Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Dee Ann Divis, Washington View columnistDee Ann Divis, Inside GNSS’s Washington correspondent¸ was named the winner of the Society of Professional Journalists Washington, D.C., Professional Chapter’s highest journalistic award, the Robert D.G. Lewis Watchdog Award, for her work with the magazine.
By Dee Ann Divis
L-3 IEC Tru-Trak SIPL-3 Communications announced today (June 14, 2012) that its Interstate Electronics Corporation (L-3 IEC) business has successfully completed multiple test firings of its next-generation Military Code (M-code) GPS receiver technology.
This milestone represents a significant breakthrough in GPS receiver modernization and validates the unit’s survivability and performance in extreme, guided munitions environments, according to an L-3 IEC news release.
By Inside GNSS
Business School, University of Nottingham Jubilee CampusThe Royal Institute of Navigation will hold a new navigator seminar and networking opportunity at the University of Nottingham on June 14, 2012 for new navigators, engineers, scientists and surveyors who are seeking careers in the industry.
Masters and doctoral level students will present on navigation and positioning topics, advanced undergraduates and postdocs will be in attendance. A number of industry and government representatives will exhibit or attend to listen to new research and meet the new talent.
By Inside GNSS
Tied up in the long-running fight over reauthorizing the Highway Trust Fund is funding for a program to develop GPS-enabled crash avoidance technology for vehicles.
By Inside GNSS
The U.S. Air Force has awarded Lockheed Martin a $68 million contract to provide mission readiness, launch, early orbit checkout, and on-orbit operations engineering support for the first two GPS III space vehicles.
Under the contract, Lockheed Martin will provide technical support to the Air Force’s 2nd Space Operations Squadron (2SOPS) and monitor the health and performance of the first two GPS III satellites from launch through their 15-year operational design lives.
By Inside GNSS
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced the award of a contract that will help accelerate the development of GNSS-based procedures under the agency’s Next Generation (NextGen) air traffic management program.
By Inside GNSS
Thales TOPSTAR 100 receiverFrench manufacturer Thales, the only non-U.S. company to offer GPS SAASM (Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module) receivers, is working on next-generation receivers for commercial aviation and military markets that will incorporate new signals and multiple GNSS systems.
Since the late 1990s, the company has delivered between 8,000 and 10,000 avionics installations in military and civil domains, according to Pierre Bouniol, GNSS Products Department manager, including multi-mode GPS receivers in stand-alone and enclosure configurations.
By Inside GNSS
NovAtel Inc. today (May 30, 2012) announced the development of their OEM625S Selective Availability/Anti-Spoofing Module (SAASM) GNSS receiver, the first product emerging from a collaborative effort with L-3 Interstate Electronics Corporation (IEC).
The OEM625S, which becomes available for purchase in the third quarter of this year, will combine a commercial dual-frequency NovAtel GNSS receiver with an L-3 IEC XFACTOR SAASM in a single card solution, reducing overall size and power requirements for end customer applications.
By Inside GNSS
As Desi Arnaz often said to Lucille Ball during an “I Love Lucy” episode on TV, “You’ve got some ’splaining to do.”
I refer, of course, to the untoward and unexpected initiative by the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) to patent the technical innovations that underlie the planned next generation of civil GNSS signals.
By Dee Ann Divis
Return to main Washington View article: "USPTO Nears Approval of Troubling British Patent on New GPS Civil Signal"
By Dee Ann Divis
A number of GNSS experts from the United States, Denmark, Norway and China will lead a weeklong workshop on the future of satellite-based positioning technologies from August 27 through September 2 at the Slettestrand Holiday Center in North Jutland, Denmark.
The topics range from GNSS basics and Intelligent Transportation Systems to new GNSSes, new receivers and indoor navigation as well as environmental monitoring and arctic navigation. The event is organized by Stanford and Aalborg universities.
By Inside GNSS
FIGURE 2: Example of a national geoid (upper diagram) and a correction surface for the transformation from the new orthometric height system to the old height system (lower diagram). Country is Switzerland. Geoid undulations range from 45 to 55 meters in ETRS89 and from -5 to +5 meters in the national System CH1903+. Lower diagram: Correction surface to transform from the new orthometric height system (LHN95) to the old height system LN02 with corrections from -0.10 to 0.55 meters.Q: How do GNSS-derived heights differ from other height systems?
A: Height estimation using GNSS always seems to be trickier than horizontal coordinate estimation.
Why?
On the one hand, the GNSS technique has error sources that are more critical in the vertical direction. Height estimates are weaker because of a combination of satellite geometry, the presence of strong correlations to other parameters, such as atmospheric delays, and the antenna phase center model applied during data analysis.
By Inside GNSS
