Grant: Alliance Grants

The reliance on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) systems in various applications is leading scientific communities to investigate the possibility of reliable and efficient alternatives worldwide. And that's because in many dense urban and indoor environments, GNSS doesn't have enough power to penetrate building walls with constant signal loss, and GNSS can be easily jammed with a simple transmitter. The research work of the Laboratory of Space Technologies, Embedded Systems, Navigation and Avionics (LASSENA) of ÉTS has identified a very promising technology as a source of positioning and detection of obstacles, by the exploitation of Signals of Opportunity ( SoOP). Indeed, the signals emitted by low-elevation satellites (LEO), the number of which is growing exponentially around the globe, as well as by 3G/4G/5G/6G transmitters, can be used to provide PNT and intruder Detection data (PNS-D) essential for autonomous air and ground vehicles. For this, NeSIVA will develop an intelligent universal SDR-based SoOP receiver, in principle with resilient and robust PNT systems with LEO-SoOP for civil and military autonomous vehicles, realizing a multi-type 4G/LTE/LEO-SoOP fusion, offering a new generation of surveillance and navigation, in other words, NeSIVA will reinvent navigation. It should be noted that the SoOP technology operates in passive and non-cooperative mode and provides the necessary resilience in the event of a cyber-attack on current systems. Only a few research institutes (ICU, Virginia Tech...) have published work on SoOP, and the door is open for industrial partners and Quebec to take a global position on this disruptive and very promising technology which risks becoming a standard at the end of this decade due to the high attention in non-GNSS SoOP-based PNT technologies.