GAUSSIAN

Main Goals of the Project

GAUSSIAN's main goal is the development and demonstration of a new integrated flight control and navigation platform for use in IAM. This platform processes EGNSS signals, is strongly integrated with INS measurements, and exploits distinguish features of Galileo, such as the authenticated civilian signals and the HAS. In a nutshell, the objective is to demonstrate a prototypal integrated avionic unit with enhanced robustness to spoofing, which grants higher availability of data in constrained or interfered environments and that can be certifiable with respect to the airworthiness security standards.

GAUSSIAN focuses on the IAM market and looks at the scalability of the proposed technologies in other applications, which are based on different PNT platforms, but have similar needs in terms of integrity, weights, and volumes (e.g.: drones and/or small piloted aircrafts used for aerial remote sensing, which must accommodate sufficient space and save weight for measurement/scientific equipment).

CIRA Activities in the Project

As part of the GAUSSIAN project, CIRA is responsible for the flight validation of the prototypal navigation and control platform and leads the dedicated work package. CIRA manages the entire validation chain, from the definition of the flight test campaign to the integration and verification of the GAUSSIAN payload on the aircraft, ensuring high standards of reliability and performance.

The upcoming flight tests will be conducted onboard CIRA’s FLARE aircraft, flown by an experimental test pilot. These tests are designed to validate the GAUSSIAN prototype unit and assess its performance in real flight conditions, with the goal of demonstrating a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 7–8—an important milestone towards operational deployment.

The project is fully on schedule, and the flight campaign is planned for July 2026 at the “O. Salomone” Airport in Capua. These activities represent a key step in advancing next-generation integrated PNT solutions for aviation and innovative air mobility. Keep following us for official updates on the flight test campaign and on the progress toward next-generation PNT system evolution.

General Project Information

Funding Programme: Horizon Europe

Start Date: 01/01/2024; End Date: 31/12/2026

Official Project Website: https://gaussianproject.eu/en/

Coordinating Organization: Civitanavi Systems S.p.A.

Partners: Civitanavi Systems S.p.A., Geonumerics (ES), Saphyrion Sagl (Associated partner) (CH), Flynow Aviation GmbH (AT),Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (ES), CIRA, Alma Sistemi (IT), Alpha Consult (IT)

CIRA Contact: Maria Pia Di Donato, m.didonato@cira.it