Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Equations 1 – 7Working Papers explore the technical and scientific themes that underpin GNSS programs and applications. This regular column is coordinated by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Günter Hein, head of Europe’s Galileo Operations and Evolution.
By Günter W. Hein
A government report commissioned by Innovate UK, along with the UK Space Agency and the Royal Institute of Navigation, entitled “Economic impact to the UK of a disruption to GNSS”, comes in the wake of troubling incidents for GNSS operators, both the United States and Europe.
Last year a problem with the GPS satellite timing signal triggered alarms and caused an unknown number of outages, and in Europe earlier this year the fledgling Galileo signal crashed due to unspecified ground facility issues.
By Peter Gutierrez
The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA), DJI, and Fly-Robotics will be presenting a public safety training workshop as part of the pre-conference offerings at Drone World Expo 2017, taking place October 3-4 at the San Jose Convention Center. The workshop will be held on Monday, October 2, from 9am – 12 pm and 1pm – 4 pm.
By Inside GNSS
The importance of geospatial data being harmonized across Europe via a common coordinate system was stressed at the recent EUREF 2017 Symposium in Wroclaw, Poland, where the European GNSS Agency (GSA) discussed Galileo’s role in helping the mapping and surveying sector.
By Inside GNSS
Applanix will provide WatCAR with its POS for testing autonomous guidance and control systems in real-world conditions. Photo source: Applanix.Applanix, a Trimble Company, announced this week that it is collaborating on advanced research for autonomous vehicle guidance and control systems with the University of Waterloo Centre in Ontario, Canada for Automotive Research (WatCAR). Applanix will provide WatCAR with its Positioning and Orientation System (POS) for testing autonomous guidance and control systems in real-world conditions. Applanix will also provide the Trimble GNSS-Inertial board set for integration with car systems and sensors to enable precise positioning.
By Inside GNSS
With so much of today’s society reliant on GNSS technology, any extended disruption of service could cause quite an uproar. Several of these potential problems are described in great detail in a government report commissioned by Innovate UK along with the UK Space Agency and the Royal Institute of Navigation.
By Inside GNSS
The VG380 vertical gyros modules. Photo source: MEMSIC Inc. MEMSIC Inc., with headquarters in Andover, Massachusetts, recently announced the addition of the VG380 to its portfolio of inertial modules. These new vertical gyros are designed to provide highly accurate pitch and roll (with respect to gravity), in both static and dynamic conditions. The static and dynamic accuracy is specified at +/-0.2 and +/-1.0 degrees (respectively) over the -40C to +85C temperature range.
By Inside GNSS
The output value of BeiDou, China’s satellite navigation and location-based service industry, increased more than 22% year on year and has topped 211 billion yuan (about 30.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016, according to news reports on a recently released industry white paper.
By Inside GNSS
Precis-BX316R GNSS PPK board. Photo source: Tersus GNSS. Tersus GNSS, Inc., a GNSS RTK manufacturing company based in Shanghai, China, recently launched its new GNSS Post-Processing Kinematic (PPK) Board, the Precis-BX316R.
By Inside GNSS
In an opinion released earlier this spring, the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled against law enforcement use of data (including GPS-based data) from a car’s "event recorder" or "black box" without a warrant. The decision was just one of many in recent months that deals with the subject, as technology advances and privacy issues are clashing on a regular basis.
By Inside GNSS
Swift Navigation and Carnegie Robotics (CRL) rolled out their first joint product, a real-time kinematic (RTK) GNSS receiver called Duro, at the AUVSI XPONENTIAL trade show in Dallas, Texas, May 8-11.
The companies say Duro is targeted to robotics, precision agriculture, mapping, military, outdoor industrial and maritime markets.
By Inside GNSS
AGCO Corporation, a manufacturer and distributor of agricultural equipment solutions, is expanding its automatic guidance product offering. AGCO Auto-Guide™ and VarioGuide customers using the NovAtel SMART6-L receivers, can now acquire TerraStar satellite correction signals to enhance positioning performance.
By Inside GNSS
Speakers at the 9th Annual Conference on European Space Policy wasted no time in addressing the somewhat worrying failure of several Galileo onboard clocks, as revealed by European Space Agency Director General Johan-Dietrich Woerner at a press briefing earlier in January in Paris. He made clear at the time that the clock failures, while indeed troubling, had had no effect on the operational integrity of the Galileo system.
By Peter Gutierrez
