Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Q: What is the effect of user and CORS height on NRTK performance?
Working 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 Inside GNSS
SIDEBAR: Ismael Colomina’s Compass Points
Ismael Colomina began his career in 1982. “So, in a way,” he says, “I grew up as a professional at the same time GPS was growing up and maturing. GNSS has always been present in my working life; so, I never experienced the ‘GNSS, aha!’ moment. Rather, I never stopped thinking ‘GNSS, of course!’"
By Inside GNSS
Better known for supporting U.S. troops in firefights in Afghanistan firefights, a Predator drone has been deployed to help California National Guard firefighters battle wildfires raging around Yosemite National Park.
U.S. Department of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel approved the use of a GPS-guided MQ-1 Predator to support firefighters battling the Rim Fire that has expanded to more than 160,000 acres, accordeing to Air Force Lt. Col. Thomas Keegan, California National Guard public affairs officer.
By Inside GNSS
Two companies angling to provide the government with cutting-edge, GPS-based weather data may get a boost this fall if a bill aiming to improve forecasting wins U.S. House approval.
The companies, Bethesda, Md.-based Planet IQ and GeoOptics, Inc., of Pasadena, California, hope to use GPS radio occultation or GPS-OR to provide the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Defense with weather data.
By Inside GNSS
PART I: Using a Reference Vehicle for Solving GNSS Localization Challenges
By Inside GNSS
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will soon be taking new applications for its unmanned aircraft assessment program — a project that gives potential government customers at local, state, and federal levels an impartial evaluation of the strengths and costs of different systems.
By Inside GNSS
Two British companies, QinetiQ and Nottingham Scientific Ltd (NSL), have partnered to demonstrate an Internet “cloud”-based technology that enables a wide range of high-volume, low-cost satellite navigation applications using Galileo’s Public Regulated Service (PRS).
The NSL-QinetiQ application allows a service provider to host secure navigation on one server in a back office, capture data from multiple locations and units, and subsequently verify the location of a remote user.
By Inside GNSS
Last month, USAF Col. Bernard Gruber stepped down after three years of running the Global Positioning Systems Directorate at Los Angeles Air Force Base.
The GPS Directorate, originally established in 1974 as the NAVSTAR GPS Joint Program Office, is responsible for development, acquisition, fielding and sustainment of all GPS space segments: the modernized operational control segment (OCX), the next-generation GPS III satellites, and modernized GPS user equipment (MGUE).
By Inside GNSS
I was sitting on a train recently and a guy said to me, “What does GPS have to do with trains? Trains run on tracks, don’t they? How can they get lost or go the wrong way?”
The fact is trains have all kinds of things to do with GNSS. Most important are safety-related applications, including satellite navigation as a means of precisely determining train position. Being able to anticipate approaching curves and bends is important for tilting trains, for example.
By Inside GNSS
In a startling experiment a research team from the University of Texas successfully spoofed a ship’s GPS-based navigation system sending the 213-foot yacht hundreds of yards off course — without raising alarms or triggering a hint of the course change on the onboard monitors.
By Inside GNSS
Dudley Barnfield has joined the Boeing Government Space Systems (GSS) leadership team as director of the GPS programs. He will have oversight for the entire GPS portfolio, which includes the GPS IIF program and alternate architecture initiatives.
By Inside GNSS
In a Tuesday (July 23, 2013) hearing on two fatal school bus/truck collisions, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended adoption of “connected vehicle technology” on all newly manufactured highway vehicles as a way to reduce such accidents.
Such collision-avoidance systems — similar to those used in civil aviation — would typically depend on real-time transmissions of the GNSS-derived locations of nearby vehicles to provide enhanced “situational awareness” to drivers.
By Inside GNSS
