Robust communications for emergency response
At the time of an extreme and massive disaster event caused by seismic tremors, extensive floods or raging wildfires, any terrestrial communications systems within the affected area become either destroyed or overloaded.
In such situations, satellite communications come into play and provide ubiquitous and reliable connectivity to support immediate relief efforts.
Thanks to the EU GOVSATCOM initiative, launched by the European Commission as part of the EU Space Programme, the EU and national public authorities managing security-related missions and critical infrastructures will be able to access reliable, secure and cost-effective governmental satellite communication services.
Governmental satellite communication services will be made available to public and governmental actors involved in the management of unexpected and destructive events, such as natural and man-made disasters, humanitarian crises, terrorist attacks, or Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions.
Satellite-based communication (SATCOM) services:
What is GEXTRECS?
GEXTRECS is a research project funded under the HORIZON Europe Programme. It aims to develop an integrated EU GOVSATCOM Crisis Management Service Pack that meets the needs for seamless space-based communications in disaster and emergency situations. The development of the Service Pack will focus on end-to-end, secure, quickly deployable, and user-friendly GOVSATCOM services that meet requirements and expectations of users who manage and respond to extreme and massive disaster events.
Results of the GEXTRECS research will be demonstrated and validated in the context of two disaster scenarios - a land cross-border disaster and a multinational maritime disaster.
An innovative approach will be demonstrated in the dynamic allocation of available satellite communication resources. The capacity of a satellite system is always bounded by limitations, both in terms of the data rate granted to each user and the number of users served at a given time. Hence guaranteeing access to requested SATCOM services poses a significant challenge in a situation of multiple and changing demands, as the crisis situation evolves. This problem will be tackled by the Dynamic Planner, which will allow to simultaneously maximise the usable throughput of a satellite system and provide acceptable communications quality to all users.
Another important challenge is to ensure that connectivity will be available to those users who need it and when they need it. Network congestion becomes a significant problem when too many communication and data requests are made at the same time over a network which has not enough bandwidth to carry it. This issue can be resolved by securing interoperability among different SATCOM channels, as well as among satellite and terrestrial communication networks. The Network Balancer will be designed to demonstrate different interoperability features among various SATCOM services, commercial and governmental satellites, and among satellite and terrestrial networks.
In addition, the GEXTRECS research will focus on the integration of services offered by GOVSATCOM with products and services offered by other EU Space Programme components, namely Copernicus and Galileo, in the context of crisis management. The use of Copernicus geo-intelligence products and Galileo secure positioning services will be analysed in both disaster scenarios with the ultimate aim to harvest synergies.
