Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
FIGURE 1: Potential components of a multisensor integrated navigation systemThe navigation world is booming with new ideas at the moment to meet some of the greatest positioning challenges of our times. To realize demanding applications — such as reliable pedestrian navigation, lane identification, and robustness against interference, jamming and spoofing — we need to bring these different ideas together.
By Inside GNSS
Allure Shadow (top), structural clearances (bottom)The Boeing Company initiated the Unmanned Little Bird (ULB) program in the fall of 2003 to create a developmental platform for an optionally manned, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Initial flight test activity employed a modified MD530FF helicopter, with the first flight taking place on September 8, 2004. Six weeks later the program achieved a fully autonomous multiple waypoint demonstration flight from takeoff through landing.
By Inside GNSS
Deep military spending cuts set to kick in March 1 will likely slow efforts to modernize the GPS constellation, insiders agree, in large part because many of the personnel needed to push the program forward will be sitting at home, unpaid, one day out of every five.
The human impact of the deep cuts taking effect when sequestration kicks in on Friday was already evident in mid-February during the program review conference held by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
By Inside GNSS
The Air Force will put the navigation message onto the civil L2C signal as part of a test it plans to conduct this summer, sources have told Inside GNSS.
The test will take place over a two-week period in June and will involve all of the satellites capable of broadcasting the signal.
By Inside GNSS
A U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) study on receiver performance and increased availability to radio frequency spectrum reveals just how complicated the issue underlying the GPS/LightSquared controversy is.
On February 22, the GAO sent the report — entitled “Spectrum Management – Further Consideration of Options to Improve Receiver Performance Needed” — to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
By Inside GNSS
GSA Headquarters in Prague (Image: MDCR)The European GNSS Agency (GSA) will sponsor a half-day workshop on GNSS for the regional business community at GSA headquarters, Janovkeho 438, in Prague at 8:30 a.m. on March 27.
The workshop is part of an effort to engage small and medium-sized enterprises from the Czech Republic in opportunities offered by the EU’s space programs.
In addition to SME’s, the audiece will include larger industries, representatives of foreign companies established in the Czech Republic and the press.
The agenda includes:
By Inside GNSS
Didier Faivre, director of ESA’s Galileo Program and Navigation-related Activities. ESA photoSpeaking privately at the recent European Union (EU) Space Conference in Brussels, one individual said, “Relations between the European Commission (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA) are worse than ever."
That would be very bad indeed, given the two bodies’ history of knocking heads.
And what’s at the center of this new rift? “It’s about power,” said this source, who would know.
By Inside GNSS
The core structure of the GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST) stands in Lockheed Martin’s GPS III Processing Facility. Lockheed Martin photoWell, the lights work. So far, so good.
The Lockheed Martin team developing the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation GPS III satellites has turned on power to the system module of the program’s first spacecraft, designated GPS III Space Vehicle One (SV-1).
According to the prime contractor, the achievement is a key indication that the team is on track to deliver the first satellite for launch availability next year, although the actual first launch will probably take place in 2015.
By Inside GNSS
The Intelligent Transportation Society of America’s 23rd annual meeting and exposition will take place at the Gaylord Opryland convention center near Nashville, Tennessee on April 22, 23 and 24, 2013.
Discussions will focus on funding infrastructure, reducing gridlock and using ITS to improve safety of the nation’s vehicles and public transportation systems.
The opening plenary includes remarks by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and a roundtable keynote discussion on the future of telematics.
By Inside GNSS
Brahe and Kepler statue in PragueThis combined meeting in Prague, Czech Republic – the 2013 Joint UFFC, EFTF and PFM Symposium – will take place at the Prague Congress Centre on July 21-25.
It includes the International Frequency Control Symposium and the European Time and Frequency Forum and several other IEEE scientific and academic gatherings.
The IFCS/EFTF plenary presentation takes place on Wednesday, July 24. The speaker will be Daniel Kleppner, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA).
By Inside GNSS
Eastern South Dakota farmland, Coddington CountyThe Raven Innovation Summit 2013 will take place at the Sioux Falls Sheraton and Convention Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota from 3 p.m. on June 4 to 5 p.m. on June 5.
Raven Industries applied technology division develops GPS-guided steering systems and other precision agriculure products. Its electronic systems division (starlinkdgps.com) specializes in GPS navigation signal amplification and connection solutions.
By Inside GNSS
Jan Brecht-Clark, director, National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and TimingWith the urgent interference and patent controversies of the last two years largely resolved, the office tasked with helping sync the government’s GPS activities will take advantage of a lull in the action to plan a more strategic way forward — though that path does not currently appear to include talking to Congress about GPS civil funding.
By Inside GNSS
Herman Van Rompuy, European Council president. Photo: Council of the European UnionFor the first time ever, European Union (EU) leaders have agreed to a real-terms cut in spending, after all-night marathon talks in Brussels that left some delegates angry, some disappointed, and a lot of others simply relieved that they could get out of town.
The €960 billion multi-annual financial framework or MFF, which covers the seven-year period from 2014 to 2020, would be about three per cent less than the current long-term budget, and a sharp cut from the €1.03 trillion proposed by the European Commission (EC) at the outset of negotiations.
By Inside GNSS
