The NCS NOVA from IFEN is a GNSS Simulator that supports all global (GNSS) and regional satellite navigation systems (RNSS) as well as satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS). It has 160 signal channels available (per chassis) with each signal channel having additional multipath channels (controlled by a software). The user may select which signals are simulated and the allocation of channels to each signal, for each test scenario. The system offers in-field extension of signal capability and GNSS functionality with a software license. This simulator is fully capable of multi-constellation, multi-frequency simulations for a wide range of GNSS applications including Space, Aviation, Automotive (including autonomous driving testing) and many others.
The NCS NOVA GNSS simulator consists of the NCS NOVA RF Signal Generation Unit and a dedicated NCS Control Unit (host computer with MS Windows® 10) running the NCS simulation software called ‘Control Center’ software. The NOVA RF signal generation unit hardware can cover all current GNSS signals on the L-band and additionally the NavIC-IRNSS signal on the S-band, subdivided into five RF bands. The RF module of NOVA RF signal generation unit is equipped with four RF signal chains, with an RF bandwidth of 50 MHz each. The comprehensive and user friendly NCS Control Center simulation software provides full test scenario generation capability in terms of flexible scenario definition, simulation configuration and interactive control. A very comprehensive set of simulation parameters can be modified by the user to build up the desired scenario. Various graphical widgets are used to visualize the simulated data in a very clear way.
For Hardware-In-The-Loop (HIL) testing with integrated vehicle motion simulators, user trajectories (user position and attitude plus their derivations) can be streamed via Ethernet in real-time. The remote-control capability allows the user to load, modify, start and control scenarios from a remote PC via a simple TCP/IP client (e.g., Telnet, Hyperterm) or by using a scripting language with TCP/IP module (e.g., Perl, Python).
