The European GNSS Agency (GSA) has opened a call for proposals within its Fundamental Elements funding mechanism, targeting the development of an innovative positioning On-Board-Unit (OBU) suitable for fully automated driving. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2019.

Autonomous driving is set to radically transform mobility—enhancing road safety, reducing traffic and exhaust pollution, and increasing comfort for drivers and passengers alike. The autonomous driving concept will transfer the vehicle control function from the human driver to the automated system, which needs to be aware of its location, sense the surrounding environment and navigate by making decisions without human input.

Hybridization is Key
Autonomous driving is a safety-critical application, as its failure may have serious consequences for people, property and the environment. Therefore autonomous cars need high-performance positioning engines that make optimal use of a complete set of sensors complementing each other in a tightly hybridized solution.

The objectives of this call for proposals are to develop an innovative close-to-market GNSS-based On-board-Unit (OBU) suitable for fully automated driving and/or cooperative positioning (ideally level 5, according to the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) classification), integrating a GNSS receiver with additional sensors and possibly a communication modem to enable the target application’s performance, according to a GSA press release.

GNSS will be the core element of the proposed solution, thanks to its unique capacity for providing accurate absolute positioning and precise timing information, but will be hybridized with other on-board sensors such as LIDAR, radar, and cameras.

EGNSS Differentiators
The receiver should leverage EGNSS differentiators such as multi-frequency (E1/E5 or E1/E5/E6), wide-band (E5 AltBOC) and pilot signals, Open Service navigation message authentication (OS-NMA), Galileo High Accuracy Service (HAS), and so on.

The call for proposals is intended to fund up to two projects with the following activities:

• Design, development, testing and demonstration of dual- or multi-frequency GNSS-based OBU for fully autonomous driving to be embedded on autonomous vehicles.
• Tight integration of the GNSS receiver with other sensors to reach the application needs.

Fundamental Elements Call: At a Glance Market segment: Road Deadline for submission of proposals: March 1, 2019 Expected signature of contract: September to November 2019 Maximum budget allocated: EUR 4,000,000 Maximum number of projects: 2 EU financing amount for each of the two projects: up to EUR 4,000,000 (70% co-funding) Webinar date: November 22, 2018 at 15:00.

Webinar

On November 22, at 15:00, a webinar on the Fundamental Elements Call “Enhanced Receiver for autonomous driving/navigation” will be held to provide applicants with additional details on the proposal preparation. To register for the webinar click here.