GAARDIAN Consortium Wins Important GPS/eLORAN Integrity Research Project from Technology Strategy Board

17th November 2008 - A business and academic consortium led by Chronos Technology has received a major grant from the government sponsored Technology Strategy Board for a £2.2m research project that will improve the safety and security of location based applications such as marine navigation and road transportation.

GAARDIAN is the acronym for "GNSS Availability, Accuracy, Reliability anD Integrity Assessment for Timing and Navigation".  Over the next thirty months, the consortium will be developing a system for mission and safety critical applications that will certify the accuracy, reliability and integrity of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) systems: GPS, the new enhanced Loran (eLoran) and Glonass.

GAARDIAN will use the UTC-traceable timing signal from the GLAs' eLoran station at Anthorn in Cumbria along with analysis of the GPS signal data to authenticate GPS reception wherever it is needed for mission and safety critical applications.  The challenge is to gather and filter large volumes of GPS and eLoran data continuously in multiple, complex and disparate environments without losing content.

Dr Sally Basker, Director of Research and Radionavigation for the General Lighthouse Authorities, says: "This is an exciting project that will exploit the complementary benefits of satellite and terrestrial systems to reduce risk and so improve safety and security at sea and protection of the marine environment."

Successful delivery of GAARDIAN's objectives requires skills and experience in a number of key areas and the consortium brings together seven private, public and academic organisations.  These have not only an excellent mix of complementary skills that address all the relevant technology activities, but also a deep understanding of service provision in the maritime navigation, telecommunications and land-survey sectors.

From the academic sector Professor Washington Ochieng, Chair in Positioning and Navigation Systems at Imperial College London adds: "GAARDIAN provides an unprecedented opportunity for Imperial College London and the University of Bath to work with industry to develop, for the first time, PNT data quality assurance methods for a wide variety of mission critical applications that do not currently have this capability, including many location based services."

Charles Curry, Managing Director of Chronos Technology leading the grant aided project explains: "GPS is fast becoming an unseen, embedded and low cost commodity. The challenge to the user community is that it may not appreciate the fact that subtle failures of the GPS signal could have disastrous or expensive consequences in mission or safety critical applications. The impact on GPS from threats such as jamming, spoofing, space-weather, multipath and other types of interference is likely to increase over the coming years due for example to easier availability of jamming technology or more esoteric phenomena such as increased sun-spot activity. The GAARDIAN project aims to create a data gathering system that will enable any user to monitor the health of the GPS signal in the vicinity of use on a 24x7 basis in real time."

Information for Editors
Chronos Technology Limited is a business to business specialist provider and system integrator of technical solutions for synchronisation, time of day and remote monitoring applications in telecom networks; components for RF equipment designers and GNSS components and accessories for the communications industry and military applications. For more information, visit the Chronos Technology website on www.chronos.co.uk or www.gps-world.biz

BT Design is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in 170 countries. BT will contribute to the development of the key architecture elements and requirements and will develop the measurement engine which forms a key part of the project. For further information please visit www.btplc.com/Thegroup/Ourcompany/Companyprofile/Groupbusinesses/Index.htm

The General Lighthouse Authorities of the United Kingdom and Ireland comprise the Corporation of Trinity House (England, Wales and The Channel Islands), the Northern Lighthouse Board (Scotland and the Isle of Man) and the Commissioners of Irish Lights (all Ireland). Their shared mission is the delivery of a reliable, efficient and cost-effective Marine Aids-to-Navigation service for the benefit and safety of all mariners. The GLAs will provide vital eLoran knowledge and PNT user community experience. For further information please visit www.trinityhouse.co.uk

Imperial College London is an international centre of excellence in teaching and research in science, technology, medicine and business. Its internationally recognised research expertise in positioning and navigation systems, will underpin the development of novel algorithms to monitor the quality (integrity) of data at all stages of the data gathering process. For further information please visit www.imperial.ac.uk

The National Physical Laboratory is one of the world's leading national metrology laboratories and is DIUS's largest science facility.  NPL will develop a UTC traceability route for the UK eLoran time signal and will monitor the broadcast signal continuously to validate its timing accuracy, underpinning its use by the partners throughout the project. For further information please visit www.npl.co.uk

Ordnance Survey is Great Britain's national mapping agency, providing the most accurate and up-to-date geographic data, relied on by government, business and the public. OS are also GNSS and positioning experts, specifically through running a national 110 GNSS station infrastructure - OS Net. OS will contribute in terms of project scope from a User Community perspective and for data to be identified and the data collection and validation phases. For further information please visit www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/

The University of Bath is a research-led university with an internationally recognised Faculty of Engineering.  It has significant expertise in GPS signal processing, multipath analysis, ionospheric interference and algorithm development. For further information please visit www.bath.ac.uk

The Technology Strategy Board has been established by the Government and operates at arm's length as a business-led executive non-departmental public body. It is sponsored and funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). For further information please visit www.innovateuk.org

For more information and photographs please contact:

Louise Davies
Chronos Technology Limited
Tel: +44 (0)1594 862200
Email: louise.davies@chronos.co.uk

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