The Center for High Performance and Scientific Computing (SC3) of the Industrial University of Santander in Colombia hosts the Galileo Information Center for Latin America on behalf of the Galileo Programme by the European Union, and supports a number of data analytics projects for applications based on Global Navigation Satellite systems. To know more about this, we interviewed Professor Raul Ramos-Pollan, Leader in Big Data Research at SC3 and responsible for the Galileo Information Center.
Q: What is the Galileo Project and who is leading it?
A: The Galileo program is the Global Navigation Satellite System being built by the European Union and the European Space Agency (ESA). It will consist on a constellation of 30 satellites providing world wide positioning services complementary to the GPS system from the US, GLONASS system from Russia and the Beidou system from China (expected to be completed by 2020). In fact, all together they are expected to provide high precision positioning based on signals from satellites from different constellations. Currently the Galileo constellation has 6 satellites in orbit and is expected to be fully deployed by 2020.
Q: What is the purpose of the Center of Galileo Information for Latin America?
A: In this multi-constellation context a wealth of opportunities arise for new applications across industry and academy (transportation, agriculture, air navigation, etc.), providing sub-meter positioning accuracy to the common user and not only to the specialized ones. In this sense, the Galileo Information Center for Latin America has several goals: (1) to raise awareness on the development of the Galileo constellation, (2) to identify applications of specific interest for the particularities of the region and (3) to be a feedback channel from the region to the EU for considering opening future funding opportunities (specially the Horizon 2020 R+D program)
Q: Why is it important to have a partnership between government, industry and academia?
A: The GNSS industry has been traditionally fostered in tight cooperation among industry, government and academia, including the EU space program develop by ESA. As oppor
tunities for multi-constellation based GNSS applications are being identified, this tight partnership is key to enable the application development, from research to production.
Q: What is the role of SC3 in this partnership and how is this beneficial for the region?
A: SC3 hosts the Galileo Information Center for Latin America at the Guatiguara Technological Park, an initiative from the Industrial University of Santander to endow itself with the resources to attract industry and foster collaboration with academy. This scenario was considered to be aligned with the goals of the Galileo Information Center and we expect (as it is already happening) to have a special impact in the region in terms of access to opportunities, information channels and expertise.
Q: What opportunities this projects brings in terms of data-intensive applications?
A: As multi-constellation GNSS receivers start to emerge (or the actual ones are being adapted) a new order of magnitude of data generation is expected, let alone by the fact that a receiver is going to be seeing at least 4 satellites from each constellation and this data has be to used to obtain accurate positioning. Apart from this, GNSS monitoring networks are also going to be producing more and more data enabling opportunities in industry and academy for data intensive applications. Just to mention a few, this includes ionospheric modelling, climate, seismic research, personalized location based services, transportation in urban canyons, precision agriculture, etc.
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