Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched a search for an atomic inertial sensor to measure orientation in GPS-denied environments.
The Chip-Scale Combinatorial Atomic Navigator (C-SCAN) initiative seeks to create a sensor that integrates small size, low power consumption, high resolution of motion detection, and a fast startup time into a single package.
By Inside GNSS
Location of real-time GPS monitoring stations in the western United States that make up part of the Real-Time Earthquake Analysis for Disaster Mitigation Network. The networks stations are overlain on a U.S. Geological Survey seismic hazard map showing areas forecast to have a 10-percent probability of exceeding a certain level of ground shaking within the next 50 years. (Areas in shades of red have the strongest shaking, while areas in green shades have the weakest shaking.) Image credit: USGS/UC Berkeley/Scripps Institution of OceanographyEvolution of real-time GNSS reference networks and data processing has evolved to the point that NASA-backed researchers believe they can soon implement large-scale demonstration tests to provide earthquake and tsunami alerts to the general public and emergency responders.
By Inside GNSS
The 11th GPS Partnership Council meeting will take place on May 1 and 2,
2012 at the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) at Los Angeles Air
Force Base in El Segundo, California. It is located about four miles
south of the Los Angeles Airport.
As of April 27, the meeting is full, however registration is open for the golf tournament on Wednesday and social evening on Tuesday.
By Inside GNSS
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has awarded Raytheon Company a two-year contract extension to continue to provide services for the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). The $30.1 million contract extends the period of performance through Sept. 24, 2013.
By Inside GNSS
Aurora Borealis, 1977, near Anchorage, Alaska from the National Weather Service collection in NOAA’s online photo databaseThe annual Space Weather Workshop will take place on April 24-27 2012 at the Millennium Hotel in Boulder, Colorado. Registration is now open.
The conference schedule is online here.
Organizers call it the meeting of science, research, applications, operations and users.
By Inside GNSS
PLANS conference venueThis biennial conference and industry exhibition explores the field of navigation—from fundamental research, to applications, to field test results.
It will take place April 24, 25 and 26 at the Marriott Resort and Spa at Grande Dunes in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina USA.
Sponsored by IEEE’s Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society and the Institute of Navigation, participants will learn about sensors, systems, optimal integration of multiple sensors and emerging technologies in navigation.
The core structure of the GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST) stands vertical in Lockheed Martin’s GPS III Processing Facility. LM photo.An emphasis on quality assurance in system engineering and components in the first GPS III satellite now under development has driven projected costs up in the program above the budgeted amount, leading the U.S. Air Force to deny a $70 million incentive fee to prime contractor Lockheed Martin.
By Inside GNSS
DARPA example of a robot working in a dangerous areaWe certainly hope the competitors in DARPA’s Robotics Challenge hardwire Isaac Asimov’s First Law of Robotics into their creations—the one that says don’t harm humans.
Because the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s new contest aims to develop technology that advances robotics to the next level. The level at which robots can do what we do, go where we can’t, and change shape as necessary.
By Inside GNSS
The Global Positioning System and GPS receivers show up several times as items of special concern in a report to Congress submitted Wednesday (April 18, 2012) by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of State. The subject is discussed in an appendix addressing “China’s Space-related Strategic Goals, Capabilities, and Methods for Acquiring Technology.”
By Inside GNSS
The European Space Agency’s annual navigation summer school offers students from around the world a chance for a thorough grounding in satellite navigation theory and practice. It will take place this year at two locations in France, from Monday, July 16 through Thursday, July 26.
The Institut Superieur de l’Aeronautique et de l’Espace(ISAE) in Toulouse hosts the first week. The second week will take place in the Hotel Spa at the historic Abbaye des Capucins in nearby Montauban.
The school is open to graduate students (more than three years of study), doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers and engineers and professionals who are less than 35 years old.
The two-week event will cover the design and development of satnav systems, ranging from the satellites in space to supporting mission segments, the receivers relied on by service end-users and the development of new applications.
The program features lectures by leaders in the field, a project competition, technical visits and a one-day visit to Cité de l’Espace theme park in Toulouse.
Lecture topics include:
Fundamental principles of GNSS
Integrity and performance augmentation
sensor fusion and indoor positioning
applications for transportation, environment, leisure and other services.
ESA Education in Navigation program is organising the event together with ISAE and the Universitaet der Bundeswehr Muenchen (ISTA) in Germany, in cooperation with Stanford University in the United States and Technical University Graz in Austria, with the support of the French space agency CNES and the City of Toulouse.
For more information, including how to apply, go to the website below or contact Ms. Antje Tucci.
By Inside GNSS
Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin have successfully completed the first significant integration milestone between Raytheon’s Next Generation GPS Operational Control System (OCX) and Lockheed Martin’s GPS III satellite development.
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. DEAD IN THE WATER
San Francisco, California and Washington D.C., USA
Rohde & Schwarz SMBV100A vector signal generator/GNSS simulatorRohde & Schwarz, based in Munich, Germany, has launched two extensions to the GNSS simulator in its SMBV100A vector signal generator: GLONASS and GPS P-code capability.
The SMBV100A already had the capability to generate a range of GPS and Galileo civil signals as well as wireless standards, including GSM/EDGE, 3GPP with HSPA, LTE, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.
By Inside GNSS
