Use Cases
Feasibility Studies
Before embarking on costly reviews to the existing navigation services it is necessary to know in advance what enhancements can be expected, and which may ultimately not lead to significant improvements.
polaris can be used from the very beginning of the feasibility phase to perform trade-offs between different implementation options (e.g., positioning technologies to be used) and parametric analyses to support feasibility and cost-benefit studies.
The obtained results can be presented in a clear and understandable manner to help making a Go/No Go decision.
For instance, polaris has been used for this purpose in several feasibility analyses commissioned by ESA and the European Commission. These studies addressed issues such as the integration of EGNOS into Galileo, and the extension of EGNOS outside the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) area.
User Requirements Evaluation
System/application design has to be driven by user requirements. Linking potential users with system/application designers is essential to ensure that the final product becomes what the final users truly need. However many users do not have a technical background on positioning technologies. In particular, this represents a serious problem for market analyses.
polaris can be used to show users in a clear manner how they can benefit from a given product or solution. Doing so it will be easier for them to provide feedback for system/application definition and design.
polaris results can be easily used to prepare market surveying questionnaires, and can itself be used for surveying users during market analysis campaigns.
polaris provides simulation results in many user-friendly graphical ways (coloured maps, X-Y plots, bar charts, etc.), including 3D scenarios in the VRML format. The Graphical User Interface has been designed to cope with different levels of expertise, which makes polaris the ideal tool to survey future users. Moreover, polaris can be even used as a powerful e-learning tool.
System and Application Design
The primary purpose of computer simulations is to validate the high level as well as the low level specifications. In addition, they also allow for specific design optimisation and the analysis of critical design issues. In the initial phases service volume simulations are used to define the service coverage scope and characteristics. Simulations are used for the dimensioning of the system as well as the determination of the achievable navigation performances.
Whilst current simulators are focusing on the GNSS global component, they do not allow simulating regional and local component contributions, not to mention the different sensors (like odometers) that can be frequently found in many mass-market and professional applications. For instance, it is known that the use of systems such as GPS or Galileo alone or combined will not meet many application requirements, which will need to use additional systems and sensors, and thus the inclusion of these navigation aids have to be considered.
With polaris, you will be able to:
- Evaluate navigation performances including both navigation systems and sensors.
- Support performance budget definition and optimisation to refine system and error budgets requirements.
- Support high-level system design.
- Test whether current design meets system/user requirements or not.
- Optimise ground infrastructure, in terms of number of stations, distribution and characteristics.
- Contribute to system deployment planning.
- Contribute to performance validation.
- Evaluate the same application with different user terminal characteristics (GNSS receivers, sensor quality, etc.), ground infrastructure (number and distribution of DGNSS stations, pseudolites, etc.), allowing savings in costly demonstration equipment.
- Anticipate possible system evolutions (additional services, technology improvements, etc) and their impact on system design.
- Establish upper bounds for the different error components, checking their impact on navigation performances for different applications and in different user environments.
Benefits Demonstration
There are many pilot projects aimed at demonstrating the benefits of satellite navigation in different applications. They can make use of core constellations such as GPS and Galileo, alone or combined, and/or completed with wide and local area augmentations.
With polaris, you will be able to:
- Add maps, graphics and animations generated with Polaris to your product documentation, brochures, web site, etc.
- Give a voice to potential users showing in an easy and understandable manner how they can benefit from the proposed solution.
- Best of all, you can do this even before the system is available, paving the way to market penetration and product commercialisation. If the system is expected to improve or complement an existing one, conduct data campaigns with the existing solution, reproduce results with polaris and simulate the situation with the system being proposed.
