Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
[Updated November 17, 2012] Hemisphere GPS, the latest incarnation of a home-grown Canadian company, has announced plans to close its Calgary, Alberta, headquarters and exit the OEM GNSS business, and is currently seeking a buyer for its Precision Products and R&D assets.
By Inside GNSS
Dr. Todd Walter, Stanford UniversityContrary to a widely held public impression, the elimination of GPS Selective Availability in 2000 did not take care of the needs that many users have for enhanced GNSS capabilities.
Indeed, various “augmentations” have been developed to meet the requirements of some applications for better accuracy, availability, or integrity (the assurance of the quality of a signal) than are available from GNSS signals in space.
By Inside GNSS
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
Areas of Expertise
Space weather, policy
SIDEBAR: Genene Fisher’s Compass Points
As Solar Cycle 24 rolls around toward its maximum peak next May, when a hundred or more sunspots may appear during the course of a single day, no single navigator stands at the helm to guide the hundreds of companies, research groups, users, and policy workers through the uncharted realm of spiking solar activity and its inevitable effects on GNSS.
By Inside GNSS
To help counter pressures from federal budget cutters and wireless advocates searching for more broadband spectrum, the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board is crafting a study documenting the economic benefits of GPS.
“We have a new assignment . . . to discover and disclose the economic contributions of the Global Positioning System,” Chairman Jim Schlesinger told the board at an August 15, 1012 meeting of the advisory board.
By Dee Ann Divis
Members of Congress — who have not finished next year’s appropriations, face half a dozen major tax and program fixes set to expire, and have their own re-elections to worry about — must quickly decide how to handle a tsunami of federal budget cuts that experts say could sweep the economy back into recession.
By Dee Ann Divis
TOP PHOTO: Antenna configurations on trials vehicle: Dual GPS antennas for the INS under test and single GPS antenna for the CIMU; BOTTOM PHOTO: Commercial IMU/DGPS system used for reference (left), FOG-based INS configuration (middle), and MEMS-based INS configuration 2 (right) The automobile versus the horse and buggy. Cloud computing opposite desktop software. The trend is predictable, yet it is always surprising when one technology takes over the market space of another. After all, television did kill off the radio star.
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 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has awarded Raytheon Company a two-year contract extension to continue to provide services for the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). The $30.1 million contract extends the period of performance through Sept. 24, 2013.
By Inside GNSS
One of 12 magnetograms recorded at Greenwich Observatory during the Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1859
1996 soccer game in the Midwest, (Rick Dikeman image)
Nouméa ground station after the flood
A pencil and a coffee cup show the size of NASA’s teeny tiny PhoneSat
Bonus Hotspot: Naro Tartaruga AUV
Pacific lamprey spawning (photo by Jeremy Monroe, Fresh Waters Illustrated)
“Return of the Bucentaurn to the Molo on Ascension Day”, by (Giovanni Antonio Canal) Canaletto
The U.S. Naval Observatory Alternate Master Clock at 2nd Space Operations Squadron, Schriever AFB in Colorado. This photo was taken in January, 2006 during the addition of a leap second. The USNO master clocks control GPS timing. They are accurate to within one second every 20 million years (Satellites are so picky! Humans, on the other hand, just want to know if we’re too late for lunch) USAF photo by A1C Jason Ridder. 
Detail of Compass/ BeiDou2 system diagram
Hotspot 6: Beluga A300 600ST
1. DEAD IN THE WATER
San Francisco, California and Washington D.C., USA
The navigation message has always been considered an inherent and essential feature of a global satellite navigation system. Its primary objective is to provide receivers with information on the errors of satellite clocks and parameters to compute the positions of satellites, as well as other parameters that help generate more accurate measurements.
By Inside GNSS
A United States Army specialist explains GPS system to a Croation soldier in their mine-resistant, hardened vehicle, Afghanistan (2011 Photo: Brian Henriksen, US Army)[Update November 9 2011] In an ex parte filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on November 8, a leading GPS advocacy group has asked that the agency “promptly rule” that LightSquared not be permitted to pursue high-powered terrestrial operations in the upper Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) band adjacent to the GPS L1 band.
By Inside GNSS
