Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
With the debacle surrounding LightSquared’s now-stymied proposal still reverberating through Washington, federal agencies are studying ways to repurpose the spectrum adjacent to the satellite navigation frequencies without causing debilitating interference to GPS receivers.
By Dee Ann Divis
Ariane launch poster for ASTRA 2F and GSAT-10Arianespace successfully launched India’s GSAT-10 satellite this evening (September 28, 2012) on board an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
The GSAT-10 carries India’s second GAGAN (GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation) payload, following a successful launch of the nation’s first space-based augmentation for GPS last year.
By Inside GNSS
Future of air traffic control (FAA image)A public-private partnership created to reduce the financial burden involved in implementing the nation’s GPS-based, next-generation (NextGen) air transportation system has raised its first rounds of financing and is now negotiating contracts with its charter customers.
“We have . . . closed our first tranche of equity,” said Jim Hughey, senior vice-president of the NextGen Equipage Fund. The fund has secured a total of $100 million in commitments with some $40 million of that coming from leading aerospace companies.
By Dee Ann Divis
ION GNSS 2012 ienjoyed clear skies and warm temperatures at the Nashville Convention Center in Tennessee. The U.S. Institute of Navigation-sponsored venerable conference closed on Friday, September 21.
Thursday’s workshops featured expanded discussion on China’s Compass/Beidou-2 and Europe’s Galileo. Two more Beidou MEO satellites were launched during the conference for a total of 15. Meanwhile, Europe plans an October 10 launch that will bring the total to four. Speakers "guaranteed a 30 satellite constellation by 2020."
By Inside GNSS
Paul BenshoofLocata Corporation has announced that U.S. Air Force (USAF) veteran Paul Benshoof, formerly chief of strategic development at the 746th Test Squadron (746TS) at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, has joined the company as global business development manager for military and government applications in the United States and abroad.
By Inside GNSS
Trimble Dimensions, the 2012 International User Conference, will take place at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada from November 5 to 7.
Early-bird pricing has been extended to September 14.
The annual event targets surveying, engineering, construction, mapping, GIS, geospatial, infrastructure, utilities and field service management professionals who use positioning products developed and sold by Trimble companies. The companies include: Accubid, Applanix, Meridian Systems, OmniStar, Pacific Crest, PeopleNet, Plancal, QuickPen and Tekla.
By Inside GNSS
The U.S. and European GNSS programs will launch satellites within a week of each other next month.
A GPS Block IIF satellite is scheduled to be lifted into space on October 4 and a second pair of Galileo in-orbit validation (IOV) satellites, on October 10.
Meanwhile, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) opened its new office in Prague, Czech Republic, last Thursday (September 6, 2012).
By Inside GNSS
Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin have successfully completed the first launch readiness exercise for the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation GPS III satellites.
By Inside GNSS
Beijing central business district ???????ICG-7 is scheduled for November 5-9 2012. It will be hosted by China and will take place at the Beijing International Convention Center (BICC) in the Asian Games Village section of the city. The chair of ICG-7 is Ran Chengqi, director general of the Chinese Satellite Navigation Office (CSNO).
The International Symposium on GPS/GNSS 2012 will take place on October 31, November 1 and November 2 in Xi’an, China.
The conference venue is Tianyu Gloria Grand Hotel Xian.
The event is organized by organized by College of Geology Engineering
and Geomatics, Chang’an University, the International Association of
Chinese Professionals in Global Positioning Systems (CPGPS) and the
National Time Service Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has told those awaiting their slice of the GPS civil program budget that the funds are on the way.
The money, which is supposed to support that portion of the GPS program springing from the needs of civilian users, has been held up for months. In fact, as of late August — with less than 40 days left to go in the fiscal year — the money had not been transferred to either the military’s GPS Directorate or the National Coordination Office (NCO) for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT).
By Dee Ann Divis
This article describes an integration of a single-frequency GNSS, two-antenna heading system with low-cost inertial and magnetic field sensors in order to improve the availability and reliability of pure GNSS attitude determination. This method calculates a redundant attitude solution in an error-state Kalman filter using different sensor setups. As a result, the process of carrier phase ambiguity resolution accelerates.
By Inside GNSS
