Life at sea could become safer in future thanks to a recently completed project using satellite navigation technologies to provide more reliable information for vessels and coast guards.

The Multi-modal Tracking and Tracing Service centre (MTTS) project used the capabilities of Galileo, Europe’s future satellite navigation network, to create a system that helps prevent accidents and aids more efficient rescue operations. “We want to use Galileo to help save lives,” said Bart Peeters from Netherlands-based systems engineers Ursa Minor, one of four companies involved in the project.

The team worked with European coast guard authorities to assess the system’s potential to improve their operations. They created a data centre that collects and distributes information from and to multiple sources, enabling functions beyond what is possible with current satellite navigation technologies, such as the US Global Positioning System (GPS).

Information exchange

This system will achieve two-way communication through the ‘return link’ feature unique to Galileo’s dedicated search and rescue signal. “GPS cannot do this,” said Peeters, as he presented the results of the project at the Toulouse Space Show in April 2008.

About 95% of current emergency calls to coast guards are false alarms, Peeters estimated. “This system helps coast guards know if a call is a real emergency,” he said. The benefits are two-fold – lower costs through cuts in the number of false alarms and increased effectiveness of rescue operations due to more precise details of distress calls. Ursa Minor undertook the project with West Consulting and Argoss, both also from the Netherlands, and Swedish company Pilot Fish. The project lasted for a year and received partial funding from the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA).