Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
John and his wife, Cindy.With an imposing 6’2” physique and a disarming grin, John Raquet rises above the crowd. To colleagues he’s a top-flight engineer and university professor, and director of the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) Autonomy and Navigation Technology Center. But he is also a former all-star basketball player, a preacher, sometime soccer coach, former military officer, and, most definitely, a family man.
By Inside GNSS
Ubiquitous location-aware mobile devices, mainly GPS-enabled smartphones, have led to a boom in location-based services (LBS), which have been revolutionizing businesses and lifestyles. Common uses of LBSs include asset tracking, location-based advertising, emergency roadside service, turn-by-turn navigation, and real-time traffic & road information sharing.
By Inside GNSS
It is by now well known that GNSS-based localization in built-up urban environments can be extremely inaccurate. This is a fundamental problem that hardware enhancements cannot solve.
A GNSS receiver estimates 3D location and timing from pseudoranges from four or more satellites, assuming that these pseudoranges correspond to direct line-of-sight (LOS) paths from each satellite. In urban canyons, however, the signal from a satellite to the receiver suffers from multipath propagation and shadowing.
By Inside GNSS
Figures and TablesThe current stage of GLONASS evolution is aimed at meeting future user requirements of which the most important is the improved accuracy of positioning.
During the implementation of the GLONASS Space Segment Modernization Program (2012–2015), the GLONASS team is facing the situation in which it is not feasible to launch new navigation satellites because the existing constellation is comprised of GLONASS-M satellites operating beyond their guaranteed design lifetime. Nine more GLONASS-M satellites are in ground storage.
By Inside GNSS
A GNSS single-antenna system can be compared to a single-pixel camera. Electromagnetic waves traveling 20,000 kilometers from every overhead direction can reach us. Yet once at the antenna, this diverse set of information is collapsed into a single magnitude and phase value, then sent off to the receiver so that value can be extracted.
By Inside GNSS
Most folks look to a new year as an opportunity for fresh starts and new projects. For the GPS community, however, the October 1 start of the 2016 federal fiscal year (FY16) will likely be more about the hangover — that is, the issues that are hanging over into the next 12 months, unresolved.
At the top of that list of unfinished business are two system decisions: a go/no-go determination on whether the United States will build eLoran as the U.S. backup to GPS and deciding whether or not to choose a new contractor for the GPS III program.
By Dee Ann Divis
The GNSS User Meet 2015 will be jointly hosted at the ISRO Satellite Centre in Bengaluru by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Airports Authority of India on the theme, “Towards Self Reliance in Satellite Navigation."The technical program will include plenary talks, paper presentations, poster sessions, and panel discussions.
Participation is invited from the GNSS user community, including various government departments, academia, GNSS receiver manufacturers, research laboratories, and so forth.
By Inside GNSS
The U.S. Army has adopted PreTalen Ltd’s PANACEA as its principal test asset supporting the Army’s positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) System of Systems Architecture (SoSA) testing of GPS receivers.
By Inside GNSS
Europe’s latest Galileo satellites are fully fueled and ready to be attached to the upper stage of the Soyuz rocket that will carry them into space next month.
Galileo satellites 9 and 10 are due to launch at 02:08 GMT on September 11 (04:08 CEST; 11:08 p.m. local time, September 10) from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
By Inside GNSS
LightSquared’s proposed GPS receiver tests are relying on an outdated standard of GPS accuracy, a choice some experts suggest is a maneuver aimed at dramatically lowering the bar the would-be wireless broadband company has to meet for showing noninterference to GPS signals.
By Inside GNSS
Alibaba, China’s e-commerce counterpart to Amazon, has formed a joined venture with state-owned China North Industries Group Corporation (NORINCO), the leading arms and equipment supplier for nation’s military forces, to provide location-based services (LBS) based on the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS).
By Inside GNSS
The Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications meeting is technical conference held each year for PTTI managers, system engineers and program planners. It will be held at the Hyatt Regency in Monterey, California on January 25 through 28. It is sponsored by the Institute of Navigation (ION).
In 2016, for the first time, PTTI will be co-located with the ION International Technical Meeting. Registration for one event entitles attendees to attend all sessions of both events.
By Inside GNSS
A Federal Register notice published yesterday (August 18, 2015) seeking comment on plans to shut down a large portion of the Nationwide Differential GPS (NDGPS) network marks the effective end of a program that spurred a hard-fought controversy in the era of Selective Availability (SA).
By Inside GNSS
