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ECA Group with its brand ELTA, leading reference for aviation beacons, is actively involved in H2020 project "Galileo Search-And-Rescue Return-Link Implementation for a better Civil Aviation Safety" ( also referred as GRICAS), a project managed by Thales Alenia Space.
GRICAS project proposes to experiment and validate a whole set of innovative operational procedures for in-flight activation of Search And Rescue beacons onboard aircrafts taking benefit of the unique Galileo SAR service. The Cospas-Sarsat system is currently evolving towards MEO orbits, being supported by GNSS constellations (GPS, Galileo and Glonass). To do so, The Galileo Search-And-Rescue Return-Link Implementation for a better Civil Aviation Safety project aims to:
- Provide a real time worldwide detection and report of the localization to the rescue centre,
- Allow an instantaneous localization determination based on a mono-burst triangulation,
- Dramatically improve the accuracy of the localization down to 100m, compared to current 5 km, based on the increase of tracked satellites and on the adoption of a new spread spectrum modulation for the beacon with time of arrival measurements
- Allow the determination of the localization for a high dynamic holder , such as an aircraft
Within the framework of this European project, ECA Group was awarded by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) to develop a Second Generation Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) demonstrator delivering new capabilities in rescue services.
This development enables to demonstrate the benefits of the Return Link Service (RLS) to the aviation safety by providing an alarm message as soon as a flight situation is encountered.
As part of GRICAS’ project objectives and GADSS future requirements, ECA Group engineers designed and developed this autonomous distress tracking (ADT). A series of flight tests have been carried out successfully since April 2007.
These challenging testing missions were meant to integrate GRICAS demonstration solution in a real aircraft environment and to provide a significant improvement of independent localization computed by the MEOLUT (Thales Alenia Space ground station).
ECA Group enjoys the recognition and pride of being part of this worldwide challenge, a project resulting in a major technological progress in the efficiency of Search And Rescue services.
ELT demonstrator
