Engineers propose cut-price satellite navigation alternative to Galileo

Despite being involved since its inception the UK pulled out of the European Union's Galileo satellite navigation project in November 2018 over concerns that it would not be able to access secure aspects of the system following departure from the EU.

Prime minister Theresa May promised that it would develop its own alternative, but with the original project costing over £9bn, there have been persistent concerns over the cost of such project. Sussex University's Prof Chris Chatwin and Dr Lasisi Lawal Salami, from Nigeria's Obasanjo Space Center, have now proposed an alternative which they claim would cost around £300m yet would still meet the UK’s navigational needs in defence, aviation, maritime and location-based services for emergencies and crisis management. Moreover, they add, it would be five times more accurate than Galileo, with a resolution of 5cm.

In a paper in the Journal of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Chatwin and Lasisi suggest a Satellite-based Augmentation System (SBAS) as a Navigational Overlay Service (NOS) on a hosted national satellite. This would take advantage of the UK’s continuing access to Galileo's basic signal after Brexit, as Galileo is designed to be open-source; this signal is less accurate than the secure military signal from which it would be excluded.