Communication techniques can be introduced in the Navigation domain to improve the performances. Easyness of the generation/reception of the signal, reduction of the intrasystem interference, higher orthogonality of the spreading sequences, efficiency of the message encoding mechanism to achieve higher data rate or lower BER, robustness of the signal tracking, higher efficiency in the exploitation of the available bandwidth, robustness to hostile RF environment, jamming and anti spoofing capability etc. are areas for possible improvement.

Extensive measurements over solar maximum will be carried out during the MONITOR activity under the GNSS Evolutions Programme and other experiments from external organisations. They will be able to provide a better insight on several processes affecting GNSS performance and they will have a proper basis for improved modelling. Such activities does not focus on a deep analysis of specific effects and the actual modelling of effects currently not considerd on average models.

Protection of space assets is becoming more and more important now that vital services and applications are depending on space infrastructure. This is particularly true in the domain of navigation where an increased number of applications like safety of life aeronautical services, critical bank transaction are relying on the services provided by the GNSS systems as the primary if not the sole source of the time and position solution.Designing robust telecommanding and Mission receivers is therefore one of the mandatory requirements for the design of future systems.

A number of European Space Agency's (ESA) initiatives planned for the current decade require metrology level accuracy antenna measurements at frequencies extending from L-band to as low as 400 MHz. The BIOMASS radar, the Galileo navigation and search and rescue services could be mentioned among others.

New architecture/design of the receiver processing chain can contribute in improving the performance. Recent increases in the computational power of computers and digital signal processors have made possible novel signal tracking techniques in GNSS receivers, so that both the Signal processing and the Navigation processing can be optimised or even combined in to one single estimation algorithm.

The availability of mature fibre laser technology in the 1.55 micron spectral region suggests exploring the possibility of adapting this technology to the 1.6 micron spectral region which offers good potential for greenhouse gases measurements from space. This activity aims at exploring the benefits which can be extracted from the fibre laser technology by designing and breadboarding a fibre laser system which fulfils the transmitter requirements of a Differential Absorption LIDAR for CO2 and CH4.

Gratings are frequently used in optical instruments, e.g. spectrometers. Various production methods are available like etching using a hologram and ruling on high precision latches.

It is well known that real aperture radiometers feature very high snapshot sensitivity, if compared with synthetic aperture radiometers. On the other hand, synthetic aperture interferometric radiometers can provide wide FoV and high spatial resolution thanks to the synthetic aperture processing. Real aperture radiometers may become very attractive from the sensitivity performance point-of-view if a simultaneous multiple beam coverage is achieved in the entire FoV (i.e. both in across-track and in along-track directions).

The activity focuses on the design of an antenna architecture featuring a single reflecting surface able to generate several different beams. Several feeds can be used to illuminate a shared shaped reflector with locally modified reflection characteristics so has to form separate beams. A dedicated design procedure is required to allow an efficient antenna performance optimisation, including an initial high-level synthesis of the antenna geometry and surface layout, followed by a full-wave optimisation of the reflecting surface. The activity encompasses two steps.

BIOMASS, a candidate Earth Explorer mission in Phase A, proposes to measure ice flows over Earth's major ice sheets as a secondary objective in its side-looking observation geometry. On the other hand, P-band ice sounding radar mission concepts have been proposed already for Earth Explorers (e.g. MIMOSA, CARISMA) for obtaining three-dimensional characteristics of ice sheets and underlying bedrock topography.