Astri Polska, in cooperation with the University of Warmia and Masuria in Olsztyn, Poland, will develop and create an environment for GNSS antenna calibration. At the beginning of January, the consortium embarked on the implementation of the GRAVEr project. The project, financed by the European Space Agency, will allow Polish businesses to acquire key competences in a field that currently presents a market niche.
The objective of the GRAVEr project (where ‘GRAVEr’ stands for GNSS Receiver Antenna calibration serVice for new E-GNSS signals) is to develop and implement a calibration environment for GNSS antennas that would be applicable to antennas working in different receive frequency ranges and coming from different GNSS systems, with special consideration to Galileo, the European global navigation satellite system. Devices employing this type of antennas are increasingly used in many industries that require very precise measurements.
‘There is a growing demand in Europe for high-accuracy calibration of antennas designed for the Galileo navigation system. No wonder that ESA has decided to contribute to the development of this field,’ said Karol Brzostowski, head of the Space Applications and Services Division at Astri Polska. ‘As a rule, manufacturers offer an averaged calibration for any given antenna model. We want to take a different approach and offer tools for customised calibration, especially as it is recommended more and more often that antennas should undergo customised calibration,’
he stressed.
The project provides for the development of testing techniques and procedures along with an antenna calibration environment. The main element of the environment will be a calibration robot with a specialised software platform. After the integration of all the elements of the prototype test environment, Astri Polska will trial-run the environment. In the future, Astri Polska will use solutions developed in the context of this project to provide GNSS antenna calibration services.
The project is funded by the European Space Agency as part of the Polish Industrial Incentive Scheme.
Copyright 2023 All rights reserved.