Galileo and EGNOS for waterway transport (GALEWAT)

When analysing the potential use of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) for inland waterways and Short Sea Shipping (SSS), the question of signal availability of the Signal-in-Space (SIS) for navigation purposes is a critical issue. Due to the environment of the shoreline the danger of losing line-of-sight is quite high. Obstacles could be mountainous terrain, buildings, bridges and other technical structures (e.g. in harbours).

The Galewat project aims at defining an operational platform for inland waterway navigation relying on EGNOS as a positioning system and AIS (Automatic Identification System), a VHF link that is used for communications between vessels and between the vessel and the shore authorities.

The demonstration within the project will be carried out in three main environments namely: inland waterway, inland waterway to sea port areas and inland waterways to open sea. The demonstrations will be conducted in: Vienna (Danube river), Lisbon (Tagus river), and Constanta (Harbour).

The GALEWAT project was initiated in April 2003. Succesful demonstrations have been conducted in Vienna (Austria), Lisbon (Portugal) and Constanza (Romania). The project ended in January 2006.