Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Abstracts for the Institute of Navigation’s 2009 International Technical Meeting (ITM) are due on October 3, 2008. Final manuscripts are due by January 5, 2009. Find out more online at the ION website, or email abstracts@ion.org.
The theme of this winter’s meeting is "GNSS Technology: A Path to Sustainable Economic and Social Benefits for Developing Countries."
By Inside GNSS
Spain’s leading IT company, Indra, has begun a €1.5 million, 18-month project for the European Space Agency (ESA) to study the feasibility and definition of the European Geostationary Overlay Service (EGNOS) looking ahead towards a future multiconstellation regional system (MRS).
By Glen Gibbons
GMV Aerospace and Defense S.A. has announced its new magicGNSS, a set of software tools that supports a wide variety of GNSS projects and objectives, including service volume simulations, core operational functions (such as orbit, clock, and ionosphere determination and prediction), receiver performance analysis, added-value services including integrity, local augmentation developments, and all related performance and accuracy analyses.
By Glen Gibbons
Spirent Federal Systems, a leading provider of GPS/GNSS test and simulation systems, has announced its 2009 GPS Training Conference schedule, which will include identical events on two coasts.
An East Cost Conference will be held in Washington, D.C., March 18–19, and a West Coast Conference will follow in Anaheim, California, on March 24–25. Seats are limited to maintain the intimacy of the instruction and equipment usage.
By Glen Gibbons
A recently announced partnership between GNSS technology innovator NovAtel, Inc., and Brilliant Telecommunications underscores the profound changes taking place in the precise timing markets.
By Glen Gibbons
UPDATED OCTOBER 19 2008: Organizers of the third meeting of the International Committee on GNSS (ICG) scheduled for December 8–12 in Pasadena, California, are actively seeking the participation of industry and interested members of the GNSS community.
By Glen Gibbons
NavAsic Microelectronics, Inc., a relatively new startup based in Shanghai, China, has announced its first products — a GPS baseband processor, NAV1802, and an RFIC, the NAV1801.
By Glen Gibbons
Recent leadership appointments at Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS) reflect the company’s efforts to expand its focus from being a vendor of equipment for surveying, civil engineering, and construction to a broad-spectrum provider of positioning solutions drawing heavily on GNSS-based technologies.
By Glen Gibbons
Passage of a new regulation on Galileo sets the stage for the next phase of the €3.4-billion satellite navigation system’s development under a public procurement but leaves many details to be worked out among the key players: the European Commission (EC), the European Council, the European Parliament, and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Meeting in Strasbourg, France, the parliament adopted the measure on April 22 with 607 votes in favor, 36 votes against, and 8 abstentions.
“Things are looking up, finally, for the European GNSS programs,” Paul Verhoef, head of the Galileo unit in the EC’s Directorate-General for Transport and Energy, told an April 23 plenary session of the European Navigation Conference 2008 in Toulouse, France.
By Glen Gibbons
Nearly 30 years after the first launch of a GLONASS spacecraft, Russia is moving to add code division multiple access (CDMA) signals to the frequency division multiple access (FDMA) format that has set the world’s second-oldest global satellite navigation system apart from GPS and other systems under development.
A February 15, 2008, government decree on new GLONASS requirements calls for open CDMA signals with a binary offset carrier or BOC (2,2) signal structure centered at 1575.42 MHz and a BOC (4,4) signal centered at 1176.45 MHz — essentially corresponding to the center points of GPS signals at the L1 and L5 frequencies and nearby Galileo and Compass signals.
An additional GLONASS FDMA signal will be located at L3 frequencies (1197.648–1212.255 MHz), just below the GPS M-code at L2.
Russia will implement the new signals on the next-generation GLONASS-K satellites, with the first launch currently expected in late 2010 with flight testing the following year.
By Glen Gibbons
The European Satellite Navigation Competition (Galileo Masters), now in its fifth year, is seeking the best ideas for satellite navigation applications from companies, entrepreneurs, research institutes, universities, and individuals.
This year’s contest will culminate with an awards ceremony in the Munich Residenz, Munich, Germany on Tuesday, October 21, 2008.
Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite, General DynamicsOn Wednesday (April 16), a U.S. Air Force team successfully launched the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS), an experimental satellite designed to monitor the ionosphere and predict conditions that would disturb radio communications, including GNSS signals.
The satellite was ultimately deployed from a Pegasus rocket following an air launch from a Lockheed L-1011 that had taken off from Kwajalein Atoll in the mid-Pacific Ocean. First transmissions from the spacecraft were acquired shortly after it reached orbit.
By Glen Gibbons
The U.S. State Department and the National Coordination Office (NCO) for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) are soliciting participation from the GPS industry in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization’s GNSS Innovation Summit and the 12th GNSS Implementation Team (GIT) Meeting to be held in Bangkok, Thailand, in May.
The Innovation Summit takes place May 26–27, followed by the GIT meeting May 28–30.
By Glen Gibbons
