The STARS project paves the way for the future EGNSS deployment in safety relevant railway applications. By evolving the highly developed and deployed ERTMS standard through the implementation of the satellite positioning functionality, it will be possible to reduce the cost of the future railway signalling systems, especially for lines with lower traffic density. The project deals with three main topics: 1) The elaboration of reference data and characterisation of the railway environment through a measurement campaign; 2) The assessment of the EGNSS performances achievable in the railway environment with the determination of the applicable requirements for the positioning system as well as the necessary evolutions of EGNSS services and ERTMS/ETCS functions and 3) Quantification of the economic benefits and specifying the possible implementation roadmap when applying the EGNSS on railways. The project is strongly linked with other initiatives and actions on the same topic in Europe. In order to feed directly into the standardization work of ERTMS, the project partners will cooperate closely with UNISIG. Moreover, the project will actively interact with NGTC (EU funded FP7) and the results will be directly implemented by SHIFT2RAIL, providing the practical demonstrators for different categories of railway tracks. The approach developed in STARS is also taking the profit of the strong know-how inherited from civil aviation, making this project as completely integrated and consistent in overall activities in Europe and worldwide, leading to the effective deployment of the satellite technologies in advanced railway signalling systems.

VICE4RAIL aims to accelerate the adoption of EGNSS for deploying efficient, resilient, and competitive ERTMS solutions. Focus is on the development of a certification and standardization process for the use of EGNSS, closing the gaps for rail safety critical applications and converging towards a pan-European EGNSS-based solution for ERTMS and its global roll-out. The starting point is the use of EGNOS V2 and the Balise virtualisation – as indicated by the European Parliament directive on July 2021 – opening the way for further applications based on the absolute train positioning and EGNOS V3. Two major developments will be undertaken: identification of suitable certification procedures compliant with the CENELEC norms and realization of a Hybrid Virtualized Testing Certification Environment based on the zero-on-site testing paradigm with the construction of a dedicated testing facility on a RFI’s railway lines where GNSS-based multisensor positioning solutions can be evaluated and certified in operational scenarios. This unique testing environment will be connected with the ERTMS accredited laboratory of CEDEX to assess the end-to-end performance of the ERTMS chain with GNSS-based positioning devices in operational scenarios. Behaviour of the system under GNSS signals that include faults very rare and difficult to experience field but with a potential high impact on safety, can be evaluated avoiding extensive and not exhaustive field tests. VICE4RAIL will exploit the synergies with the Pilot Line Novara – Rho funded by RFI to integrate GNSS positioning into the ERTMS and the Shift2Rail GATE4Rail project that introduced the zero-on-field virtual testing for GNSS. Furthermore, thanks to SNCF, CEDEX, RFI and SOGEI a liaison will be established with the Europe’s Rail R2DATO project to complement their on-going activities and sharing results and assets and with the RTCM SC 134 Special Committee that is completing the standardization process for GNSS receivers for rail.

The main ERSAT EAV objective is to verify the suitability of EGNSS (including EGNOS and Galileo early services) for safety railway application, in particular in regional lines scenario, for which a safe localization of the trains, based on satellite technologies, will be defined and developed, leading the way for the harmonization with the European ERTMS standard, by implementing the solution on a pilot line as reference. The objectives will be achieved, in a first phase by measuring and evaluating the gaps to be filled, in terms of technological criticalities and in relation to railway requirements, performing measurements under real operating conditions, building models and analysis with the help of the simulation, and finally defining and developing a system solution, implementing, testing and validating it on a pilot line, as reference for the future standardisation and certification processes. The ERSAT EAV proposal is relevant to the work programme for the exploitation of the space infrastructure, in particular prioritising the EGNSS uptake for the rail sector, fostering the competition and the innovation of the European space and rail industry and research community, and enhancing in parallel the strong coordination and synergy with the specific sector of European Railways and the main actors involved, building-up a system centered to the ERTMS platform and able to bring to the ERTMS the “competitivity-dividend” of the satellite promises, linked with the enormous opportunity of the local and regional lines in Europe that represent about 50% of the total railways length. The EGNSS-ERTMS based train control/protection system is especially beneficial in terms of operating costs compared to other solutions for upgrading the local/regional infrastructure, considering the forecasted average Benefit/Cost ratios of 2.2 at the European level and a remarkable increase of safety.

The main objective of HELMET is to develop innovative EGNSS applications capable to impacting on eco-friendly and green transportations means. Target adopters of EGNOS and Galileo are the Connetcted and driverless cars, Train signaling, UAV for surveillance of roads and railways. Multi-modality is HEMET’s differentiator to federate innovative applications transforming the independent habit of roads and railways into a synergic ecosystem sharing digital infrastructures, safety and certification processes to lower energy consumption and pollution. HELMET capability to operate UAVs increases the safety by introducing new means for integrated car and train automation. The high integrity and high accuracy platform relies on the Consortium’s know how of SBAS-EGNOS technology to stepping into the multi-constellation multi frequency and multi sensor domain to fight back against common hazards characterizing land mobile scenarios. HELMET will develop innovative algorithms with multi-sensors and a representative proof of concept to be tested in Italy, on the l’Aquila town test bed of EMERGE, the Italian project based on Galileo and 5G for the connected car coordinated by Radiolabs. Collaborative effort is foreseen with rail, road stake-holders and with the RTCM Committee on GNSS-based High Accuracy Applications already involved on train and car applications. The outcomes of HELMET are along the way to set up and operate such services that are crucial to enable cost-competitive vehicle’s positioning beyond the state of the art. HELMET consortium is composed by Radiolabs, DLR, Sogei, University of Pardubice, Stanford GNSS team, already partners in RHINOS project and two SMEs: RoboAuto for the driverless car and Kentro Kainotomon Tecnologion for GNSS technology. HELMET will seek to create a bridge with the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and Ministry of Economical Development on the adoption of Galileo for smart mobility.

EMULRADIO4RAIL will provide an innovative platform for tests and validation of various radio access technologies (Wi-Fi, GSM-R, LTE, LTE-A, 5G and satellites) that combines very new approaches for testing so called System in the loop (SITL) and Hardware in the loop (HITL). The adaptable communication prototypes will be coupled to both simulations of the communication core network and emulation of various radio access technologies thanks to the coupling between discrete event simulator such as RIVERBED modeler (former OPNET modeler), Open Air Interface, various radio channel emulators, Network emulator, models of IP parameters and real physical systems. The radio access emulation tool will offer a graphical based interface for the users. EMULRADIO4RAIL platform will work at IP level i.e. the radio access emulator will reproduce the radio access behaviour as seen by the applications. EMULRADIO4RAIL will investigate the various communication and environment scenarios in railways covering degraded modes, outages, network overload scenarios, interferences and other perturbations which occur in the railway environment or can be expected in the future. Particular focus will be proposed on interferences, taking into account also intentional ones. EMULRADIO4RAIL will analyse and select the communications characteristics perceivable by the applications and services using the communication bearer (like throughput, packet loss, jitter, etc.). EMULRADIO4RAIL will assess the communication capabilities of existing radio access networks and how they could be emulated. EMULRADIO4RAIL will provide support to Shift2Rail members for integration of the radio access emulation platform in the verification labs. EMULRADIO4RAIL is driven by a consortium composed of the main research and development actors in wireless telecommunications for rail involved in current and recent state-of-the art projects concerning the technologies, methodologies and equipment that should be considered.