Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Despite a surge of activity at the end of the year, the FCC has not yet ruled on a request by Ligado Networks to use its spectrum for a terrestrial network. It is unclear what will inspire federal regulators to finally decide.
I strode into the plenary session of the ION International Technical Meeting, primed and ready for a barrage of modernity, of out-in-front advances in precision positioning, navigation and timing. The first thing I saw was a 7-foot tall cesium beam tube, an early atomic clock from the 1950s.
By Alan Cameron
The U.S. Air Force Second Space Operations Squadron (2 SOPS) has turned the first GPS III satellite, SVN-74, healthy and active.
By Inside GNSS
We’ve a long history as a learned society,” Royal Institute of Navigation Director John Pottle told the plenary audience, “solving navigation problems is no longer a simple matter. It’s not all about the technology anymore. What we think we do, uniquely, in the world is to bring different disciplines together who share a common interest in navigation.”
By Peter Gutierrez
A Russian software company, Navigation Expert, has announced its newly upgraded Nav Sensor Recorder v3.2, a free application for Android that enables users to read and save measurements of smartphone sensors.
By Inside GNSS
A software-driven navigation engine makes consistent, reliable navigation possible in tunnels, garages and urban canyons.
In difficult GNSS signal environments for driving—and here urban canyons, tunnels and parking structures are the standouts—GNSS performance may be severely degraded or completely denied. Inertial aiding has become the standard for ground vehicle navigation. Requirements for autonomous navigation in these circumstances will be rigorous, but those for map-matching, telematics and fleet vehicle tracking are much less so.
By Inside GNSS
Forward-deployed U.S. military personnel will soon benefit from warfighter localization sensor units that provide tracking information in GPS-denied environments in a bootstrap mode. The Army Product Manager Sets, Kits Outfits and Tools awarded a $16.5 million contract to Robotic Research of Clarksburg, Maryland for WarLoc units to equip four deployed U.S. Army Brigade Combat Teams in various locations. The first batch of systems has already been shipped, and should enable soldiers on foot to keep track of each other in terrain where GPS systems are less effective.
WarLoc provides localization and positioning data for teams of warfighters or first responders in signal-denied environments such as underground facilities and inside buildings and mega-cities, according to the company. The small sensor mounts on footwear. Multiple systems work together to further enhance accuracy and maintain the localization of teams.
[Heel-mounted warfighter localization sensor units, also known as WarLoc. Photo: Robotic Research.]
The tracking system augments its GPS receiver with an inertial measurement unit. The device connects with a smartphone through Bluetooth. Robotic Research fields two form factors of the WaLoc, one mounted over the top of the boot and another that wraps around the heel. Users view data readouts through an Android-based Tactical Assault Kit. The algorithms are reportedly robust to communications failures and dropouts, and the distributed nature works well in challenging communication environments.
By Inside GNSS
In early December, Qualcomm made its annual announcement of a new chip for phones and wearables in the coming year. Qualcomm’s flagship system-on-chip will power a range of devices launching in 2020, with lots of new and exciting (to smartphone addicts) capabilities; just not much — make that nothing — new in satellite-based navigation derivatives.
By Inside GNSS
Hours before an impending government shutdown, the President signed both the defense appropriations and authorization bills on Friday, December 20. The bills funded nearly all of the Air Force’s GPS program but made substantial cuts in Army GPS receiver development.
By Dee Ann Divis
A new European Union Agency for the Space Program (EUSPA) will succeed and expand the current European GNSS Agency (GSA), which has been managing the EU’s Galileo satellite system for 15 years.
By Inside GNSS
By Inside GNSSIn lead position on a sleigh rising from the North Pole to a height of 200 meters — standard cruising altitude for global package delivery — at 2100 hours UTC on December 24 — the youngest will hopefully be asleep by then and there’s plenty of territory to cover before dawn breaks, time’s a-wasting — navigator Rudolph will see between 40 and 45 GNSS satellites glistening in the night sky.
The European GNSS Agency (GSA) awarded a contract for the development of the Galileo-based TIming Receiver for CriticAl INfrastructure Robustness (GIANO) to Thales Alenia Space, for resistance against interference, jamming and spoofing.
By Inside GNSS