Beginning with the next issue in the Thinking Aloud column, we will publish invited guest editorials, written by subject matter experts, policy leaders, user community advocates and key influentials in the worldwide GNSS community.

It is indeed a changing world of GNSS. Applications arise and flourish, then are overtaken by new ideas about what positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) can do to improve the human condition.

What hasn’t changed is the need for skilled engineers to harness the hardware and—ever more important—the software solutions that underlie new GNSS products, applications, possibilities. The complex signal-processing algorithms will always need to be used to their fullest capabilities.

We must continue to address the means for integrating GNSS with other PNT technologies and the sensors that are revealing our world and the endeavors of its inhabitants in ever more detail.

And what also hasn’t changed is the need for quality reportage of GNSS policy, engineering, and state-of-the-art practice. GNSS journalism that makes a difference, that chronicles the way ahead charted by the pioneers and masters of the art and science of PNT.

Richard Fischer
Publisher, Inside GNSS

The post The Persistence of Quality appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

Researchers investigate the feasibility of combining GPS and vision-based measurements for navigation in challenged GNSS environments such as urban canyons and indoors. Their approach integrates a limited number of GPS carrier phase measurements with features that are extracted from images of a monocular video camera. The integrated GPS/vision solution estimates position changes and orientation of the camera’s body-frame and initializes ranges to vision-based features. The article presents results from simulation testing and initial experiments.

FEATURE
China’s Compass: Report from Shanghai

Inside GNSS editor Glen Gibbons provides a first-hand report from the NaviForum Shanghai conference, where China’s Compass (Beidou-2) system has top billing.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES
Getting to Know GINA: Using GNSS and EGNOS for Innovative Road User Pricing
Konstandinos Diamandouros, European Road Federation
Sara Gutiérrez-Lanza, GMV
Denis Naberezhnykh, Transport Research Laboratory

A two-year publicly funded project explores ways to accelerate a large-scale adoption of road pricing and other value-added services in the European Union through use of GNSS technology to document the location of vehicles travelling on toll roads. The GINA project — GNSS for INnovative Road Pricing — capitalizes on the improved accuracy and integrity in vehicle positioning made possible by the use of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), a satellite-based augmentation system that came into operation last year, to protect users against incorrect charging due to large position errors that occur with stand-alone GNSS positioning.

GNSS Simulator Designs: Effects on Specifications and Testing, Part 3
Ivan Petrovski, iP-Solutions
Takuji Ebinuma, University of Tokyo

This article concludes the discussion about use of simulators and simulation techniques in developing GNSS receivers. Part three examines various simulator designs and whether the specifications of any given simulator design is suitable for a particular test.

Working Papers: S-Band for GNSS? Part 2
Isidre Mateu, Jean-Luc Issler, CNES (French Space Agency)
Matteo Paonni, Institute of Geodesy and Navigation, University FAF Munich

A team of European researchers continue their assessment of the potential use of S-band spectrum for transmitting GNSS satellite signals, addressing the issue of RF compatibility with nearby mobile satellite services as well as the possible use of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal modulation. 

(Note: Editorial line-up subject to change)

Conference Distribution

European Satellite Navigation Competition Awards
October 18, 2010, Munich
International Committee on GNSS, 5th Meeting
October 18–22, Torino, Italy

Ad closing deadline, October print and digital issue: September 8
Ad materials due: September 13
For advertising inquiries, contact Richard Fischer: e-mail, <ri*****@********ss.com>; mobile phone, 609-240-1590

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Ad closing deadline, January-February issue: January 8
Ad materials due: January 13

COMING UP in the January-February 2010 issue of Inside GNSS!
(To advertise, contact Richard Fischer)

Ad closing deadline, January-February issue: January 8
Ad materials due: January 13

BONUS AD! Your print ad also appears in the Inside GNSS Digital Edition for free. Any web links you include in your print ad will be live in the digital version.

COVER STORY
Realtime Scoring and Classification of Munitions
Miguel Cardoza, Jeffrey Cook, William Adamez, Trident Research LLC
Scientists with military systems engineers Trident Research describe a highly accurate, realtime, portable, and low-cost alternative to traditional weapons testing systems. It incorporates state-of-the-art acoustic, GNSS, and data processing and analysis technologies and has been undergoing tests at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground since May 2009.

TECHNICAL ARTICLE
The Civil GPS Monitoring Performance Specification
Thomas Nagle, GPS Wing, Brent Renfro, Space and Geophysics Laboratory of Applied Research Laboratories, University of Texas Austin, and John Lavrakas, Advanced Research Corporation
Authors from the GPS Wing and associated contractors reveal the specifications for monitoring GPS signals that will be part of the modernized Operational Control Segment (OCX).

FEATURE ARTICLE
GNSS Forum: How Galileo Can Help Europe Recover from the Economic Crisis
Anita Pietka and Bernardo Urrutia, Galileo Unit, European Commission
Economic analysts from the European Commission discuss the possibilities.

COLUMNS AND SERIES
GPS EASY Suite II: easy15
Kai Borre, GPS Center, Aalborg University
Accuracy comparison between pseudorange–based stand-alone positions, baselines computed using pseudoranges alone, and combined pseudoranges and carrier phase observation

GNSS Solutions
Emanuela Falletti and Marco Pini, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella; Letizia Lo Presti, Politecnico di Torino
Are C/N_o Computation Algorithms Equivalent in All Situations?

Working Papers
Combined Integrity from WAAS and EGNOS
Felix Kneissl and Carsten Stoeber, University FAF Munich
Describes and demonstrates a combined integrity algorithm using data from both GPS and Galileo space-based augmentation system (SBAS) integrity concepts for WAAS and EGNOS, respectively.

CONFERENCE DISTRIBUTION
2010 ION International Technical Meeting
January 25-27, San Diego, California USA
2010 Munich Satellite Navigation Summit
March 9-11, Munich, Germany

www.insidegnss.com
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Ad closing deadline, November-December issue: November 6
Ad materials due: November 13

COVER STORY
GNSS Milestones
GNSS Leaders Review 2009 and Predict 2010
From the United States, Russia, China, Europe and Japan, Inside GNSS draws on commercial and public sector leaders from all of the satellite navigation system operators to discuss the new world of four active GNSSes. Get their take on the most important events, decisions and developments of 2009—and what to expect in 2010.

FEATURE ARTICLE
THE TOP TEN
GNSS Competitiveness, Nation by Nation
Jay Gullish, Futron Corporation
More GNSS systems are live or in the pipeline than ever before. But not every space-based PNT provider can rely on supportive government policies, generous funding, abundant skilled technicians or a strong national economy. In this article, an analyst from a noted aerospace management consulting company examines the current and projected capabilities of the world’s GNSS system operators and ranks the top ten.

TECHNICAL ARTICLE
THE BURREDO
Synchronization for Direct Georeferencing on Small UAVs
John Perry, Ahmed Mohamed, Joshua Childs; University of Florida
All about the development of Burredo, an inexpensive, lightweight sub-microsecond timing system that synchronizes the position and attitude of a remote sensing system at the moment of exposure.

COLUMNS
WORKING PAPERS
The Longer the Better: Coherent Integration Time in GNSS Receivers
Thomas Pany, IFEN GmbH
Data bit transitions, oscillator jitter, and user dynamics prevent coherent integration time in a GNSS receiver for more than a few dozen milliseconds. But increasing this to several seconds would help solve three problems in a degraded signal environment: multipath mitigation, enhancing the cross-correlation properties of the PRN codes to alleviate the near-far problem (or intra-system interference), and reducing the squaring loss to provide more accurate pseudorange/Doppler measurements. A recently developed GPS/Galileo receiver prototype addresses these very issues.

GNSS SOLUTIONS
Why is it so difficult to launch a spaceborne GNSS receiver?
Jim Simpson, NASA

CONFERENCE DISTRIBUTION
GNSS Signal 2009 Workshop
Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, December 10–11

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Ad closing date: March 9
Ad materials due: March 16
Look for the March-April issue at 2009 CTIA Wireless, Las Vegas, Nevada (March 31-April 4) and the International Conference on Integrated Navigation Systems, St. Petersburg, Russia (May 25-May 27)

COVER STORY
On the Trails of the Inuit
Kyle O’Keefe, The University of Calgary Schulich School of Engineering, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Shari Gearheard, National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado at Boulder, Clyde River, Nunavut, Canada; and others.
The Igliniit (Trails) Project is a collaborative research project that brings together Inuit hunters from Clyde River, Nunavut, Canada, with researchers from Colorado, Calgary, and Carleton universities and undergraduate students from the University of Calgary to develop, test, and use an interactive GPS tracking system on snow machines and dog sleds. The system has a number of applications including tracking environmental conditions and changes over time, land/sea ice use studies, harvest studies, wildlife studies, travel safety, and search and rescue. This article describes the experiences of the participants over the first three years of the project.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES
Receiver-Autonomous Detection of GNSS Spoofing
Paul Y. Montgomery, Novariant Inc., Todd E. Humphreys, University of Texas at Austin,
Brent M. Ledvina, Virginia Tech.
As GNSS receivers and applications spread throughout the world, a corresponding increase in the risk of spoofing appears likely — much as hacker attacks on websites have grown along with expansion of the Internet. This article describes the use of an angle-of-arrival countermeasure to thwart spoofing, by observing L1 carrier differences between multiple antennas referenced to a common oscillator.

Getting Along Indoors:
Cooperative Positioning Techniques for Difficult Locations
Stuart Strickland, consultant, Cambridge, UK

Exploring positioning technologies and techniques for difficult locations. The possibility of sharing assistance data, position information, or GNSS measurements as well as providing relatively high-resolution ranging among devices.

The GPS EASY Suite II
Matlab Code for the GPS Newcomer
Kai Borre, professor in geodesy at Aalborg University and founder of the Danish GPS Center.
A new tutorial series on the application of the popular Matlab software — a numerical computing environment and programming language — to process GPS observations. Each installment includes a discussion of a GPS-related computational task and a Matlab code that can be downloaded from an related website. In this issue, learn how to create a stereographic sky plot of satellite orbits and plot the time when satellites will be above a given local horizon. Details of the LAMBDA method are explained through a small numerical example.

HUMAN ENGINEERING
by Melody Ward Leslie
Who will join the growing list of leading – or rising – engineers profiled in this popular column? Stay tuned.

GNSS SOLUTIONS
Frank Takac, LEICA, discusses GLONASS ambiguity resolution in this regular column coordinated by contributing editor Mark Petovello

GNSS HOTSPOTS
GNSS data points and factoids to amuse and inform.

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This issue will also be available at: GPS Wireless 2009, San Francisco, February 4-5 and Munich Satellite Navigation Summit, Munich, Germany, March 3-5

To advertise, contact gl**@********ss.com
Ad materials due: January 12
This issue ships directly from the printer to the ION International Technical Meeting for the January 26 show in Anaheim, California. Inside GNSS editor Glen Gibbons will be at the sessions and on the floor.

This issue will also be available at: GPS Wireless 2009, San Francisco, February 4-5 and Munich Satellite Navigation Summit, Munich, Germany, March 3-5

COVER STORY
GPS and Regime Change, Part II: What Lies Ahead
Glen Gibbons
In November-December 2008, Part I focused on key changes in the GPS program during the Bush administration during the past eight years. The second part of this series examines the prospects for the system under the in-coming presidency of Barack Obama. (Read GPS and Regime Change, Part I: The Bush Legacy)

TECHNICAL ARTICLES
Autonomous Integrity: An Error Isotropy-based Approach
Miguel Azaola-Sáenz and Joaquín Cosmen-Schortmann, GMV
Several recent Inside GNSS articles cover techniques to ensure GNSS integrity for civil aviation and other safety-of-life applications. Unlike the measurement-rejection approach of many receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) techniques, however, this article introduces an error isotropy–based error-characterization technique for computing protection levels. The new approach was developed in the framework of "liability-critical" applications — those in which undetected, large GNSS position errors create serious legal or economic consequences. It also may provide a simple and robust solution to the multi-constellation integrity problem, significantly simplifying the requirements and design of ground-segment integrity monitoring facilities.

QZSS’s Indoor Messaging System: GNSS Friend or Foe?
Andrew Dempster, Satellite Navigation and Positioning Laboratory, University of New South Wales, Australia
A lesser-known feature of Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) program is its IMES or Indoor Messaging System, which uses pseudorandom noise codes (PRNs) and operates in the GPS L1 frequency. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) designed the IMES signal to contribute to development of QZSS-ready receivers as well as satellite positioning applications by supporting development of seamless indoor/outdoor positioning. Based on a review of the IMES interface specification and presentations of initial simulation and text results, the author explores whether IMES is the perfect answer for“seamless” ubiquitous positioning or a serious jamming threat to the integrity of GPS.

GNSS WORLD
ICG Journey: The International Committee on GNSS Searches for Common Ground
After accentuating the positive in its first two meetings, the third gathering of the UN-supported ICG revealed just how far the world’s GNSS providers have to go to make their systems (and augmentations) compatible and interoperable. A report from December’s ICG-3 meeting in Pasadena, California.

WORKING PAPERS
GNSS in Space: Formation Flying Radio Frequency Techniques and Technology, Part 2
with CNES, ESA, Thales Alenia Space, and GMV authors
In the November-December issue, Part I described the upcoming scientific missions that fly two or more smaller satellites in close formation to create large spaceborne instruments. In Part II, the authors explain how GNSS is used to achieve very accurate relative positioning and orientation of the spacecraft at lower altitudes and the similar approach used at higher altitudes for relative positioning by means of RF carrier phase measurement techniques. (Read GNSS in Space: Part I)

GNSS SOLUTIONS
This issue, we answer the questions: “What is the effect of GPS jamming on maritime safety?” Solution by Alan Grant and Paul Williams, General Lighthouse Authorities of the United Kingdom and Ireland. “What are linear carrier phase combinations and what are the relevant considerations?” Solution by Mark Petovello, University of Calgary

Plus the GNSS news in "360 Degrees," data points to amuse and inform in "GNSS Hotspots," the "Industry View" in that eponymous section, and new products in "GNSS Inside."

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(Back to GPS Focus page)
2001
December 1. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz expresses resistance to Galileo in a letter to European defense ministers.
December 1. Russia’s system rebuilding project begins with the launch of a modernized GLONASS satellite prototype (GLONASS-M)
2002
November 25. The U.S. Coast Guard moves from Transportation to the newly established Department of Homeland Security.
2004
June 26. GPS-Galileo Cooperation agreement is signed by the United States and the European Union.
December 8. President George W. Bush signs National Security Policy Directive on U.S. Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing.
2005
August. The Defense Science Board GPS Task Force releases report on the future of the Global Positioning System. Former Secretary of Defense and Energy James R. Schlesinger and Robert J. Hermann, Director of the DoD National Reconnaissance Office, are co chairs.
September 26. First modernized GPS Block IIR satellite (IIR-M) with second civil signal L2C is launched.
December 1-2. International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG) founded with United States membership.
December 28. First Galileo experimental satellite launched. Transmissions begin January 12, 2006.
2006
January 24. National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Executive Committee (PNT ExCom) chartered by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta and co-chaired by their deputies.
– National PNT Coordination Office up and running.
December 16. U.S. Air Force begins transmitting second civil GPS signal, a dataless L2C, following September launch of first IIR-M.
2007
July 26. U.S. and E.U. agree on multiplex binary offset carrier design for common GPS-Galileo civil signal.
September 4. Second ICG meeting creates a Providers Forum. The United States, European Union, Russian Federation, People’s Republic of China, Japan, and India are members.
September 14. New Block 22F satellites will be managed using new digital communications and a new message format for telemetry, tracking, and control (TT&C), the first steps in implementing the, Architecture Evolution Plan (AEP) for the GPS Operational Control Segment
September 18. President eliminates selective availability (SA) from GPS Block III satellites and subsequent generations.
November 21. Next Generation GPS Control Segment (OCX) contracts awarded to two new vendors — Northrop Grumman Corporation and Raytheon.
2008
March 20. First civil U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) sets aside $7.2 million for GPS improvement in FY2008 as a down payment of a five-year civil contribution of more than $200 million
May 15. GPS III contract signed with prime contractor Lockheed Martin.
October 6. Assistant Secretary of Defense John Grimes signs new GPS Standard Positioning Service (SPS) Performance Standard, the first update since 2001.
October 31. Federal Aviation Administration issues first performance standard for the GPS Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS).
2009
March 24.After many technical problems and delays, the GPS IIR-20(M) satellite carrying a demonstration payload of the new L5 signal launched.
April 10.The first GPS signal in the L5 frequency band transmits successfully. It will be used for safety of life applications including civil aviation.

Copyright 2009 by Gibbons Media & Research LLC. All rights reserved. 

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COMING UP in the September/October 2008 issue. . .

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This issue ships directly from the printer to ION GNSS 2008 for the September 17-19 show in Savannah, Georgia, USA
Visit Inside GNSS at Booth No. 525 and 527

Ad closing deadline: August 20
Ad materials due: August 27
Find out more about advertising

COVER STORY
Follow the Sun: GNSS and Solar Car Racing
Daniel Brown, TechniComm
In July, a solar car racing team from the University of Michigan won the North American Solar Challenge (NASC) with Continuum, a sun-powered vehicle that averaged 46 miles per hour over the 2,400 miles from Plano, Texas, to Calgary, Alberta. It wasn’t easy – GPS support vehicles used real-time simulations from a GNSS survey of the entire course to give the high-maintenance Continuum good advice – such as when to get out from under the clouds and back into the energy-producing sun.

FEATURES
Galileo Trio
With launch of the second Galileo satellite — GIOVE-B — in April 2008, a wealth of new GNSS signals in space became available, with many eager researchers performing tests and experiments using them. We present three articles on some of the first of these.

The View from Chilbolton: In-Orbit Test Results
Giulano Gatti, Marco Falcone, Valter Alpe, Maktar Malik, Thomas Burger, Manuela Rapisarda, European Space Agency, ESTEC
Elizabeth Rooney, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited
Key results from the in-orbit test campaign performed for GIOVE B at the UK’s Chilbolton monitoring station during May and June 2008.

MBOC vs. BOC(1,1): Multipath Comparison Based on GIOVE-B Data
Andrew Simsky, David Mertens, Jean-Marie Sleewaegen, Wim De Wilde, Septentrio Satellite Navigation, Belgium
Martin Hollreiser, Massimo Crisci, ESA/ESTEC, Netherlands
The multiplex binary offset carrier (MBOC) was chosen as the optimal common open civil signal waveform at the L1 frequency for both GPS and Galileo, in large part because of its anticipated advantage in mitigating the effects of multipath (reflected signals). Turns out those expectations were correct, according to observations made by this team of researchers.

Galileo Down to a Millimeter: Analyzing the GIOVE-A/B Double Difference
Christian Tiberius, Hans van der Marel, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Jean-Marie Sleewaegen, Frank Boon, Septentrio Satellite Navigation
The prospects are good for carrier phase integer ambiguity resolution through double differencing signals from the first two Galileo experimental satellites (GIOVE-A and GIOVE-B), with accuracies at the millimeter level.

TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Femtocells — Right Time and Place?
Dmitri Rubin, VP Engineering, Rosum
Femtocells – tiny cellular base stations for homes and small business – are all the buzz with wireless service providers today, but unlike macrocells – the cellular base stations that rely heavily on GPS timing and location – femtocells are typically deployed in indoor environments where GPS is less reliable. Research shows that the installed base of femtocells could serve more than 150 million users by 2012 with $49 billion in femtocell equipment revenue by then. However, a femtocell needs a means of high-precision synchronization with the macrocell, clocking, and frequency reference for the radios used with the base station, as well as unambiguous geographic positioning of the femtocell device. Can it be done?

WORKING PAPERS
This regular column explores the technical and scientific themes that underpin Global Navigation Satellite System programs and applications. It is coordinated by Prof. Dr.-Ing Günter Hein. In this issue:
Time and Clocks in Satellite Navigation
Alexandre Moudrak, DLR Oberpfaffenhofen, and Bernd Eissfeller, University FAF Munich

GNSS SOLUTIONS
Experts answer your technical questions about GNSS in this column coordinated by Mark Petovello, University of Calgary. This time, the question is:
What are the differences between accuracy, integrity, continuity, and availability, and how are they computed?
Sam Pullen, Stanford University

HUMAN ENGINEERING
Noted GNSS engineers share their favorite equations, their first encounters with satellite navigation, and the popular notions about GNSS that annoy them most in these profiles by Melody Ward Leslie

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COVER STORY
From RAIM to NIORAIM: A New Approach to Integrity Using Multiple GNSS Systems
Patrick Hwang and Grover Brown

COMING UP in the May/June 2008 issue. . .
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COVER STORY
From RAIM to NIORAIM: A New Approach to Integrity Using Multiple GNSS Systems
Patrick Hwang and Grover Brown
Navigation systems engineers will soon have more pseudorange measurements from more GNSS systems than anyone could have dreamed a few years ago. This new wealth of measurement redundancy could make RAIM (Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring) a more robust means of assuring system integrity. Usually, the more measurements there are, the better the solution – but there are subtle considerations of how to combine them in the case of integrity monitoring. The authors apply a new approach, Novel Integrity Optimized RAIM (NIORAIM), to the problem.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES
All Aboard! Integrating SAASM and Commercial GPS Receivers with Legacy Shipboard Navigation and Weapons Systems
Bill Woodward
Advances in technology make earlier systems obsolete. However, in military and other platforms that must meet stringent interface and installation standards, it’s not possible to swap old for new. In this article, the author describes the engineering challenges his company faced when they designed, tested, installed and trialed a gateway between Satellite Signals Navigation Set legacy shipboard equipment and newer SAASM military and commercial GPS receivers.

GIOVE-B on the Air: Understanding Galileo’s New Signals
Grace Xingxin Gao, Stanford University; Dennis M. Akos, University of Colorado at Boulder; Todd Walter, Stanford University; Per Enge, Stanford University
Following up on their earlier work analyzing and decoding new GNSS signals, researchers from Stanford University and the University of Colorado provide an early analysis of signals being transmitted by the latest Galileo satellite, GIOVE-B.

COLUMNS
GNSS Solutions
What are the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) GEOs’ L1 and L5 differential biases and how are they estimated? Do GNSS augmentation systems certified for aviation use, like WAAS, have a function other than improving the accuracy of user navigation? Columnists Gérard Lachapelle and Mark Petovello asked Mohinder Grewal and Jason Rife to answer these questions.
GNSS Solutions home page

Working Papers
Using GNSS Indoors – Fighting the Fading, Part 2
Günter Hein, Matteo Paonni, Victoria Kropp, and Andreas Teuber
The conclusion of this two-part series focuses on ways to improve the performance of low-power GNSS signals indoors. Using transmissions from a helicopter-borne pseudolite, the researchers explore the behavior of the actual Galileo signal as it propagates through the walls of a building, examining the effects on signal power levels and the appearance of the signal spectra in that environment. The properties of building materials are also investigated in greater detail.
Working Papers home page

Book Reviews
Spread Spectrum Systems for GNSS and Wireless Communications,
by Jack K. Holmes
Reviewed by Phil Ward
GNSS Aided Navigation & Tracking,
by James L. Farrell
Reviewed by Christopher Hegarty

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COVER STORY
Using Partial IMUs to Build Whole Solutions in Car Navigation
Naser El-Sheimy, University of Calgary

With the development of low-cost inertial sensors and GPS technology, microelectromechanical system–based INS/GPS navigation designs are beginning to meet the increasing demands of lower cost, smaller size, and seamless (uninterrupted positioning) solutions for land vehicles. Although MEMS inertial sensors are very low cost when compared to conventional sensors, their cost (especially MEMS gyros) is still not acceptable for many low-end civilian applications (e.g. commercial car or personal location systems). The article explores the possibility of reducing the number of gyros (and associated costs) in an automotive navigation system by incorporating other information — derived observations reflecting the behavior of a typical land vehicle and vehicle frame measurements from the vehicle’s odometer or anti-lock breaking system — to aid positioning.

ARTICLES
GNSS on the Go: Maintaining Sensitivity and Performance in Receiver Design
Stefan Fulga, Peter Gammel, and Malcolm Lomer, SiGe Semiconductors

As GNSS positioning moves into ever more mobile and electromagnetically and operationally challenging environments, receiver designers must figure out how to make user equipment sensitive and robust enough to perform well while simultaneously minimizing cost and power requirements. This article covers such issues of receiver design as internal signal interference, integration with existing platform architecture, software-based designs, and common errors in design assumptions.

ARTUS: Advanced Receiver Terminal for User Services
Thorsten Lück, Jón Winkel, Michael Bodenbach, Eckart Göhler, Nico Falk IFEN GmbH
Angelo Consoli, Francesco Piazza, Danilo Gerna NemeriX
Robin Granger, Peter Readman, Steve Simpson Roke Manor Research
Hans-Jürgen Euler inPosition GmbH, Switzerland

The article describes the development of a second-generation GNSS receiver that provides all-in-view, all-frequencies tracking of Galileo and GPS signals, including AltBOC tracking of the Galileo E5 frequency in a bandwidth of 72 MHz. The authors describe in detail the key elements of ARTUS, which is designed for professional and scientific applications. Overall receiver performance is characterized based on laboratory-simulated signals as well as signals in space simulated within the German Galileo Test Environment (GATE).

Tracking Binary Offset Carrier (BOC) Modulation – A New Receiver Principle
Stephen Hodgart and Paul Blunt, University of Surrey
Martin Unwin, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd

A relatively new signal design, the binary offset carrier (BOC), has been adopted by the European Union and the United States for implementation on Galileo’s Open Service and the modernized GPS L1C civil signal. Receiver designers are currently working on signal tracking and processing technical issues associated with the new design including the apparently inherent nature of multi-peaked correlation properties due to BOC sub-carrier modulation that can cause “false lock” or “false node tracking” on a secondary rather than the primary peak. This article describes a two-dimensional method for re-modulating an incoming BOC signal with the sub-carrier in the receiver to eliminate the secondary peaks, leaving only the need to track the code component with a code replica and deliver a code delay estimate.

BOOK REVIEWS
Spread Spectrum Systems for GNSS and Wireless Communications, by Jack K. Holmes
Reviewed by Phillip W. Ward

GNSS Aided Navigation & Tracking, by James F. Farrell
Reviewed by Christopher Hegarty

COLUMNS
GNSS Solutions and Working Papers are on vacation Spring 2008. They will return May/June 2008.

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