GAARDIAN Consortium wins important GPS/eLoran Integrity Project

(live-PR.com) - A business and academic consortium led by Chronos Technology has received a
major grant from the government sponsored Technology Strategy Board for a £2.2m
research project that will improve the safety and security of location based
applications such as marine navigation and road transportation.

GAARDIAN is the acronym for "GNSS Availability, Accuracy, Reliability anD
Integrity Assessment for Timing and Navigation". Over the next thirty months,
the consortium will be developing a system for mission and safety critical
applications that will certify the accuracy, reliability and integrity of
Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) systems: GPS, the new enhanced Loran
(eLoran) and Glonass.

GAARDIAN will use the UTC-traceable timing signal from the GLAs' eLoran station
at Anthorn in Cumbria along with analysis of the GPS signal data to
authenticate GPS reception wherever it is needed for mission and safety
critical applications. The challenge is to gather and filter large volumes of
GPS and eLoran data continuously in multiple, complex and disparate
environments without losing content.

Dr Sally Basker, Director of Research and Radionavigation for the General
Lighthouse Authorities, says: "This is an exciting project that will exploit
the complementary benefits of satellite and terrestrial systems to reduce risk
and so improve safety and security at sea and protection of the marine
environment."

Successful delivery of GAARDIAN's objectives requires skills and experience in
a number of key areas and the consortium brings together seven private, public
and academic organisations. These have not only an excellent mix of
complementary skills that address all the relevant technology activities, but
also a deep understanding of service provision in the maritime navigation,
telecommunications and land-survey sectors.

From the academic sector Professor Washington Ochieng, Chair in Positioning and
Navigation Systems at Imperial College London adds: "GAARDIAN provides an
unprecedented opportunity for Imperial College London and the University of
Bath to work with industry to develop, for the first time, PNT data quality
assurance methods for a wide variety of mission critical applications that do
not currently have this capability, including many location based services."

Charles Curry, Managing Director of Chronos Technology leading the grant aided
project explains: "GPS is fast becoming an unseen, embedded and low cost
commodity. The challenge to the user community is that it may not appreciate
the fact that subtle failures of the GPS signal could have disastrous or
expensive consequences in mission or safety critical applications. The impact
on GPS from threats such as jamming, spoofing, space-weather, multipath and
other types of interference is likely to increase over the coming years due for
example to easier availability of jamming technology or more esoteric phenomena
such as increased sun-spot activity. The GAARDIAN project aims to create a data
gathering system that will enable any user to monitor the health of the GPS
signal in the vicinity of use on a 24x7 basis in real time."

Information for Editors
Chronos Technology Limited is a business to business specialist provider and
system integrator of technical solutions for synchronisation, time of day and
remote monitoring applications in telecom networks; components for RF equipment
designers and GNSS components and accessories for the communications industry
and military applications. For more information, visit the Chronos Technology
website on www.chronos.co.uk or www.gps-world.biz

BT Design is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions
and services operating in 170 countries. BT will contribute to the development
of the key architecture elements and requirements and will develop the
measurement engine which forms a key part of the project. For further
information please visit
www.btplc.com/Thegroup/Ourcompany/Companyprofile ..

The General Lighthouse Authorities of the United Kingdom and Ireland comprise
the Corporation of Trinity House (England, Wales and The Channel Islands), the
Northern Lighthouse Board (Scotland and the Isle of Man) and the Commissioners
of Irish Lights (all Ireland). Their shared mission is the delivery of a
reliable, efficient and cost-effective Marine Aids-to-Navigation service for
the benefit and safety of all mariners. The GLAs will provide vital eLoran
knowledge and PNT user community experience. For further information please
visit www.trinityhouse.co.uk

Imperial College London is an international centre of excellence in teaching
and research in science, technology, medicine and business. Its internationally
recognised research expertise in positioning and navigation systems, will
underpin the development of novel algorithms to monitor the quality (integrity)
of data at all stages of the data gathering process. For further information
please visit www.imperial.ac.uk

The National Physical Laboratory is one of the world's leading national
metrology laboratories and is DIUS's largest science facility. NPL will
develop a UTC traceability route for the UK eLoran time signal and will monitor
the broadcast signal continuously to validate its timing accuracy, underpinning
its use by the partners throughout the project. For further information please
visit www.npl.co.uk

Ordnance Survey is Great Britain's national mapping agency, providing the most
accurate and up-to-date geographic data, relied on by government, business and
the public. OS are also GNSS and positioning experts, specifically through
running a national 110 GNSS station infrastructure - OS Net. OS will contribute
in terms of project scope from a User Community perspective and for data to be
identified and the data collection and validation phases. For further
information please visit www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/

The University of Bath is a research-led university with an internationally
recognised Faculty of Engineering. It has significant expertise in GPS signal
processing, multipath analysis, ionospheric interference and algorithm
development. For further information please visit www.bath.ac.uk

The Technology Strategy Board is a business-led executive non-departmental
public body, established by the government. Its role is to promote and support
research into, and development and exploitation of, technology and innovation
for the benefit of UK business, in order to increase economic growth and
improve the quality of life. It is sponsored by the Department for Innovation,
Universities and Skills (DIUS). For further information please visit
www.innovateuk.org

For more information and photographs, please contact:
Louise Davies

Tel: +44 (0)1594 862200
Email: louise.davies@chronos.co.uk