Eviden and Thales add Galileo PRS to French army nav receiver
Eviden and Thales have announced the integration of Thales' Galileo Public Regulated Service (PRS) capability into Eviden's P3TS military satellite navigation receiver, which is already deployed across French army ground vehicles. The enhancement is designed to harden the positioning system against electronic warfare threats, specifically radio-frequency jamming and GNSS spoofing, in contested operational environments.
The upgraded P3TS PRS is available in two hardware configurations. The first incorporates the TopStar Galileo PRS Core Module, giving vehicles access to the encrypted Galileo PRS signal alongside open-service Galileo and GPS signals. The second pairs either a standard GPS receiver or the TopStar Smart Receiver with advanced anti-jamming processing. Both variants include a high-precision clock that maintains synchronisation of tactical radios even when GNSS signals are lost or denied entirely. That fallback timing capability addresses a growing operational concern: modern electronic warfare can degrade GNSS availability across wide areas for extended periods, and radios that lose synchronisation become unreliable.
The new version builds on an existing industrialisation and operational support contract awarded to Eviden by the French Defence Procurement Agency (DGA). It also extends integration with SICS, the Scorpion Combat Information System developed by Eviden, which feeds real-time position data to the French army's broader digitised command chain.
The Galileo PRS advantage
Galileo PRS is the encrypted, access-controlled signal tier of the European Galileo constellation, available only to authorised government users. It is more resistant to interference than the open-service signal and carries stricter authentication, making it significantly harder to spoof. Florent Chauvancy, vice president for flight avionics at Thales, said the company is "the only company to have developed a Galileo PRS security module in France" and to offer a range of modular GNSS receivers, which he described as a decisive capability for the armed forces.
Bernard Payer, head of mission-critical systems at Eviden within the Atos Group, said the integration delivers the accuracy, positioning reliability and availability that armed forces require in high-intensity environments.
Sovereignty and the European defence technology context
The integration carries explicit strategic significance for European defence sovereignty. By adding PRS access to French army vehicles, the upgrade reduces operational dependence on GPS, a US-controlled system over which European nations have no independent signal assurance in a conflict scenario. This aligns with broader European defence policy priorities accelerated by the conflicts in Ukraine, where GPS jamming and spoofing of military and civilian platforms became routine.
The Galileo constellation, operated under European Union auspices, gives EU member states a lever for signal sovereignty that is becoming central to defence procurement criteria across the continent. The UK, as a post-Brexit third country, negotiated separate access to PRS-equivalent signals and continues to debate its long-term positioning posture.
More broadly, the defence electronics market is experiencing a significant uptick in investment in resilient positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) technologies. Competitors in this space include Leonardo, Collins Aerospace and a range of specialist PNT vendors. The modular, multi-constellation approach taken by the Eviden-Thales pairing reflects a consensus view that no single signal source can be treated as reliable in peer-adversary conflict, and that military platforms increasingly need software-configurable receivers capable of adapting to changing signal environments.
P3TS was originally developed by the Technical Section of the French army under the DGA, with support from the French Defence Innovation Agency. Its primary operational purpose is the prevention of friendly fire through real-time, shared situational awareness across both digitised and non-digitised platforms.