GEARS

GalilEo Authenticated Robust timing System

Precise timing is critical for a wide variety of economic activities around the world. Communication systems, electric power grids, and financial networks all rely on accurate and reliable timing for synchronisation and operational efficiency. In order to protect residents and strengthen economic security and resilience, a systematic process has been put in place to identify Critical Infrastructure and improve their protection. 

In this context, the GalilEo Authenticated Robust timing System (GEARS) project aims at providing a Galileo-based timing receiver for critical infrastructure, using Galileo’s open service navigation message authentication (OSNMA) system, to protect the receiver against jamming and spoofing attacks.

The prototype developed and validated (at TRL7) within the GEAR project  embedded relevant new technologies and innovations already identified as crucial candidates by the GNSS community to reach the desired levels of security and robustness.

The key objectives of the GEARS project involve:

• improving performance and resilience of Galileo and GNSS timing receivers
• developing and demonstrating to operators the effectiveness of Galileo services and its differentiators
• strengthening market adoption through standardisation activities.

Thanks to performance and economic criteria shared along the project between the GEARS consortium and a large committee of stakeholders, a new mature timing receiver has been developed.  The desired objective is to industrialise and market the GEARS project output, making it available to operators: a Galileo robust timing receiver, tremendously enhancing confidence of operators in the timing and synchronisation service offered by Galileo.

Challenges and technical solution

The engineers of the GEARS project scrutinised a considerable set of hardware options to optimise both hardware and software, with the goal to provide the required solutions to reach resilience and robustness to potential GNSS threats. A fundamental advantage of the developed design, when compared to other GNSS timing receivers, is the inclusion of the OSNMA capability of the unique Galileo system. 

Great care has been put in defining and designing the hardware and software to address the security and safety aspects. The definition design identifies the different hardware components and software components, as well as the data processing required to achieve a high level of resilience and robustness. The combination of all these different components constitute a significant step forward in terms of resilience and robustness to current GNSS timing systems.