Trimble Receivers for GLA Coastal Beacon Monitoring

Zeework Marine Ltd, the Trimble Marine dealer for UK and Ireland, has been awarded the contract to supply GNSS receivers to the General Lighthouse Authorities of the UK and Ireland (GLAs) for use in monitoring their network of Differential GPS stations.

The GLAs are responsible for the provision and maintenance of their Differential GPS reference stations which transmit correction signals, enabling mariners to enhance their positional accuracy and to have integrity in their position. The GLAs operate fourteen DGPS radio beacons and these are routinely monitored.

The Research and Radio navigation Directorate of the GLAs (R&RNAV) are in the process of developing a monitoring system, which is designed to replace a manual verification process and will provide real-time statistics of DGPS performance. This process includes developing software for the automatic monitoring of the remotely broadcast correction signals. The system will comprise a network of remotely located GNSS receivers, monitored from the R&RNAV central offices in Harwich.

The tender required receivers to be connected remotely throughout the GLAs' infrastructure of sites. This connectivity was addressed by the standard protocols of the web interface embedded within the Trimble equipment which can be used over Ethernet or ADSL. In addition to standard GNSS performance, the tender required each receiver to be capable of MSS (signal strength) output and the ability to lock on to and monitor individual beacon performance. This requirement was addressed by Trimble with a specific proprietary message which reports all L-band corrections and beacon signal strengths.