In 1997, Beacon Co.
of Egypt and the Maritime Systems Business Unit of MacDonald Dettwiler,
(formerly the Maritime Information Systems Group of CANAC/Microtel), were
awarded a contract to provide a complete turnkey National DGPS system
for the Egyptian Ports & Lighthouse Authority. This contract consists
of the engineering, procurement, integration, factory testing, delivery,
configuration, and site-testing of the Egyptian Marine DGPS.
System Architecture
The system consists
of one control monitor station linked to six DGPS control stations via
an HF radio network. Backup access to the networks is provided by dialing
from standard telephone lines.
Each DGPS control
station broadcasts DGPS corrections on a standard marine radio beacon
frequency as a supplement to the standard GPS signals. The corrections
enable the Egyptian and International Maritime communities to determine
their positions to better than 5 meters accuracy, a substantial improvement
over the 100-meter accuracy provided by commercially available GPS technologies.
The DGPS system implements
a fault-tolerant architecture with dual redundancy in all key equipment.
If any equipment were to fail, the system architecture would ensure continued
operation. All irregularities in operation are reported immediately to
the control monitor.
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