Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
GNSS technology plays an important role in an ever expanding range of safety, security, business and policy critical applications.
By Mark Petovello
The advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) has considerably increased the number of services and applications that require positioning information. In this sense, IoT positioning sensors usually obtain and deliver their position to a central node where it is further managed and analyzed by a user or scheduler. Nonetheless, the stringent requirements of low-cost IoT sensors in terms of low power consumption to achieve larger battery lifetime are pushing current technologies to their limits.
By Inside GNSS
Today, it appears that the Cospas-Sarsat MEOSAR system, relying on payloads deployed on GNSS constellations (Galileo, GPS, GLONASS), offers all the conditions to meet the new recommendation of ICAO for ADT-system for Commercial Aviation, with a new generation of in-flight triggered beacons, identical to the current ELT in terms of aircraft integration, but capable of receiving triggers and cancellation events from the avionics, from the crew or from internal sensors, and of detecting and managing their inhibitions to maintain the capability to raise alerts and be localized in any situation.
By Inside GNSS
Integrity for Navigation Land Users (INLU) addresses the difficult task of adapting air-based position integrity solutions to land-based activities such as vehicle and rail travel.
By Inside GNSS
GNSS positioning is premised on the idea that the satellite positions are known, or can be calculated. Errors in the computed satellite position will manifest as ranging errors that degrade the positioning accuracy.
By Mark Petovello
Working Papers explore the technical and scientific themes that underpin GNSS programs and applications. This regular column is coordinated by Em. Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Dr. h.c. Günter W. Hein.
By Günter W. Hein
1. Last Remaining Peatlands
County Kerry, Ireland
√ Ireland is known for its lush green wetlands and raised bogs, also known as peatlands. But most of these areas have been lost due to drainage associated with peat cutting or conversion to agricultural land, according to Wetland Surveys Ireland (WSI). There’s a big push from Europe to conserve the remaining peatlands
After spending a career as a GNSS advocate and critic, technical interpreter and PNT raconteur, our colleague, Glen Gibbons, begins his transition to Editor Emeritus status this month. And while his daily GNSS activities cease, his contribution for thoughtful analysis, cogency and a reasoned perspective are retained—his imprimatur, gratefully accepted.
By Inside GNSS
Q: What is navigation message authentication?
A: As of today, all open civil GNSS signals are transmitted in the clear, conforming to interface specifications that are fully available in the public domain. Receivers will accept any input that conforms to the specifications and treat it as if it came from a GNSS satellite. Combined with the extremely low power levels of GNSS signals this makes it almost trivially simple to spoof a GNSS receiver.
By Inside GNSS
The Air Force is scouring the landscape for its next round of receiver technology now that the first increment of its military receiver development program is moving into a deeper testing phase.
By Dee Ann Divis
In the past two decades, satellite navigation systems have undergone great development. The development of new generations of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), represented by GPS III, Galileo, and the BeiDou global system (BDS), is rapidly advancing.
By Inside GNSS
All good things must come to an end. At which point, if Fortune smiles on us, other good things begin or continue.
Case in point: as of year-end 2017 I am promoting myself to Editor Emeritus of Inside GNSS and turning to some unfinished business that I have with life. Of course, after 28 years I still have some unfinished business with GNSS, this amazing technology and industry that has more growth ahead of than behind it, more prospects for innovation, more unfinished business than ever.
By Inside GNSS
One of 12 magnetograms recorded at Greenwich Observatory during the Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1859
1996 soccer game in the Midwest, (Rick Dikeman image)
Nouméa ground station after the flood
A pencil and a coffee cup show the size of NASA’s teeny tiny PhoneSat
Bonus Hotspot: Naro Tartaruga AUV
Pacific lamprey spawning (photo by Jeremy Monroe, Fresh Waters Illustrated)
“Return of the Bucentaurn to the Molo on Ascension Day”, by (Giovanni Antonio Canal) Canaletto
The U.S. Naval Observatory Alternate Master Clock at 2nd Space Operations Squadron, Schriever AFB in Colorado. This photo was taken in January, 2006 during the addition of a leap second. The USNO master clocks control GPS timing. They are accurate to within one second every 20 million years (Satellites are so picky! Humans, on the other hand, just want to know if we’re too late for lunch) USAF photo by A1C Jason Ridder. 
Detail of Compass/ BeiDou2 system diagram
Hotspot 6: Beluga A300 600ST
1. Mapping Air Traffic, Rainy Seasons, and More
Sahel, Africa