IN A MOMENT IN WHICH THE GNSS SPOOFING

IS PERCEIVED MORE AND MORE AS AN

ACTUAL RISK A GALILEO AUTHENTICATION

MECHANISM BUILT IN THE SIGNAL-IN-SPACE

AND READILY EXPLOITED BY THE RECEIVER IS A

VALUABLE DIFFERENTIATOR IN THE MARKET UPTAKE

PERSPECTIVE

WHAT IS ESCAPE?H2020 FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS

TECHNOLOGICAL WAY TO AUTONOMOUS DRIVING

2016-2019

GNSS FOR SAFETY-CRITICAL VEHICULAR APPLICATIONS

The ESCAPE project, funded by the European GNSS Agency under its H2020 Fundamental Elements program, is a three-year action started in October 2016 and aimed at developing and integrating a safety-critical positioning engine for Level 4 autonomous driving.

The principal project outcome is the ESCAPE GNSS Engine (EGE), a unique positioning module enabling functions of autonomous or semi-autonomous driving.

The engine is designed to be a compact board, which integrates an innovative GNSS receiver, an inertial unit, a powerful microprocessor that runs advanced positioning and integrity algorithms, and a set of peripherals.

The key technological enablers of the ESCAPE GNSS Engine are:

• Galileo, the new European global navigation satellite system able to offer enhanced precision, high availability and maximum reliability

• The world’s first multi-frequency satellite-navigation receiver chipset suitable for safety-critical automotive applications and high accuracy positioning

• The smart exploitation of different localization data sources, including GPS and Galileo multi-frequency navigation satellites, intelligent cameras, inertial measurement units, vehicle odometry and advanced navigation maps

• The connection to a remote server to get Precise Point Positioning corrections and reach decimeter-level positioning accuracy

• The unique provision of a real-time integrity level, which allows to dynamically enable AD (Autonomous Driving) capabilities

WWW.GNSS-ESCAPE.EU

ESCAPE is funded by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) under the European Union’s Fundamental Elements research and development programme, under grant agreement No. GSA/GRANT/01/2015

THE EGE INNOVATION: THE GNSS RECEIVER

WHO WORKS AROUND THE EGE

The GNSS receiver used in the ESCAPE GNSS Engine is an innovative device in the Tier-2 automotive market segment; it conjugates high-end GNSS processing practices with an industrialization process that targets high volumes and comparatively limited costs and sizes. It includes hardware/software safety procedures needed to certify the component for the automotive market.

The receiver features dual-band capability for up to six satellite constellations (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou, QZSS, IRNSS), as well as the support of the new Navigation Message Authentication (NMA) service of Galileo, the first signal-based anti-spoofing service expected to be broadcast by the Galileo satellites by the end of 2018 on the E1 band. Served frequency bands, selectable in pairs, are L1/E1, L2, L5/E5a, E5b, and E6.

The receiver comes with several core signal-processing enhancements: better receiver sensitivity and tracking capability, multipath mitigation, more IF channels and jamming detection and mitigation. It provides precise ranging measurements to the external hosting board, namely code phase, carrier phase, and Doppler frequency measurements, to enable the precise positioning and integrity algorithms that run on the core EGE processor.

FICOSA | PCB manufacturing and HW assembling, board support package

GMV | SW suite, application layer (positioning algorithms, integrity algorithm, PPP), middle layer

STMicroelectronics | Multi-frequency, multi-constellation GNSS receiver, provider of the processing board and of the IMU

Renault | Algorithms related to the Autonomous Driving Commuter Car, in collaboration with the Université de Technologie de Compiègne

IFSTTAR | Interactions between ESCAPE and the European standardization tables related to positioning in road applications

ISMB | Dissemination and communication

If you need some information about the project and its activities, you can contact Jessica García Soriano, ESCAPE Project Leader, FICOSA – Advanced Communications Dpt

WWW.GNSS-ESCAPE.EU

THE EGE INTEGRATES SENSORS AND DATA TO

COMPLEMENT GNSS AND ENABLES THE

VEHICLE INTELLIGENCE FOR AUTONOMOUS

MANEUVERS

THE HW DESIGN COMPLIES WITH THE MOST RECENT AND RECOGNIZED

PRACTICES IN THE DESIGN OF AUTOMOTIVE

ELECTRONIC CONTROL UNITS

ESCAPE GNSS ENGINE: HIGH RATE POSITIONING

WITH HIGH ACCURACY AND INTEGRITY, TO COMPLY

WITH THE LEVELS OF SAFETY REQUIRED TO

ACTIVATE AUTONOMOUS MANEUVERS AND AD

SMART INTEGRATION OF GNSS, SENSORS AND MAPS FOR POSITIONING & INTEGRITY: THIS IS THE ESCAPE WAY TO SAFETY

VEHICULAR DECIMETER-LEVEL POSITIONING ACHIEVABLE WITH PPP

WHAT THE EGE DOES

The ESCAPE GNSS Engine is intended to provide high rate, high accuracy positioning information related to the vehicle where it is mounted.

The key differentiators in the panorama of in-car navigation devices are: i) the accuracy of the positioning information, achieved with a brand new multi-constellation, multi-frequency automotive-quality GNSS receiver with enhanced signal processing capabilities, joint with sensor fusion and PPP processing; ii) the high output rate at 20 Hz or more, enabled by the integrated inertial sensor; iii) on top of this, the provision in real time of an integrity level associated to the current position information. This is the maximum estimation error (“protection level”) that may affect this information, given the maximum acceptable probability of exceeding this error (“integrity risk”). These differentiators move the ESCAPE GNSS Engine to the area of the safety-critical automotive technologies, suitable to application contexts that involve autonomous maneuvers and target autonomous driving.

THE HW ARCHITECTURE

The HW components are organized in a modular architecture, in which a main board provides access to the features supported by the ESCAPE GNSS Engine: the GNSS receiver chipset, the inertial measurements unit, all the peripherals necessary for the communications of the board. Aside, a core processor implements all the processing capabilities required by the high accuracy and integrity algorithms. The HW architecture is conceived following the most recent practices in the design of automotive electronic control units, so that all the interfaces, configurations and form factors are compliant with widely recognized sector trends.

HOW THE EGE WORKS

To reach the necessary accuracy, level of safety, and output rate that are required for enabling the autonomous maneuvers, the ESCAPE GNSS Engine integrates data from different sensors mounted on board of the vehicle:• a novel automotive-grade multi-constellation dual-frequency

GNSS receiver,• an automotive-grade inertial measurement unit (IMU)• the vehicle sensors, that provide – among others – speed and

yaw rate• a video camera, complemented by an High Definition map of the

surrounding area • a remote connection to a server providing the data of a real-

time Precise Point Positioning service.

THE EGE INNOVATION: THE ALGORITHMS

GALILEO +GPS DUAL FREQUENCY RECEIVER

INTERNET CONNECTIONWITH PPP SERVER

VEHICLE SENSORS

CAMERAMEASUREMENTS

GNSS POSE WITH INTEGRITY

CAMERA POSE WITH INTEGRITY

IMU

A multi-processor System-on-Chip hosts the software; it combines the necessary computational resources with a competitive cost that places the Engine in a promising position on the market.

The GNSS position is computed by combining Standard Point Positioning (SPP) and Precise Point Positioning (PPP) algorithms. The Internet-based PPP reduce the positioning uncertainty to the decimeter-level.

On the other hand, a camera-based positioning algorithm complements the GNSS one, exploiting the availability of HD maps. The accuracy is further enhanced by the use of the vehicle sensors.

Nonetheless, such an improvement in accuracy and continuity of service is not enough for safety. For this reason, in the ESCAPE GNSS Engine, the Kalman Integrated Protection Level (KIPL) algorithm provides each position estimate with a protection level, a measure of the incertitude associable to the current estimate (integrity), up to an acceptable integrity risk.

For the vehicle to navigate safely, the protection level can dynamically determine whether the positioning information can be safely used for enabling different Autonomous Driving capabilities.

This is the approach the ESCAPE GNSS Engine establishes for contributing to safety.

CONSISTENCYCHECKS

CAMPOSITIONING& INTEGRITY

GNSS +SENSORSMANAGER