PSCE and GSA sign BroadGNSS agreement

Public Safety Communications Europe (PSCE) has signed a grant agreement with the European GNSS Agency (GSA) to coordinate the BroadGNSS Pre-Commercial Procurement program.

BroadGNSS will procure innovative solutions for applications, synchronisation and monitoring of critical mobile broadband communication infrastructure and information assets for public protection and disaster recovery (PPDR) operations.

The project brings together three members of a joint procurement team — the French Ministry of Interior (lead procurer), the Estonian Infocommunication Foundation and Finland’s Erillisverkot — supported by PSCE and Austrian GNSS experts, OHB Digital.

The agreement provides for a total budget of €3.6 million over 40 months, commencing from 1 December 2020. Of that amount, €2.5 million is reserved for pre-commercial procurement of innovation solutions.

The challenge to industry is to seek solutions to apply EGNSS to further improve the overall capability of trustworthy information exchange, enabled by new broadband mobile communication.

BroadGNSS will consult government stakeholders across Europe in order to scope the specific objectives of the PCP procurement. A Prior Information Notice will be released to initiate consultation with industry to contribute knowledge and capabilities to help prepare a formal RFT to be released later next year.

BroadGNSS will build on the success of the BroadWay PCP, which is currently in the prototyping phase. Three prototypes are now in development to address the challenge to enable a pan-European mobile broadband system for PPDR. Prototypes are due to be evaluated in April, with interim demonstrations to the BroadWay group of procurers this month (November).

The prototypes are being developed under the leadership of Airbus, Frequentis and Leonardo.

Image courtesy GSA.