The European GNSS Agency (GSA, the organization behind the European Galileo satellite navigation system) has given the start signal for a three-year project with a donation of more than five million euro to investigate the possibilities that Galileo has to offer to autonomous vehicles.

The project with the charming name ESCAPE (European Safety Critical Applications Positioning Engine) is headed by the Spanish company Ficosa in cooperation with various European partners (including Renault and STMicroelectronics).

It is the intention thatin 2019 the project will deliver an innovative positioning system that is suitable for safety-critical applications – in the context of road transport that means applications that directly or indirectly have to prevent injury or damage to people, vehicles, moving and fixed objects and the environment. These applications include autonomous vehicles, transport of dangerous goods and driver supporting systems (ADAS: Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).

ESCAPE will realize a tight integration between various vehicle sensors, use of the PPP-service (Precise Point Positioning) with the aid of an ionosphere model of Galileo and will also include an 'integrity layer', which will indicate to what extent the position information of the system can be trusted. The key word for all this remains 'safety-oriented'.