Ultra low-cost PRS Receiver

The Public Regulated Service (PRS) is a Galileo secure Positioning, Navigation and Timing service. It is an encrypted service only available to government-approved users with high demand for continuous services (such as law enforcement). The major benefit of PRS is its robustness, which protects it against accidental or malicious interference (e.g., jamming or spoofing). The drawback of PRS is that it imposes stringent security constraints on receivers, which also result in higher costs.

Why this project is important for EGNOS/GSA/SatNav?

ULTRA is paving the way for the widespread adoption of PRS services for low-end applications (80% of the PRS market) that are unable to bear either the cost or the security constraints of existing PRS receivers.

Objectives

The focus of the ULTRA project is to develop an ultra low cost PRS receiver capable of addressing low-end applications (which represent 80% of the PRS market).

The ULTRA project is an accelerator to stimulate the support and uptake of PRS across a range of users and applications. This will be achieved by developing and integrating key technologies that result in a significant reduction in the cost of PRS receivers, making them affordable to a larger customer base with an interest in PRS for low-end applications, while maintaining security and performance.

How does it work?

The basic idea of ULTRA is to remove any PRS security elements from the in situ mobile unit and to transfer them to a secure service centre. With ULTRA, the signal is grabbed on location by the mobile unit and sent through secure communications channels to the secure service centre where the PNT is computed.