SATERA
Space-based composite Ads-b and multilaTeration systEm validation thRough scalable simulAtions
Consortium
Universitat Politècnica de València – UPV (Spain), is a leading university in Spain, being the only Science and Technology University in Spain to feature in all worlds’ university rankings. It is among the Spanish Universities with the highest revenue from competitive research (R&D contracts, consulting and service delivery, spin-off) and a national leader in patent exploitation. UPV coordinated 128 projects of Horizon 2020 of a total granted of 197 and is currently coordinating 30 projects under Horizon Europe from a total of 133 granted (October 2024).
UPV’s Air Navigation System (SNA) research group and Antennas and Propagation Lab (APL), both located in the UPV Scientific Park, have a sound experience in research activities in the field of Air Traffic Management (ATM), U-space services and Communication Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) systems, and on the design of antennas for microwave, millimetre, and THz applications, as well as on the study of the propagation and modelling of the radioelectric channel, respectively.
The UPV plays a leading role in the development of the future Single European Sky, coordinating SESAR 3 Exploratory Research projects U-AGREE and SATERA, paving the way for new services ranging for the very low-level operations over urban areas to space-based CNS, and participating as beneficiary in the Digital Sky Demonstrator U-ELCOME (the largest U-space demonstrator ever conducted in Europe), as well as in the SPATIO Fast Track project contributing to the development of the future advanced U-space ecosystem.
The UPV team is involved in the concept definition of a space-based composite surveillance system (ADS-B+ E-MLAT) and its components. Furthermore, the UPV develops some of the main components of such system, e.g., the multibeam monopulse antennas to measure the signal AoA as part of the E-MLAT concept and the advanced tracking and data fusion algorithms that are needed in the central processing station to integrate the MLAT and ADS-B data streams into a single, composite one. The UPV is also in charge of the integration of the different system components in a system evaluation tool that supports the intermediate validation of the initial concept and the formulation of the final one, as well as the development of the system demonstrator meant to validate and fine-tune that final concept.
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University of Rome Tor Vergata, established in 1982, it spans 600 hectares and houses significant research organizations such as the National Research Council (CNR) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The University of Rome Tor Vergata will take part in SATERA through its Electronic Engineering Department, which excels in radar and next-generation surveillance systems, notably ADS-B and multilateration systems. The University of Rome Tor Vergata SATERA Teams has extensive experience in statistical bounds for hybrid multilateration systems, solving ill-conditioned multilateration problems, and ADS-B degarbling. Their contribution will be pivotal in developing the system evaluation tool, measuring Time of Arrival (ToA) and Frequency of Arrival (FoA) at receiving stations, and creating localization algorithms.
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University of Coimbra UC (Portugal) is a reference institution in higher education and research in Portugal. The Faculty of Sciences and Technology (FCTUC) includes the Department of Informatics Engineering (DEI) and exploits its knowledge transfer and scientific potential through Pedro Nunes Institute (IPN), the 2011 Best Science-Based Incubator. The participation of the UC is through the Centre for Informatics and Systems of the UC (CISUC), which is a large research center (+250 researchers) in the field of Informatics and Communications. CISUC’s team (belonging to two research groups of CISUC) has been working on software dependability and security, system architecture, fault tolerant architectures, computer networks and cybersecurity, mainly from the perspective of assurances by means of analytical, simulation, and experimental evaluation techniques. Previous projects of the CISUC’s team include many EU projects from the Esprit III, Esprit IV, FP5, FP6, FP7 and H2020, as well as projects with NASA JPL and INPE from the Brazilian Space Agency. CISUC’s team is also wellknown by its record in creation of spin-off companies, started by former PhD students as consequence of previous EC projects.
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Collins Aerospace Ireland Ltd. (CAI). The Networks & Embedded Systems team at Collins addresses key challenges of applying emerging communications and computing technologies in the aerospace domain through close collaboration across Collins Aerospace, as well as with leading academic and external research partners. Among other focus areas, they deal with on-aircraft and air-to-ground communications systems for Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) – including performance improvements of existing operational systems and evaluation of emerging technologies (5G and Non-Terrestrial Networks, or NTN) for seamless global coverage. The experience of CAI in the CNS domain will be crucial to define the SATERA concept and the integrity indicator, as well as to the Constellation propagation model. CAI will also be in charge of the definition of the use-case in the North Atlantic corridor, leveraging the data provided by the FlightAware tool.
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Enaire (Spain) is the fourth-largest national air navigation manager in Europe in terms of traffic volume and one of the ten largest air traffic controllers worldwide. Enaire manages one of the largest airspaces in Europe; 2,190,000 square kilometers and is renowned internationally for being at the forefront in the use of technologies and solutions in its area of activity. In 2019, it managed 2.1 million flights to and from four continents (Europe, America, Asia, and Africa), transporting 320 million passengers. Enaire’s experience in managing intercontinental flights through oceanic airspaces (especially in the EURSAM corridor) will be crucial to define the validation use-cases and to assess the validation results and will also contribute to thoroughly define the SATERA OSED.
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The National Institute for Space Research (Portuguese: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, INPE) is a research unit of the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations, the main goals of which are fostering scientific research and technological applications and qualifying personnel in the fields of space and atmospheric sciences, space engineering, and space technology. While INPE is the civilian research center for aerospace activities, the Brazilian Air Force’s General Command for Aerospace Technology is the military arm. INPE is located in the city of São José dos Campos, São Paulo.
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