DLR - Institute of Communications and Navigation

Home|Sitemap|Contact Imprint and terms of use Privacy |Deutsch

Selected Projects

GALANT

Future navigation services provided by upcoming satellite systems like Galileo will require corresponding improvements of the receiving systems. Particularly, interference and multipath signals may cause a significant degradation of the performance and thus make it impossible, to obtain exact and reliable positioning data. These restrictions and uncertainties cannot be tolerated for Safety-of-Life (SoL) applications e.g. in aeronautics and shipping. In order to overcome this problem, adaptively steered antenna arrays are employed, which enable the use of new beamforming and signal processing algorithms. They provide a more exact and reliable navigation solution, by suppressing interferences and multipath signals and improving the reception of the information signal from the direction of the satellite.

Full article

HEIMDALL – Multi-Hazard Cooperative Management Tool for Data Exchange, Response Planning and Scenario Building

The EU H2020 project HEIMDALL aims at enhancing the response capabilities to disasters of society as a whole. Thus 14 European partners from academia, research insitutions, industry, authorities, and emergency response organizations join forces to develop and demonstrate a modular, flexible and scalable architecture that provides key stakeholders with relevant tools to process the available data and improve preparedness of societies in relation to emergency management, thus enhancing response capacity of society as a whole. The basic element of the HEIMDALL architecture is the Integrated Service Platform (SP)/ Local Unit (Figure 1), offered to each individual authority for response planning and scenario building. Furthermore, multiple instances of the platform can be interconnected in a federated scenario to facilitate cooperation.

Full article

IMPACT - Intelligent Magnetic Positioning for Avoiding Collisions of Trains

The aim of the project IMPACT ("Intelligent Magnetic Positioning for Avoiding Collisions of Trains") is the research and prototypical implementation of a reliable and highly available localization system for railway vehicles that is independent of dedicated infrastructure and based on methods taken from the area of artificial intelligence (AI).

Full article

OGSOP-NG - Optical Ground Station Oberpfaffenhofen - Next Generation

Das Institut für Kommunikation und Navigation betreibt die Optische Bodenstation Oberpfaffenhofen (Optical Ground Station Oberpfaffenhofen: OGSOP) für Forschung im Bereich der optischen Freiraumkommunikation durch die Atmosphäre. In den letzten Jahren gewann diese Forschung immer mehr an Bedeutung. Die gestiegenen Anforderungen an die Messstation brachten die Erkenntnis, dass eine umfangreiche Weiterentwicklung für die zukünftigen Forschungsarbeiten notwendig ist. Durch umfangreiche Erweiterungen und Umbauten wird die Voraussetzung für komplexere und umfangreichere Experimente geschaffen werden. Der Aufbau der Installation ist in drei Bestandteile aufgegliedert, die zusammen genommen die "Optische Bodenstation Oberpfaffenhofen Next Generation" ergeben: Das Coudé-Labor, der Testsender und der Atmosphärenmessgarten.

Full article

OSIRIS - Optical Space Infrared Downlink System

Mit den steigenden Sensorkapazitäten von modernen Erdbeobachtungssatelliten wächst der Bedarf an Datenübertragungssystemen, welche eine hohe Datenrate zur Verfügung stellen können. Insbesondere bei Kleinsatelliten („BIRD-Klasse“, ca. 50x50x50cm) hat die Kombination aus hoher Datenübertragungsrate, geringem Gewicht, niedrigem Leistungsverbrauch und kleinem Formfaktor höchste Priorität. Hierzu bieten sich miniaturisierte Laser-Sendeterminals für direkte optische Downlinks an, welche mit Antennendurchmessern von wenigen Zentimetern sehr kleine und leichte Bauformen aufweisen. Zudem unterliegt diese Übertragungstechnologie keinerlei Frequenzvergaberestriktionen.

Full article

QUBE - Sichere Satellitenkommunikation mit Quantenschlüsseln

Innerhalb des Forschungsverbundes QUBE wird das Ziel verfolgt Kerntechnologien für weltweite abhörsichere Kommunikation mittels satellitenbasierter Quantenschlüsselverteilung zu entwickeln und zu demonstrieren. Das DLR trägt im Verbund mit seiner Expertise im Bereich der optischen Freistrahlkommunikation und deren Nutzung für die Quantenkommunikation zum Projekt o.ä. bei. Insbesondere wird das miniaturisierte Cubesat-Terminal OSIRIS4Cubesat hinsichtlich der Nutzung für die Quantenkommunikation zu OSIRIS4QUBE weiterentwickelt. Weiteres Vorhaben ist die Aufnahme von Messdaten des durch die turbulente Atmosphäre gestörten Laserstrahls. Das Projekt QUBE ist ein Pilotprojekt der Initiative QUTEGA (Quantentechnologie – Grundlagen und Anwendungen).

Full article

R-Mode Baltic

The project will setup in the Baltic Sea the world-wide first testbed for the new maritime terrestrial backup system, R-Mode, that utilises two so called maritime signals-of-opportunity at once. This is an important step towards the resilient provision of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) information on-board a vessel which is requested by maritime organisations. The institute will focus in this project on the R-Mode signal design for ranging transmissions in medium and very high frequency band, development of methods for range and position estimation, integration of R-Mode into a PNT data processing unit and international standardisation of R-Mode. The DLR leads this Flagship project of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR). Project partners are national maritime administrations, research institutions and industry from four EU countries.

Full article

THRUST

The project THRUST shows the feasibility of optical communications as key enabling technology in future satellite communication systems for global connectivity. In frame of project THRUST, DLR has proven the technology in worst-case link conditions. The researchers have set the world-record for highest data throughput in free-space optical communications link twice. Moreover, we demonstrated high-fidelity optical coherent communications system performance and shown how the pre-distortion adaptive optics could be employed. DLR will further focus to demonstrate end-to-end performance targeting prototype of future system.

Full article

	V2X-DuRail – Vehicle-to-Everything Radio for digital urban train communication Collection of data for the coexistence of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in urban road and urban railway.
Full article

GeReLEO

Low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites require both data links for telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) and for download of mission data (e.g., Earth observation). A single ground station can maintain a contact to a passing LEO satellite for relatively short time only (typically ~10 min), and together with high-resolution sensor systems onboard the satellites producing high amounts of data this leads to a serious bottleneck. In fact, depending on the actual orbit parameters (altitude and inclination) the long-term average visibility as seen from one ground station is only 1% to 6% of the overall orbit time.

GALANT

HEIMDALL – Multi-Hazard Cooperative Management Tool for Data Exchange, Response Planning and Scenario Building

IMPACT - Intelligent Magnetic Positioning for Avoiding Collisions of Trains

OGSOP-NG - Optical Ground Station Oberpfaffenhofen - Next Generation

OSIRIS - Optical Space Infrared Downlink System

QUBE - Sichere Satellitenkommunikation mit Quantenschlüsseln

R-Mode Baltic

THRUST

V2X-DuRail – Vehicle-to-Everything Radio for digital urban train communication

GeReLEO