this unique signal does not cause interference.

The widest signal for centimetre-scale accuracy

Meanwhile, Lestarquit set his sights on improving signal accuracy and saving on precious satellite power. He developed a modulation technique known as Alternative Binary Offset Carrier (Alt-BOC), which effectively packs four signals into one large signal.

"Alt-BOC is the widest geodesy signal in the world - twice as wide as signals from GPS or GLONASS," says team lead Jean-Luc Issler. This signal frequency width translates into very exact positioning: State-of-the-art receivers can make use of Alt-BOC's dual-signal-per-channel capabilities for incredible positioning accuracy within a few centimetres.

Global systems with universal appeal

The Galileo GNSS is owned and funded by the EU, and being developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). Galileo is designed to offer Europeans an independent satellite navigation system under civil control that will ensure Europe a growing share in the global GNSS market, which is presently estimated at EUR 175 billion in annual revenues.

Galileo's GNSS technologies are already generating revenues in companies ranging from mobile phone manufactures to tiny global positioning specialty firms. By 2016, at least 17 chipmakers had adopted the Galileo signal into their products, representing 95% of the global supply. Meanwhile, in the German state of Bavaria alone there are 119 Galileo-related start-ups producing an estimated EUR 130 million in combined annual turnover.

Once fully operational in 2020, Galileo is expected to have economic impact of EUR90 billion over the next 20 years.

A stellar team for satellite signalling

A graduate of Ecole Polytechnique of Paris and the French Space and Aeronautics Institute (ISAE-SUPAERO), Laurent Lestarquit is the inventor of Alt-BOC and contributor to several satellite-navigation-based projects. He is a recipient of the Astronautic Prize of the French Aeronautical and Space Association, which he shared with Lionel Ries and Jean-Luc Issler.

José Ángel Ávila Rodríguez received his PhD from the German Federal Armed Forces University in Munich and is GNSS Evolutions Signal and Security Principal Engineer at the ESA. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his work in the field of GNSS.

Jean-Luc Issler is responsible for international radio frequency collaboration, technical dossiers and quality in the Radio Frequency department of CNES (the French Space Agency) and author or co-author of more than ten granted patents and 150 papers for GNSS and Telemetry & Telecommand.

Günter Hein, Professor Emeritus of Excellence of the German Federal Armed Forces University in Munich, has authored or co-authored 300 scientific publications and is the only European recipient of the US Institute of Navigation's Johannes Kepler Award.

Lionel Ries, a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique de Bruxelles and the French Space and Aeronautics Institute (ISAE-SUPAERO), is a navigation engineer in the Transmission Techniques and Signal Processing Department at CNES and has authored or co-authored 25 patents and about 100 research papers, mostly relating to satellite navigation.

Additional resources

Video and photo material
Read more about the inventor
View the patent: EP1570287, EP1836778

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