Technical Workshop on Storage and Exchange Formats for GNSS Data - Feb 24-26, 2026 - Portugal

[Rui Fernandes]

Dear colleagues,

We invite active contributors to a Technical Workshop on storage and exchange formats for GNSS data on 24–26 February 2026 in Coimbra, Portugal. The workshop is co- organized by EarthScope (USA), Geoscience Australia, EPOS (Europe), and the IGS Infrastructure Committee. The final afternoon will be dedicated to prepare a white paper that sets out technical recommendations and an implementation roadmap for common GNSS data formats.

Scope and goals
    •    Consolidate existing technical requirements for next-generation GNSS data and metadata across archives and processing centres, including use of cloud storage services.
    •    Evaluate practical options beyond the file-per-session convention, including chunked and columnar containers (e.g., TileDB, Iceberg, Parquet, Zarr), with attention to layout, compression, indexing, and scalable access.
    •    Define interoperability at the format and API layers to enable reliable data exchange and tooling across organisations, with a view toward federation of archives and services.
    •    Produce a white paper with recommendations and an implementation roadmap toward common formats.

Who should participate
Engineers and researchers working on GNSS data formats and I/O software; people responsible for GNSS archives and storage systems; and operators of real-time or post-processing systems. This is a working meeting. Attendees are expected to contribute substantively during the sessions and help deliver the white paper and follow-on implementation tasks.

How to participate
Participation form (online): https://bit.ly/WorkShop_GNSSFormats
Please complete by November 30th, 2025.

Participation and logistics
    •    In person
    •    No registration fee
    •    Participants self-fund travel, accommodation, and subsistence

On behalf of the organizing group,
Rui Fernandes, Markus Bradke, Ryan Ruddick, David Mencin

-- 
Rui Fernandes
Principal Investigator at UBI - University of Beira Interior
Coordinator of Instituto D. Luis @ UBI
Coordinator of SEGAL - Space & Earth Geodetic Analysis Laboratory
Coordinator of C4G - Collaboratory for Geosciences
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9733-284X
WhatsApp: +351 919999300