EGNOS Navigation Applications A Chance for Europe

When the Global Positioning System (GPS) was first conceived in the United States in the late 1970s, it was intended for institutional use only. The U.S. Navy needed a system that could provide it with accurate positioning information anywhere in the World. Nobody at that time could have imagined the huge growth in civil applications of global positioning that has occurred since then. The same was true when Europe embarked on the development of the European Global Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) in the early 1990s with the primary objective of providing Civil Aviation Authorities with the accuracy and integrity needed for safe air-traffic control over European countries. It eventually transpired that in the improved performances brought by EGNOS lay the foundations for a wide range of new navigation applications in Europe for its roads, railways, inland and coastal waterways, and even its pedestrians. In 2008, when the Galileo system is fully deployed and offers an even higher level of service, yet another raft of as yet unforeseen applications for both professionals and the public can be expected to be triggered, based to a large extent on the precursor activities initiated with EGNOS.