B: Applications

On the Air

With the launch of the Delta IV rocket on May 27 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station the first satellite (space vehicle number 62 or SVN62) of the latest GPS generation Block IIF (F, for “follow-on”) was carried into earth orbit — a major step with roots in the past.

Eight years ago in August 2002 the United States decided in coordination with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-R) to transmit a new civil signal on a third frequency known as L5.

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By Inside GNSS
June 15, 2010

ITT Passes GPS III Nav Component CDR

ITT Corporation has announced that it passed a key milestone last month with successful completion of the critical design review (CDR) for the Mission Data Unit (MDU) the company is developing as part of the navigation payload for the U.S. Air Force’s GPS III program.

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By Inside GNSS
June 7, 2010

DLR, Stanford Track First GPS IIF Signals; Tests Begin on L5

GPS IIF SV1 Spectral Flux Density on L1. DLR figure

[Updated June 10] The U.S. Air Force announced today (June 10) that it has begun
testing the new operational L5 signal transmitted by the first GPS IIF satellite (space vehicle 1 or SV1 — designated SVN-62 in the overall GPS system), which was launched May 27.

On June 7, 2010, a team of experts from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Stanford University in California reported results of their tracking of the first navigation signals from the satellite, the pseudorandom noise code 25 (PRN25) on L1 and L2 — C/A and P(Y).

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By Inside GNSS
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May 31, 2010

Binghao Li

Binghao Li is a research associate in the School of Surveying and Spatial Information Systems, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Li obtained the B.Sc. in electrical & mechanical engineering from Northern Jiaotong University, P.R. China and the M.Sc. in civil engineering from Tsinghua University, P.R. China.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. His research areas include pedestrian navigation, new positioning technologies, and network-RTK.

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By Inside GNSS

Deselecting Unavailability

Only a decade ago, but a world away: 2000.

The last year of the old century that everyone thought was the first of the new.

When flying was still a delight, rather than a worrisome bother.

When the expected — a global Y2K bug–bitten IT meltdown — didn’t happen, and the much-anticipated but still-unexpected did: the United States turned off GPS selective availability.

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By Inside GNSS

Death of a Russian Engineer

Stas Sila-Novitsky (left) and Javad Ashjaee. Photo by Marc Cheves, American Surveyor

Very sad news from Moscow. Earlier this month, Stanislav Sila-Novitsky — Stas to his friends and colleagues — died unexpectedly after a short illness.

A member of the executive staff of Javad GNSS, Sila-Novitsky had a long career in space electronics engineering. During the Soviet era, he was the department head with the Russian Space Agency’s Institute of Space Device Engineering, which was responsible for the development of the overall GLONASS system electronics.

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By Inside GNSS
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May 16, 2010

The GPS Assimilator

For the complete story, including figures, graphs, and images, please download the PDF of the article, above.

What will GNSS receivers look like five years from now? 

The answer, of course, depends on the application. Mass-market receivers used in applications that do not require precision positioning and timing (hand-held units for hikers, for example) will likely remain simple, single-frequency L1 C/A-code–based GPS devices.

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By
April 22, 2010

Farshid Alizadeh-Shabdiz

Farshid Alizadeh-Shabdiz is the chief scientist at Skyhook Wireless Inc. responsible for the research and development of Skyhook’s positioning technology.

He has more than 17 years of industrial experience in the design and implementation of satellite and wireless networks.

Before joining Skyhook Wireless, he was the head of the communications section of Advanced Solutions Group (part of Cross Country Automotive Services). Earlier, he worked at Hughes Network Systems.

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By Inside GNSS
April 14, 2010

EC Liberates Galileo ICD Signal Specification

Today’s (April 13) release of an updated “Galileo Open Service Signal-In-Space Interface Control Document” (OS SIS ICD) freed the key specification document in two senses of the word: receiver manufacturers, application developers and service providers may now use the ICD as an official — not draft — guide to their work, and they may do so at no cost

The t’s have been crossed and the i’s dotted to the satisfaction of lawyers and politicians — and the relief of designers and system integrators eager to begin work on Galileo-capable products without fear of having substantive changes in the specifications and legal or financial difficulties for moving ahead.

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By Inside GNSS
April 10, 2010

U.S. Invites Comments for Easing GPS SVN49 Signal Anomaly

(This article first appeared in the March 31 Inside GNSS SIGNALS eNewsletter)

The GPS Wing is in the middle of a yearlong process designed to sort out the trade-offs among a set of at least nine options that may be undertaken to reduce the effects of a signal anomaly on the GPS satellite known as SVN49.

In a March 26 teleconference, the first of two scheduled to discuss the options, Lt. Col. James Lake, the wing’s deputy chief engineer, emphasized that some of the options could well improve the performance of some receivers while decreasing that of others.

He underlined the Air Force’s concern that receivers that don’t conform to the specification for GPS space segment/navigation user interfaces (IS-GPS-200) "greatly complicate the issue."

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By Inside GNSS

GNSS Opportunities Help Drive UK to Set Up National Space Agency

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visits the Geospatial Building at the University of Nottingham. Photo courtesy of GRACE

(This article first appeared in the March 31 Inside GNSS SIGNALS eNewsletter)

Driven in part by a prestigious Space Innovation and Growth Strategy (Space IGS) report suggesting that the nation has lost both the best industrial work and the ability to influence programs such as Galileo, the United Kingdom will establish a new national space agency on April 1.

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By Inside GNSS
April 1, 2010

KVH Launches New FOG/MEMS IMU

KVH Industries, Inc., of Middletown, Rhode Island, has introduced its new CG-5100 inertial measurement unit (IMU), which combines KVH fiber optic gyros (FOGs) and microelectro-mechanical system (MEMS) accelerometers to measure roll, pitch, and yaw angular rates and accelerations.

The CG-5100 is designed for stabilization, navigation, and autonomous vehicle applications requiring precision position, velocity, and attitude sensing capabilities, dependable backup for GPS in dynamic conditions or when GPS is unavailable.

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By Inside GNSS
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