Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
[Updated January 8, 2012] China released today (December 27, 2012 in Beijing; December 26 in the United States) an official version of the complete interface control document (ICD) for the nation’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) Open Service signal-in-space (SIS).
By Inside GNSS
Do we need performance specs for GNSS user equipment design? For a long time, the signal-in-space interface guidelines provided enough technical guidance. But times have changed.
Over the past two years, the effort by LightSquared to persuade the FCC to allow it to operate high-powered terrestrial transmitters in frequencies adjacent to GPS focused attention on potential vulnerabilities of GNSS user equipment.
By Inside GNSS
Figure 2. L1 pseudorange residuals (m) for GPS (L1 C/A, top) and COMPASS (B1-I, bottom) vs. time of day (hour).Septentrio reported today (January 8, 2013) that the Belgium-headquartered GNSS receiver manufacturer has successfully computed a position/velocity/time (PVT) calculation using BeiDou/Compass satellites in a three-constellation (GPS+GLONASS+BeiDou) solution.
"We are positively surprised of the better than expected performance coming out of what we characterize to be ‘a quite mature constellation,’” Laurent Le Thuaut, Septentrio’s business development manager, told Inside GNSS in an e-mail.
By Inside GNSS
The Institute of Navigation’s 2013 International Technical Meeting will take place January 28, 29 and 30 at the Catamaran Resort Hotel on Mission Bay in San Diego, California.
Stanford’s Sherman Lo will moderate the plenary session, "Exploring the Frontiers of Navigation: Unique and exciting new uses of navigation technologies."
The 120 technical session papers address:
By Inside GNSS
A GPS advocacy group has urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as it considers expansion of terrestrial use of the mobile satellite spectrum (MSS) adjacent to GPS, to recognize that expansion “not come at the expense of critical GPS services.”
By Inside GNSS
Conceptual design of ULTRA (ultra low-cost PRS receiver)When European leaders first took up the idea of creating their own GNSS system nearly 20 years ago, they held up the concept of civilian control as a crucial differentiator from existing services operated by national military establishments.
As Galileo nears its operational phase, that principle may manifest itself in a surprising form: the opportunity to offer a range of security-oriented positioning and timing solutions in place of the all-or-nothing alternatives on encrypted services maintained by defense agencies.
By Inside GNSS
Coming nearly full circle and yet ending up in a new place with a new name describes the peculiar fortunes of the European GNSS Agency, an unlikely fate perhaps reflected most clearly in its continued use of its predecessor’s acronym, GSA.
Five years ago when Europe’s GNSS program abandoned its seemingly misconceived and now roundly condemned effort to forge a public-private partnership (PPP) to develop Galileo, the original GSA — the Galileo Supervisory Authority — appeared orphaned, bereft of purpose and patrons.
By Inside GNSS
The accompanying figure shows the acquisition results of the FM3 Galileo satellite (PRN 11) E1b data channel, as computed by the NAVigation Signal Analysis and Simulation (NavSAS) group of the Politecnico di Torino/Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB) in Italy. The upper plot shows the search space along ±7 kHz Doppler frequency, while the lower one shows the search space along 4 millisecond code delay. The coherent integration time used to obtain this search space was 4 milliseconds, coupled with 11 noncoherent accumulations.The third Galileo in-orbit validation (IOV) satellite, also known as Flight Model 3 (FM), began transmitting signals last week, and the FM4 spacecraft, like the FM3 launched on October 12, is expected to come on-line soon — providing the theoretical capability of 3D positioning using solely satellites of Europe’s GNSS system.
By Inside GNSS
ION GNSS 2012Companies who exhibit at the Institute of Navigation GNSS conference next September will have longer exhibit hall hours to work the floor – but fewer days to do so – at the 2013 event in Nashville, Tennessee.
Based on feedback from exhibitors, ION will eliminate the Friday hours for the industry show and increase the Wednesday and Thursday hours next year.
By Inside GNSS
The GPS Spectrum Protection Team has received the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) Partnering for Excellence Award for outstanding performance in support of the government and industry-wide assessment of potential impacts to GPS operations and safety.
The spectrum protection team played an important role in responding to the proposed LightSquared wireless broadband system’s spectrum plan.
By Inside GNSS
GIOVE-A mated with Fregat launcher upper stage. ESA photoAn experimental GPS receiver, built by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), has successfully achieved a GPS position fix at a 23,300-kilometer altitude — the first position fix above the GPS constellation on a civilian satellite, according to the company.
SSTL’s SGR-GEO receiver is collecting data that could help the company to develop a receiver to navigate spacecraft in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) or even in deep space.
By Inside GNSS
ABI Research: GNSS IC market shares in non-cellular applicationsGlobal sales of the smallest GNSS form factor — the integrated circuit (IC) — will exceed $3 billion next year, driven in large part by incorporation of position/location capabilities in smartphones, according to a leading research organization.
By Inside GNSS
A top leadership change is under way at one of the most important U.S. GPS policy and management organizations, the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Coordination Office (NCO).
Anthony (Tony) Russo, who has served as NCO director for the past three years — and as deputy director for two years before that, has accepted a new position with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
By Inside GNSS
