EDITOR’S SPECIAL ON SPACE DATA FOR EUROPE
ISSUE 3
2020    
GNSS User Technology Report
More information on the European Union is available on the Internet (http://europa.eu). 
Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2020
ISBN: 978-92-9206-049-7
ISSN: 2467-3854
doi: 10.2878/565013
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GNSS User Technology Report
ISSUE 3    2020   
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GNSS User Technology Report  |  Issue 3, 2020        
        I N T R O D U C T I O N
HOW TO READ THIS REPORT
The GNSS User Technology Report is a continuously evolving publication that builds upon a similar structure and format used in previous issues. 
This third issue of the GNSS User Technology Report is therefore structured into the following blocks:
The opening section, GNSS User Technology Overview, presents a summary of recent developments and future trends in GNSS. Updates on  
Galileo, GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Regional Navigation Satellite Systems are described in detail as well as latest developments in the area of 
GNSS augmentation. The chapter also gives a status update on multi-constellation and multi-frequency adoption in receivers. It presents different 
position processing methods and the latest innovations in signal processing and antenna technologies expected to deliver more accurate, less 
energy-hungry and more reliable PNT services. Specific focus is made on PNT vulnerabilities that affect GNSS and beyond. Relevant measures and 
means to get protected against the growing jamming and spoofing threats to GNSS are introduced. The chapter concludes with a description of 
EU GNSS downstream R&D programmes and examples of innovative technologies from members of Galileo Services organisation. 
The second part of the report consists of four sub-sections where technology solutions and their use cases are presented, grouped into four 
macrosegments.
High-volume devices – presenting devices (meaning chipsets, modules and receivers) manufactured in very large quantities primarily for con-
sumer devices. Automotive (not safety critical), drones (limited to ‘open’ category according to EASA categorisation), smartphones and specialised 
IoT devices from mHealth to robotics are all covered. 
Safety- and liability-critical devices – presenting devices built in accordance with standards to deliver such solutions. Automotive, rail, aviation, 
drones (others not belonging to the ‘open’ category according to EASA categorisation), maritime and search and rescue solutions are all covered.
High-accuracy devices – presenting devices designed to deliver the highest accuracy (position or time) possible. Agriculture, surveying, mining, 
GIS solutions are all covered.
Timing devices – presenting devices delivering time and synchronisation solutions for the telecom, energy, finance or transport sectors.
In this issue, the Editor´s special focuses on Space Data for Europe, and the role of flagship European Space Programmes, Copernicus and Gali-
leo. It also provides a vision of major transformations underway within our society and our economy and the benefits that are expected from this 
digital transformation, including the enablement of the European Data Strategy and Green Deal. The Editor explores the various technologies 
involved in the exploitation of this massive amount of data, as well as the challenges to fit with and exploit the full potential of up-coming digital 
age that lay ahead.
Finally, annexes close the report with a general overview of GNSS constellations and frequencies (Annex 1), augmentation systems (Annex 2), the 
definition of key performance parameters (Annex 3), a summary of radio-frequency interference threats to GNSS (Annex 4), the list of acronyms 
(Annex 5), the methodology used to write this technology report (Annex 6) and information about the authors (Annex 7).
High-volume 
devices
Safety- and  
liability-critical devices
High-accuracy 
devices
Timing devices
F O R E W O R D         
        GNSS User Technology Report  |  Issue 3, 2020
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FOREWORD
Dear Reader,
I am pleased to write my first foreword to the GNSS User Technology issue 3 in the role of European GNSS Agency (GSA) Executive Director. The GSA’s GNSS User Tech-
nology Report Issue 3 takes an in-depth look at the latest state-of-the-art GNSS user and receiver technology, along with providing expert analysis on the evolutionary 
trends that are set to define the global GNSS landscapes in the coming years.
A touchstone for the GNSS industry, academia and policy makers, the report is released at a time of significant changes for the Industry and the EU Space Programme.
The European GNSS Agency is currently in charge of managing operations, service provision, security, market development and user uptake for Europe’s Global 
Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), Galileo and EGNOS. Soon, the Agency is slated to become the European Union Space Programme Agency (EUSPA). By providing 
state-of-the-art, secure services, keeping close ties with the user community and contributing to the latest technology trends and innovations within its projects, 
EUSPA will continue to serve and support the EU downstream industry including innovators and start-ups with its specific know-how. At the same time, EUSPA will 
foster synergies at user level with other EU Space Programme components in Earth Observation and Satellite Telecommunications.
The third edition of the GNSS User Technology Report arrives at an important time for GNSS and the Galileo constellation in particular. The GNSS industry is evolving at 
a rapid pace; new applications emerge, requiring customized, complex receiver technology. Production costs are dropping and an increasing number of dual-frequency 
receivers become available for mass-market solutions. With numerous players coming from the fields of telecommunications, network operations and IT jumping in the 
GNSS technology arena, the industry has already understood the potential of Galileo unique features. The future services will reinforce the opportunities to enhance 
positioning, navigation and timing solutions for businesses and citizens. 
The improvement of data technologies is changing the magnitude of data use. This is increasing the capacity to build value-added services. Therefore, in this Editor’s 
special, we focus on the trends and the challenges connected to the data-driven revolution, on the specific space data contribution and on how the EU plans to shape 
its digital future. Galileo, EGNOS and Copernicus capabilities have a powerful role to play within this new technological shift which will benefit the European Data 
Strategy and Green Deal. 
This publication became possible with contributions from leading downstream industry and SMEs players, including GNSS receiver and chipset manufacturers, and 
is meant to serve as a valuable tool to support your planning and decision-making with regard to developing, purchasing and using GNSS user technology. We look 
forward to receiving your feedback and working with you in continuing this exciting evolution.
Rodrigo da Costa
Executive Director
The European GNSS Agency (GSA)
Prague, October 2020
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GNSS User Technology Report  |  Issue 3, 2020        
        E X E C U T I V E   S U M M A R Y
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
With the recent completion of the BeiDou constellation and forthcoming launches of Galileo 
satellites, the two new GNSS are expected to reach their full operational capability shortly, 
increasing the number of global operational systems to four. Meanwhile, the two historical GNSS 
(GPS and GLONASS) pursue their modernisation, whilst the three regional satellite navigation 
systems (NavIC, the regional component of BeiDou and QZSS) continue their development 
adding new navigation satellites in their respective coverage areas. Public augmentation sys-
tems follow suit with four new Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) planned to be 
fully operational by 2023 and upgrade their services to support multiple frequency bands and 
multiple constellations in the years to come.
The first chapter of the report focus on the common technology trends for all types of GNSS devices. 
The GNSS world that embraced multi-constellation yesterday is now firmly adding multi-frequency 
to its major trends. As new signals become available from an ever larger number of satellites, GNSS 
receivers across all domains now commonly feature multi-frequency support in order to deliver 
better performances to end users, primarily greater accuracy and robustness to interference. The 
increasing number of open signals in the E5 band mean that E5 is increasingly adopted in new 
receiver models as the second frequency and today is present in 20% of all receiver models on the 
market, while L2 adoption decreases. In 2020, the new generation of dual-frequency GNSS receivers 
is already spreading in the high-volume device macrosegment, and the receivers are being actively 
developed for traditionally long lifecycle regulated segments such as aviation and maritime. 
One of the trends, already observed in the previous edition of the report, translates into a pleth-
ora of high-accuracy services now available on the market to all categories of users. Demanding 
applications such as autonomous vehicles, mobile robots, and outdoor augmented reality benefit 
from this revolution and trigger this paradigm shift. No longer the exclusive preserve of commercial 
services providers, high-accuracy services are also proposed by core GNSS (e.g. the free Galileo 
HAS and the QZSS CLAS) and in the plans of several SBAS service providers. 
Moreover, ensuring both safety and security of the PNT solutions remains a key driver of technol-
ogy developments and innovations. Protection measures against GNSS jamming and spoofing are 
implemented through different combinations of technologies on both receivers and antennas, 
through the use of multiple sources of positioning information as well as the authentication of GNSS 
signals. The Galileo authentication capabilities (Open Service Navigation Message Authentication 
and Commercial Augmentation Service – OS-NMA and CAS, respectively) are expected to provide 
good enhancements in this regard. 
Lastly, sensors of all types, optical, inertial and others continue to drop in price and increase in 
performance, and are now routinely integrated with GNSS receivers and their outputs fused. While 
largely propelled by the emerging world of ‘autonomous things’, this trend widely benefits other 
sectors. More than ever, we see GNSS at the heart of a ‘metasystem’, combining various technologies 
that support ubiquitous localisation and timing, ubiquitous sensing, and ubiquitous connectivity, 
where each subsystem contributes to the performance of the others and where the seamless 
integration of space and ground components is paramount to achieving truly global ubiquity.
In the world of high-volume devices for the consumer market, multi-constellation support is now 
standard and dual-frequency capability is not only a strategic choice for high-end products but 
gains momentum in smartphone devices. 
The introduction of these multi-frequency GNSS devices, the increased use of corrections services, 
the deployment in some countries of thousands of additional base stations of 5G infrastructure, 
actively support the democratisation of high-accuracy in the mass market. Combined with the 
attractiveness of low cost solutions, these benefits are spreading throughout other sectors.
The safety- and liability-critical devices domain is traditionally constrained by regulations and 
standards and therefore slower in adopting new technologies. However, noticeable changes can 
be observed in the less regulated and lower end part of this sector, which increasingly uses chips 
from the upper end of the mass market combined with new approaches to support safety-critical 
applications. While Dual-Frequency, Multi-Constellation (DFMC) solutions have been established 
in these areas, other mature safety-critical sectors lag behind, pending the finalisation of standards 
and availability of the first certified receivers. However, the use of multiple frequencies and multiple 
constellations, augmentation of various types, INS hybridisation, and sensor fusion all contribute 
to the required ‘assured’ and safe positioning solutions. 
In the professional domain, high-accuracy devices reign and steadily evolve towards exploiting 
all frequencies and constellations as they become available. Modern devices consist of compact 
sensor-enriched receivers, usually capable of supporting any type of augmentation service (RTK, 
NRTK, PPP and new PPP-RTK services) and offer flexible customisation by the end user. The continued 
digitalisation of services, the increased reliance on sensor fusion for fully-connected automated 
workflow management, and advanced data exploitation techniques supported by AI also gener-
ate transformations in the sector. Finally, as high-accuracy geomatics solutions increasingly make 
inroads into other mass-market sectors, mass-market devices become increasingly able to perform 
low-end mapping and surveying activities. In that regard, the ‘Bring your own device’ (BYOD) trend 
is emerging, whereby surveyors and mappers use their own smartphones as an alternative to 
proprietary data collection devices.
Lastly, regarding timing devices that deliver time and synchronisation solutions for the telecom, 
energy, finance or transport sectors, research and development efforts have been made at various 
levels of the timing processing chain. In particular, multi-frequency and multi-constellation adoption 
as well as innovative Time-Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (T-RAIM) and interference 
monitoring algorithms aim to respond to the common demand for improved accuracy, increased 
resilience and improved availability. 
Many of the technical advances observed in this report relate to the exploitation of digital data 
from GNSS, Earth Observation and from an increasing variety of sources. From the enhancement 
of industrial processes and transportation paradigms, to the development of a new agriculture 
or the monitoring of essential climate variables, digital data are already everywhere and benefit 
both public and private sectors, as well as citizens. The ‘Editor’s special’ section of this report is 
devoted to this ‘data-driven revolution’, which is indisputably changing the world we live in, while 
meeting technological and societal challenges.
The analysis of GNSS user technology trends is supported by testimonials from key suppliers of 
receiver technology: Broadcom, ICaune, FieldBee, f.u.n.k.e, Google, Hexagon, Microchip, Rokubun, 
Septentrio, Sony, Trimble, Unifly presenting their latest innovations in the field. 
T A B L E   O F   C O N T E N T S         
        GNSS User Technology Report  |  Issue 3, 2020
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FOREWORD 
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 
INTRODUCTION 
GNSS USER TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW 
HIGH-VOLUME DEVICES 
SAFETY- AND LIABILITY-CRITICAL DEVICES 
HIGH-ACCURACY DEVICES 
TIMING DEVICES 
EDITOR’S SPECIAL: SPACE DATA FOR EUROPE 
ANNEXES 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ANNEX 1: GNSS CONSTELLATIONS AND FREQUENCIES  
ANNEX 2: AUGMENTATION SYSTEMS  
ANNEX 3: KEY GNSS PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS  
ANNEX 4: RADIO-FREQUENCY INTERFERENCE THREATS TO GNSS 
ANNEX 5: LIST OF ACRONYMS  
ANNEX 6: METHODOLOGY  
ANNEX 7: ABOUT THE AUTHORS 
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GNSS User Technology Report  |  Issue 3, 2020        
        I N T R O D U C T I O N
GALILEO PREPARES FOR THE FUTURE
The continued diverging needs of hundreds of applications drive the customisation of GNSS 
receivers with wide-ranging complexities, capabilities, and resource requirements. The expectations 
of users in different applications are often contradictory, but they do share some commonalities:
• 
• 
The need for continuous and dependable PNT services, and
The quest for ever better performance at large, e.g. in terms of accuracy, cost, or autonomy.
Thus, with every edition of this report we witness new and innovative products enabled by pro-
gress in receiver technology, as well as evolutions in the services proposed by core GNSS and RNSS 
providers and by public or private augmentation providers.
Indeed, the variety of user requirements calls for a diversity of solutions, both at receiver and 
system levels. Similarly, the rapid and sometimes unpredictable evolution of these requirements 
demand a matching evolution of existing services, or the creation of new ones, in a timely manner.
GNSS providers face the challenge of satisfying these emerging needs, without compromising exist-
ing services. With satellite lifetimes well in excess of 10 years, the task would be almost impossible, 
if the original design had not ‘planned for the unpredictable’.
This report begins with the presentation of on-going and planned infrastructure evolutions of GNSS 
and SBAS, which in turn allow for the gradual introduction of new or enhanced services: GPS is 
now launching its GPS III satellites, GLONASS is switching to the K2 satellites – both moves that will 
enhance interoperability of the systems – and BeiDou is now focusing on regional services after an 
impressive effort to rapidly deploy its final constellation. Likewise, Galileo is preparing for the future.
For Galileo 1st Generation, this translates into substantial reinforcements of the system’s built-in 
redundancies and resilience and into the introduction of new services and capabilities:
• 
• 
• 
The OS Navigation Message Authentication and the Commercial Service Authentication;
Improvements of the I/NAV message, allowing a faster TTFF; 
The High Accuracy Service offering world-wide decimetre level position accuracy. 
Besides these PNT services, Galileo has been pioneering MEOSAR, notably with the Return Link 
Service, fully operational since January 2020.
Despite this busy agenda, Galileo already evaluates the feasibility of other services, including an 
Early Warning Service and an extension of the SAR Return Link Service capabilities, and is fully 
engaged in the process of developing Galileo 2nd Generation. Procurement activities for System, 
Satellite and Ground Segment will commence in 2020 with the ambitious goal of reaching full 
operational capability in 2030.
The design of Galileo 2nd Generation is driven by overarching principles, including backward com-
patibility and the quality of services, but also the absolute need to meet user demands in a timely 
and effective manner. Acknowledging the changing nature of these user requirements, Galileo 
2nd Generation is designed from the onset to evolve incrementally, and with sufficient flexibility 
to provide new services or signal features, if and when required, without changing the satellites.
The emerging application areas considered include the world of ‘autonomous things’ (drones,  
robots and cars), robust advanced timing services, the Internet of Things, safety-critical and  
liability-critical transport and emergency warning services. Signal evolutions will enable increased 
user performance (reduced power consumption, faster TTFF, better accuracy, security with authen-
tication, etc.). Along with the evolution of other technologies, such as 5G-powered ubiquitous  
connectivity or ultra-secure quantum communications, there is little doubt that GNSS – and Galileo – 
will remain an indispensable utility, continuing to provide users and society with countless benefits.
Emerging applications needs are driving the evolutions of GNSS 
Advanced timing services
Safety-critical and liability-critical transport
Autonomous cars
Drones and robots 
Internet of Things
Emergency warning services