The Feasibility of a VDE-SAT Ranging Service as an Augmentation to GNSS for Maritime Applications

Alexander J. Owens, Terri Richardson, Joshua Critchley-Marrows

Abstract:	GNSS is widely known to be vulnerable to an evolving range of threats (natural and man-made, unintentional and deliberate). This drives the demand for an alternative system to protect those critical applications that depend on GNSS from a safety, security and/or liability perspective. A potential alternative system is the R(anging)-mode concept, which is a positioning system that involves the transmission of time synchronised ranging signals using communications channels of existing maritime radio infrastructure.VDES is the planned successor to AIS, intended to address the current issue of over-crowding of AIS. It supports shipto-ship and ship-to-coast communications as well as a satellite component. R-mode has the potential to be applied to both the terrestrial and satellite components of VDES, which may be referred to as VDE-TER R-Mode and VDE-SAT R-Mode respectively. This study presents a system and service concept for a VDE-SAT R-Mode system capable of providing PNT services through a combination of space-based and terrestrial infrastructures, providing an analysis of the user needs, performance of the VDES ranging signal, scenario analysis of various constellation architectures and considerations to the ground and sensor segment.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 34th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2021) September 20 - 24, 2021 Union Station Hotel St. Louis, Missouri
Pages:	591 - 616
Cite this article:	Owens, Alexander J., Richardson, Terri, Critchley-Marrows, Joshua, "The Feasibility of a VDE-SAT Ranging Service as an Augmentation to GNSS for Maritime Applications," Proceedings of the 34th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2021), St. Louis, Missouri, September 2021, pp. 591-616. https://doi.org/10.33012/2021.18150
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