Featuring well-recognized experts and leaders from government, industry and academia, CASSCA was originally scheduled as part of  ION’s International Technical Meeting (ITM) and Precise Time and Time Interval (PTTI) Systems and Applications in late January, but was postponed at that time due to an extended impasse between U.S. Congressional leaders and the White House that had created a partial U.S. government shutdown.

The conference is now taking place today and tomorrow at the Hyatt Regency Miami, Miami, Florida in conjunction with ION GNSS+, Sept. 16-20 at the same location. The General Chair is Prof. Zak Kassas, University of California, Irvine, while the Technical Program Chair is Dr. Robert Leishman, Air Force Institute of Technology.

The CASSCA 2019 Conference explores the current state of the art in autonomous vehicles development, from the often disparate perspectives of government, industry and academic institutions. Plenary speakers, representing the wide variety of interests and perspectives on autonomous vehicles, will kick off the conference with insight into what these vehicles are capable of, and what interesting concepts are now within reach.

Conference discussions will investigate the unique challenges and difficulties associated with addressing the needs of safety-critical applications in the deployment of autonomous vehicles. Crucial perspectives and important concerns from the trust, policy and ethics communities on the development and deployment of these vehicles will be heard. Technical success alone cannot secure widespread adoption and deployment of autonomous vehicles. Successful solutions will emerge from the combined efforts of scientists, engineers, and policy-makers.

Kassas is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Kassas’ research in autonomous navigation in GNSS-challenged environments has been featured in dozens of national and international media outlets and received several awards, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program Award, the IEEE Walter Fried Award, and the ION Burka Award.

To View the Technical Program, click here.

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The Global Positioning System (GPS) III government, contractor and mission team hosted a media teleconference on August 19 and announced everything was on track for launching the second GPS III satellite on Thursday, Aug. 22, with its 27-minute launch window opening at 9:00 a.m. EST. The team, led by SMC’s Production Corps and Launch Enterprise, also announced the GPS III program to be “in good shape and able to meet the demands of maintaining a healthy constellation for worldwide use.”

GPS III SV02, named Magellan in honor of the Portuguese explorer who led the first expedition to circumnavigate the Earth, was originally scheduled to be launched last month but was pushed back. The United Launch Alliance (ULA) stated in a published report the delay was due to “an anomaly during component testing at a supplier that created a cross-over concern.” Upon further evaluation, ULA determined additional time was needed to replace and retest the component on the launch vehicle.

With everything now in order, a launch webcast is expected to start at 8:40 a.m. EDT (1240 UTC). For information on how to watch the launch live, visit the United Launch Alliance website at https://www.ulalaunch.com/missions/delta-iv-gps-iii-sv-2

The GPS III SV02 team is led by the Space and Missile Systems Center’s Production Corps, located at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California. The launch team is led by SMC’s Launch Enterprise and is using the ULA Delta IV launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Lockheed Martin Space Systems Corporation is the prime space vehicle contractor. Air Force Space Command’s 50th Space Wing and 2nd Space Operations Squadron operate the GPS constellation from Schriever AFB, Colorado.

The GPS III SV02 satellite will be launched on a ULA Delta IV (4,2) rocket. This is the 15^th and last launch of this specific configuration (4,2), and the final launch of the Delta IV Medium launch vehicle family. There are five remaining launches of the Delta IV Heavy configuration. GPS III SV02 will replace SVN-45 after it is set healthy sometime next year, it was stated on Tuesday.

Background
In May 2008, the first GPS III increment contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin for the development and production of two initial space vehicles (SVs), with options for up to 10 additional SVs. GPS is a National Security Space (NSS) mission, critical to national defense. In April 2016, SpaceX was awarded its first NSS launch mission, GPS III-2. SpaceX currently has an additional four GPS III SVs on contract, all of which will be launched on a Falcon 9. SpaceX launched SV01 in December 2018, SV02 was scheduled to launch on United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV in July, SV03 is scheduled to launch in late 2019, SV04 is scheduled to launch in 2020, and SVs 05-06 are options expected to launch in the near future.

GPS III SVs are designed to introduce new capabilities to meet higher demands of both military and civilian users. It brings the full capability to use M-Code in support of Warfighter operations. GPS III nominal M-Code capability exceeds maximum GPS IIF and GPS IIR M-Code capability (Flex power without P(Y)-Code). It expands international cooperation in the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) arena by fielding the L1C signal interoperable with Galileo, Quazi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) and other GNSS systems. GPS III is needed to complete the deployment of L2C and L5 signal capabilities that began with the modernized GPS IIR-M and GPS IIF satellites. Using an incremental approach, new capabilities that require technical maturity or have greater risks of being properly integrated are deferred to the later increments, ensuring low-risk and high-confidence delivery of capabilities.

Capabilities Include:

• Improved anti-jam
• Improved accuracy
• Improved integrity
• First satellite to broadcast common L1C signal compatible with Galileo
• Multiple civil/military signals:  L1 C/A, L1 P(Y), L1M, L1C, L2C, L2 P(Y), L2M, L5
• +10dB Earth coverage power increase on M-Code without diminishing power to other military signals
• Three rubidium clocks

Additional details provided by the team include:

• There are currently two residual satellites: SVNs 36, 38 as well as one test satellite, SVN-49.
• SVN 34 is the oldest active satellite. It is a GPS IIA launched 26, October 1993.
• The IIR spacecraft that is being replaced by SV02 will move into residual status.
• Since SV02 is the second GPS III satellite, the team expects to monitor it for about one month on orbit to ensure that it is completely reliable once it is set healthy, and that updates to the ground control system are complete. After that, progress of the ground station upgrades will determine when it will enter operations.
• To ensure the most efficient GPS III production process, GPS III was assembled at Lockheed Martin’s multi-capability GPS Processing Facility (GPF) in Waterton, Colorado. This is the assembly, integration and test (AI&T) location for the entire GPS III fleet. 

• Delta IV was manufactured at United Launch Alliance’s factory in Decatur, Alabama
• In terms ofcost, the figure has actually gone down over time as “we improve and learn. The first GPS III satellite is more than half a billion dollars, while the last two were less than $200 million.
• The satellite will be placed into orbital slot D3 to optimize coverage for GPS users.
• New capabilities will allowit to broadcast a total of four civil signals for increased interoperability, reception, and “safety-of-life.”
• GPS satellites travel at approximately 8,700 mph (14,000 km/h) with respect to Earth. GPS satellites fly in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at an altitude of approximately 20,200 km (12,550 miles). Each satellite circles the Earth twice per day.

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In the last two decades the ERTMS/ETCS has been developed by the European Union (EU) to not only enhance safety and increase efficiency, but more importantly to enhance cross-border interoperability and foster the development of a unique European rail market that is characterized by a high number of very different legacy systems in each country working with widely different regulations, according to that earlier article—GNSS for ERTMS Train Localization.

Italian rail company Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), one of Europe’s leading rail infrastructure managers, was an early adopter of ERTMS. The company also realized the potential benefits of using satellite positioning early in 2012 when Hitachi Rail STS (formerly Ansaldo STS) was awarded a contract in Australia to deliver a train control system based on ERTMS technology and powered by a virtual balise module relying on satellite positioning data. They are now leading demonstration aiming to foster deployment of these technologies in Europe, according to the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA).

GNSS, such as Europe’s Galileo, and ERTMS are perfect complementary assets that together can considerably reduce rail operational costs. The tie-up between RFI and Hitachi looked to remove obstacles preventing the inclusion of GNSS in the specifications of the ERTMS, while preserving its safety and interoperability requirements.

Fabio Senesi, Head of ERTMS at RFI, underlines the importance of this cooperation. “Train positioning and train-to-ground communication assets dominate life cycle costs because of the massive deployment requirement and the need to maintain track-side infrastructures,” he said in a press release. “The trouble is that with new technologies, such as GNSS, obstacles still remain to ensure interoperability and open standards, therefore a solution must be engineered jointly involving all stakeholders.”

“That was the reason to launch the ERSAT (ERTMS on Satellite) collaborative project in 2012 with European partners. The initiative was co-funded by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, the European Space Agency (ESA) and also gained financial support from the Italian Space Agency ASI,” added Francesco Rispoli, who is responsible for satellite technologies at Hitachi.

Field Testing
The ERSAT project has since field tested and demonstrated the capability of satellite-based positioning embedded within the ERTMS ecosystem, which has caught the eye of many train operators in Europe and beyond. The project targets the integration of GNSS positioning and public telecommunications over the ERTMS platform and consists of a portfolio of projects making an effective roadmap to allow RFI to follow a step-wise operational deployment. The Australian system has been operating on a routine daily basis for a couple of years now and ERSAT is approaching its goal of validation and certification on the Pinerolo–Sangone line close to Turin that is representative of operational scenarios on regional lines across Italy.

“This program targets the activation of an operational service,” explains Massimiliano Ciaffi, ERSAT program manager. “And for this reason, we have involved all the key actors, since this is a first time for both the GNSS technology and the ERTMS.”

Watch this GSA video: EGNOS and Galileo for Rail

Previously the program had effectively developed and verified the satellite technology for ERTMS on a test bed line in Sardinia. The objective now is to activate a first commercial line by the end of 2020.

“The Pinerolo–Sangone line is a European asset with the mission to contribute to the upgrading of the technical specifications for interoperability by 2022 as requested by the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA),” said Senesi. “And for this reason, we are open to share this opportunity with other operators and the satellite community. Satellite technology will evolve much faster than we are used to with rail system technologies and for this reason the certification process is the real priority to allow a smooth activation without prejudging the use of alternative technologies whenever they become available.”

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The Skyopener project, which is co-financed by the GSA, aims to pave the way towards the increased use of RPAS in an expanding number of applications. The project has tested the benefits of multi-frequency GNSS and EGNOS in RPAS, revealing gains in terms of availability, accuracy and robustness.

There is increasing demand to operate RPAS over long distances due to their potential for a wide range of civil applications. However, regulation regarding RPAS use in civil airspace does not yet allow Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations, and remotely piloted aircraft are currently not allowed to fly in non-segregated civil airspace and are not yet widely used for civil and commercial applications.

RPAS for Civil Applications
This is something that Skyopener aims to change. The project is developing operational processes that will reduce all categories of risks associated with RPAS and allow an Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) to manage very low level RPAS operations, according to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu). Thanks to the benefits it offers in terms of improved integrity and positioning accuracy, EGNSS will play a central role in these processes.

The added value of EGNSS for drones was the focus of a special session organized by the GSA at this year’s World ATM Congress in Madrid in March, at which representatives from several projects spoke about how they are benefitting from the European space program. Opening that session, GSA Market Development Officer Carmen Aguilera and European Satellite Services Provider CEO Thierry Racaud talked about advances in EGNOS applications in aviation and the natural spill-over and evolution into drone technologies.

“Today we will hear about projects that are demonstrating the benefits of both EGNOS and Galileo for drones operations,” Aguilera said in Madrid. For more on this event, click here.

Through these operational processes, Skyopener will contribute to the roadmap for the integration of civil RPAS into non-segregated airspace, which is expected to have a huge impact on the service applications that can be offered by these aircraft.
“Systems that enable RPAS to fly safely, in compliance with regulations, will enable market access and significantly reduce the cost of insurance premiums for RPAS operators, making a wide range of RPAS applications more commercially attractive and widely used,” said Marc Pollina, CEO of Skyopener consortium member M3 Systems.

Strong Results
A test conducted by the project into the benefits of multi-frequency GNSS and EGNOS has delivered optimal results, the GSA stated. The test found that the use of GPS and Galileo in L1/E1 and L5/E5 multi-frequency combinations provides improved availability, better accuracy and greater robustness against interference, as interference with one frequency band has no effect on the second.

What’s more, EGNOS helps meet increasingly stringent requirements for robust navigation, continuity, accuracy and availability, which is further complemented by Galileo’s multi-constellation capacity and integration with other sensors such as inertial or vision sensors, for example.

The Boreal drone used in the project is a fixed wing system that operates over a long range (over 100 kilometers) in BVLOS, with EGNOS and Galileo enhancing navigation by improving positioning integrity and accuracy. In addition the RPAS is equipped with a newly developed Communication and Navigation Surveillance (CNS), which combines use of GNSS, SatCom and special security measures.

Essential GNSS
GNSS technologies are essential for RPAS. The primary need is clearly for navigation, since the RPAS use GNSS waypoints to follow the trajectory defined in their mission. However, GNSS also addresses other key needs, such as “geofencing” to ensure that the RPAS keep within the mission parameters (“fences”), and surveillance to enable adequate tracking by the operator and civil aviation authority.

GNSS also enables high-accuracy and, ultimately, automated landing and the geo-referencing of collected data. These benefits will increase in the future, with the Galileo authentication service reducing the risk of threats, and PPP data correction on E6 providing better geo-referencing.

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Over the last day or two, a number of U.S. flights were canceled as aircraft were grounded and passengers were left scratching their heads.

According to CNBC, regional carriers in the U.S. “canceled about 400 flights scheduled for Sunday.” A Delta spokeswoman added that “about 80 of its regional flights were canceled,” and American and United regional carriers were hit by the same issue, according to a Forbes report.

It appears as if problems with the automatic dependent surveillance—broadcast (ADS–B) is at the heart of the problems. ADS-B is a surveillance technology in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation and periodically broadcasts it, enabling it to be tracked. According to numerous reports, a problem with the quality of the GPS data over the weekend has disrupted normal ADS-B features on some planes, leading to the cancellations.

When contacted by Inside GNSS, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released the following statement:

Air carriers that fly Bombardier CRJ regional jets equipped with Rockwell Collins satellite navigation systems have reported to the FAA that the systems are displaying error messages. We are working to determine the cause of the problem, which may have resulted from a software update to the aircraft navigation systems.

Air carriers in North America and Europe reported the problem. In the United States, SkyWest, Mesa, PSA, and GoJet airlines and Endeavor Air are affected and have cancelled flights. Travelers should check with their airlines for the status of their flights. The carriers have not diverted flights due to the anomaly.

The FAA tracks flights on radar in addition to using satellite technology so airborne aircraft are under continuous surveillance by air traffic control.

The data for the ADS-B system comes from GPS in the U.S. This is where receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) comes in and safety-critical GPS systems (those in planes and ships) cross-check their current position.

When GPS is sending degraded or incorrect data, it is sent to the FAA which then displays it on their website.

Despite the FAA publishing a map purporting to show an area of GPS signal degradation in the U.S, the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation wrote in a blog: “Information we have now from industry sources seems to show that ADS-B problems in the United States stem from a bad update to a large class of aviation receivers.”

You can read the full blog post here: https://rntfnd.org/2019/06/10/probably-not-a-gps-signal-problem-seems-to-be-corrupted-receiver-update/

Also, Monday afternoon, Business Aviation reported that a notice from NBAA Traffic Services stated the GPS signal disruption “appears to affect only Collins Aerospace GPS receivers.” The report went on to add that according to Collins Aerospace, the affected GPS receivers are GPS-4000S part number 822-2189-100 and GLU-2100 part number 822-2532-100.

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China sent a new satellite of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) into space from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province at 10:41 p.m. Saturday, according to the state news agency Xinhua. This latest development marks another step towards completing the vast network it hopes will eventually rival the global positioning system (GPS) run by the United States.

Launched on a Long March-3B carrier rocket, it is the 44th satellite of the BDS satellite family and the first BDS-3 satellite in inclined geosynchronous Earth orbit.

After in-orbit tests, the satellite will work with 18 other BDS-3 satellites in intermediate circular orbit and one in geosynchronous Earth orbit.

Yang Changfeng, chief designer of the BeiDou system, said in a Xichang report this week that the hybrid constellation design, in which three groups of satellites at different orbital regimes work in concert, was an exclusive BDS innovation and the world’s first.

It will increase the number of visible satellites in the Asian-Pacific Region, providing better service for the region, Yang said.

Related Reading: Updated BeiDou Interface Control Document Released; Details on Launch Plans, Message Service Emerge

The launch was the 302nd flight mission for the Long March series of carrier rockets, and the 100th for the Long March-3B. So far, a total of four BeiDou test satellites and 44 BDS satellites have been sent to preset orbits via 36 flight missions launched by Long March-3A and Long March-3B carrier rockets.

The launch on Saturday also marked the first launch of the BDS in 2019. This year, numerous reports say about 7-10 BDS satellites are scheduled to be launched, wrapping up launch missions of all BDS-3 satellites in medium Earth orbit.

China began to construct its navigation system, named after the Chinese term for the Big Dipper constellation, in the 1990s and started serving the Asia-Pacific Region in 2012.

According to Yang, the positioning accuracy of the system has reached 10 meters globally and five meters in the Asia-Pacific Region after the system started to provide global service at the end of last year.

The country has stated previously its plans to have the BDS-3 system completed in 2020. China is also planning to finish building a high precision national comprehensive positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) system on the basis of the BDS by 2035, according to the state news agency Xinhua.

Yang noted that China is willing to share the achievements of the BDS with other countries. The BDS has been widely used around the world, for example in building construction in Kuwait, precision agriculture in Myanmar, land survey and mapping in Uganda, and warehousing and logistics in Thailand.

BDS began offering a basic service in December, with priority for the Asia-Pacific region and countries along the Belt and Road initiative route.

Beijing has been promoting BDS to countries taking part in the initiative by offering additional services and other incentives if they sign up for the system, states the South China Morning Post. According to a Chinese government white paper on BeiDou from 2016, the system was intended to primarily serve the interests of Belt and Road countries.

Meanwhile, the government has ordered all buses, heavy trucks and fishing boats in China to install BDS for real-time monitoring and tracking, and there are already 70 million BeiDou-linked chips in use in the country.

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Recent innovations and improvements include updating the positioning on-board units in public buses, which allows for the communication of the exact position of buses, thus enabling commuters to plan their journeys and for public transport timings to be more accurate. Amongst others, these receivers use signals from EGNOS and Europe’s Galileo, which has allowed the “Empresa Municipal de Transportes de Madrid” (EMT Madrid) to improve its bus positioning services.

EMT is a public limited company owned by Madrid City Council, and is responsible for the network of buses and bicycle sharing service available in the Spanish capital. The company forms part of the Madrid Regional Transport Consortium, the commissioned authority that undertakes the planning of public transport in Madrid.

Improved Positioning
EMT fleet has been undergoing the biggest historic renovation of its bus fleet since 2016, according to a news release from the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA). Improved positioning information on the 2,050 buses in the EMT Madrid network is invaluable, and forms part of the innovative use of ITS employed by the company, which is recognized and respected on an international level. The addition of improved positioning has elevated the fleet, one of the most modern in Europe and that boasts universal accessibility for both wheelchair using passengers and those with reduced mobility, to a new level. From now on, Galileo will serve to 420 million users per year, states the GSA.

“It is encouraging to see major public transport operators starting to use Galileo services and for European citizens to be able to benefit directly from improved positioning on their daily commutes” said Daniel Lopour, Market Development Officer from the GSA.

Public Mobility Pioneer
The company has already been pioneering the use of other technologies within transport including operational support systems, driving simulations, CCTV, WiFi, information systems, Open Data, eco driving. As part of its pioneering attitude, the entire fleet will go “eco” (both zero and low emission) by the end of 2020.

All of these ITS systems rely on positioning data, which has now become more precise thanks to Galileo services. With the help of Galileo, advanced implementation of ITS is now becoming a reality for transport and mobility companies.

[Editor’s Note: Much of this article was provided by the European GNSS Agency.]

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With over 15 terabytes of free Earth observation data generated by the Copernicus program daily, as well as new data platforms working with artificial intelligence and machine learning, there are a wealth of new opportunities in the Earth observation sector, according to a news release from the European Space Agency (ESA).

The Copernicus Masters 2019 competition – Europe’s leading innovation competition for Earth observation – is searching for solutions, outstanding applications and business concepts from start-ups, universities as well as individuals in the fields of research, business and higher education.

Since 2011, ESA and Germany’s AZO have organized the annual Copernicus Masters competition, along with the support of world-class partners, to inspire and help entrepreneurs bring their innovations forward.

The competition includes a number of different challenges. This year, the ESA Copernicus 4.0 Challenge looks for solutions that reflect the upcoming “golden era” in Earth observation, demonstrating how new trends can work together with traditional Earth observation.

“The Copernicus Masters is the innovative driver for future-oriented applications and business concepts using Earth observation data,” states Josef Aschbacher, Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes.

“This creates socio-economic benefits through public services all over Europe. Besides, it supports business ventures and high-tech jobs in Europe’s digital economy.”

Beginning April 1 and running through June 30, 2019, participants can submit their solutions and demonstrate their use of Earth observation data across a wide variety of challenge topics including environmental issues, population growth, and the sustainable management of limited, natural resources.

Together with cash prizes, winners will receive access to an international network of leading Earth observation organizations, substantial satellite data quotas, and business development support worth more than €450 000 (about $508,000). The overall winner will receive an additional cash prize of €10 000 (about $11,300).

For full details about how to enter and the range of prizes, please visit the Copernicus Masters website.

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The European Space Agency (ESA) and Stanford University are challenging global artificial intelligence (AI) specialists to train software to judge the position and orientation of a drifting satellite with a single glance. Such a skill could be used in the future for servicing or salvaging spacecraft, according to the ESA.

ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) has teamed up with Stanford University’s Space Rendezvous Laboratory (SLAB) for its latest competition to harness machine learning for space-related goals.

The topic of the competition is satellite “pose estimation”: identifying the relative position and pointing direction (known as attitude) of a target satellite from single snapshots of it moving through space.

“Achieving pose estimation of uncooperative targets will play an important role in future satellite servicing, enabling refurbishment of expensive space assets,” explains Prof. Simone D’Amico, the lab’s founder.

“It is also key to the debris removal technologies required to ensure humankind’s continued access to space as well as the development of space depots to facilitate travel towards more distant destinations.”

To ensure maximum realism, the competition is based on results from an actual space mission. PRISMA – launched by the Swedish Space Corporation with the support of the German Aerospace Center, the Technical University of Denmark and French space agency CNES – was an experimental two-satellite mission to test formation-flying and rendezvous techniques, launched in 2010.

“The two PRISMA small satellites, Tango and Mango, took multiple photos of one another over the course of the mission,” said Dario Izzo of ESA’s ACT, which oversees the competition.

“There weren’t enough of these snapshots to train algorithms with, but Prof. D’Amico’s PhD student Sumant Sharma at Stanford’s Space Rendezvous Laboratory has generated fully realistic equivalents. These are a combination of fully digital images and physical photos taken using satellite models in representative lighting conditions as part of his research.

“We will supply teams with around 15,000 synthetic images plus another 1,000 actual images. Some 80% of them will come with pose data included, which can be used for machine learning. The aim of the competition is to estimate the satellite pose as accurately as possible, and submissions will be evaluated on the other 20% for which pose data is not released.”

ACT Young Graduate Trainee Mate Kisantal adds, “Using a mix of real and digital imagery for evaluation helps to add greater certainty that such a solution would actually work in space. Algorithms trained on digital imagery only can sometimes experience a ‘reality gap’ where they find it hard to transfer their learning to real-world views.

“The grayscale images show a variety of different attitudes and distances – from between 5 to 40 meters away – and different lighting conditions. Some have a realistic Earth in the background, others have the blackness of space. Some blurring and white noise have also been added.”

Prof. D’Amico has direct experience of PRISMA, having worked on its relative navigation and control systems and serving as its Principal Investigator for DLR.

“Machine learning algorithms for aerospace applications require rigorous, well understood training data,” he said. “PRISMA’s rich space imagery and associated flight dynamics products offer that combination – although no proprietary data from the mission is being disclosed.

“By making this massive, rigorously labelled dataset available to the machine learning community, we hope to engage them in an important spaceborne navigation problem, comparing potential solutions from a worldwide community.”

He sees the potential payoff as a new way of operating in space: “The very first space rendezvous happened just over 53 years ago, between Geminis 6 and 7 in December 1965, enabled by radar, a computer plus a human-in-the-loop. Success made the Moon landings possible, along with the large-scale space station construction that followed.

“But new eras come with their challenges, and methods to solve them. The aim now is to develop rendezvous and formation flying techniques for miniaturized, autonomous satellites, which could work together as distributed systems – meaning multiple small satellites working together to accomplish objectives that would be impossible for a single monolithic satellite.”

This is the latest competition hosted at the ACT’s Kelvins website, named after the temperature unit of measurement – with the idea that competitors should aim to reach the lowest possible error, as close as possible to absolute zero.

“We’ve been thinking a lot about how to apply AI to space problems, and Kelvins is an important part of that,” adds Dario. “By making all kinds of big datasets available to the wider machine learning community we can see what they get out of them, and potentially derive some valuable new approaches.”

Photos and background for this article came from the ESA. For more information, click here to read a story on the Stanford Engineering website: https://stanford.io/2Bz4CH2

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SDX now supports Galileo AltBOC as a new GNSS signal type. Current SDX users licensed with the Galileo E5 signal will be able to generate 8 Phase Shift Keying (8-PSK) constant envelope AltBOC after upgrading to SDX 19.1. The signal can be generated by selecting both Galileo E5a and E5b in the output – signal selection panel.

Atmospheric Delays/Improved SBAS
The company has added a new error type to all SDX users in release 19.1: atmospheric delays. Moreover, these errors can be compensated with SBAS for those SDX licensees with the SBAS option installed. The SBAS message now broadcasts ionospheric error corrections.

When a signal is broadcast from a GNSS satellite to the surface, a delay is introduced following how the signal propagates in the atmosphere. One of SBAS’ aims is to provide corrections to mitigate these delays (also called errors) in order to achieve a better positioning accuracy. SBAS accomplishes this by creating a virtual grid of points wrapped around the globe. Ground-based SBAS reference stations, located at known positions, compute corrections values for each point, which are in turn sent to, and broadcast by, the SBAS constellation. A GNSS receiver with SBAS enabled can then use the correction data relevant to its current position to compute a more accurate positioning solution. These points are called Ionospheric Grid Points (IGPs) and are organized into bands (numbered 0 to 10).

Skydel has added three new interfaces to help create, manage, and use these error values in simulation scenarios.

Atmospheric Errors
This panel enables users to review and edit the ionospheric delay values for any IGPs. The map view can be navigated (pan and zoom) much like the Map panel of the simulation. The edit button brings up an IGP editor used to assign the points values or increase their current value by a set amount. Since the number of points in the grid is fairly large, the user interface works with a selection of points, allowing the addition or to remove the current selection in order to quickly work your way around the whole map.

Atmospheric errors are available to all SDX licensees with the 19.1 upgrade.

SDX users with the SBAS option can use this new interface to assign the true/false value for each point of the different SBAS bands, per service provider. It reuses most of the paradigm of the aforementioned atmospheric error pane.

Using a similar map interface as the two previous panels, the GIVEI (GIVE Indicators) panel enables you to provide the GIVE Indicator values for each IGP that is configured in the mask, per service provider.

The grids created or modified with these new options can all be saved and imported back into future SDX scenarios.

New Antenna Patterns
Also new in SDX 19.1 is the possibility to add user-defined antenna patterns to GNSS satellites. These new antenna pattern options show SDX’s flexibility by allowing any user-defined antenna pattern to be applied to any satellites in any GNSS constellation, according to the company.

This can prove especially useful for scientists and engineers working with space vehicles, due to their unusual orientation when we compare them to surface vehicles. High-Earth-orbiting spacecraft benefit from the side lobes of GNSS satellites to improve navigation performance. In fact, when tracking the signal from side lobes, the number of visible satellites is drastically increased, and the precision can improve from the kilometer to the meter level.

In addition, Skydel states the new antenna patterns can be a potent tool in the context of research projects that experiment with user-defined GNSS SV Antennas.

SDX now allows you to create, define, and manage antenna patterns for GNSS satellites using an interface very similar to the one introduced for vehicles in SDX 18.10. As with that release, the various patterns are organized into antenna models that can be named, managed, exported, and reimported back into other simulation scenarios.

Rounding out the changes for this latest release, Skydel presents two user interface improvements. The first change is the addition of a “path” interface in the Settings menu.

Since the number of settings has grown since the initial SDX releases, this small UI widget helps in locating the current panel in the settings hierarchy, enabling you to jump back a few steps when in the lower settings level, saving a few clicks.

Moreover, it’s now possible to collapse the subtabs panel at the bottom of the screen in order to get a bit more real estate when working in the settings, map, or automate panel.

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