MARGOT is a project implemented by a consortium led by RISE and including the Romanian Space Agency, GMV Romania and GEOECOMAR from Romania and Joanneum Research from Austria. MARGOT aims to assess the multipath and interference impact on PNT information in maritime environments for different operational scenarios. It includes the study and characterisation of multipath and interference in a maritime environment, the definition of specific over-bounding error models and identification of  mitigation methods for multipath and interference. This leads to the following set of objectives:

• determine over-bounding multipath and interference error models for open-waters (ocean, sea), coastal, inland waterways, port entrance and port operations;
• determine simple and applicable mitigation methodologies for multipath and interference impact minimization involving antenna siting and supporting L-band multipath channel models;
• determine L-band multipath channel models for open-waters (ocean, sea), coastal and port entrance operations;
• analyse the feasibility of developing L-band multipath channel models for inner-waterways and port operations;
• analyse L-band interference in vicinity of port entrances and inside ports.

The first foreseen activity is the examination of the standards, rules and regulations from the specialised international institutions governing the maritime navigation domain. A state of the art on multipath and interference in different maritime environments will be produced, considering also previous external activities related to the same subject.

A data collection and a data processing campaigns will then be designed in order to obtain the data required for fulfilling the project objectives. This activity will be followed by a data collection campaign run on the Black Sea, in the Romanian coastal waters, at the entrance of and in two Romanian international maritime ports. 

Following the data collection campaign, the data processing will allow the characterisation of the maritime environments considering its typical navigation operation phases, the sea state, and the particularities of the vessels. The focus will be on the characterisation of the multipath and interference, with derivation of their over-bounding models. L-band channel models for multipath will be realised, considering different scenarios. Beside these achievements, the data analysis will include studies for supporting the mitigation techniques for the identified multipath and interference error models developed.

A validation process will follow the above activities, using an independent set of data.

This information will be disseminated in the frame of several specialised events on maritime navigation for feedback and discussions.