RINEX is is a data interchange format for raw satellite navigation system data. This allows the user to post-process the received data to produce a more accurate result — usually with other data unknown to the original receiver, such as better models of the atmospheric conditions at time of measurement. RINEX is the standard format that allows the management and disposal of the measures generated by a receiver, as well as their off-line processing by a multitude of applications, whatever the manufacturer of both the receiver and the computer application. (Wikipedia)

The IGS characterizes RINEX Version 4 as a necessary step to support the modern multiGNSS navigation messages by introducing and defining navigation ‘data records’ to hold both individual satellite navigation messages, constellation-wide parameters and global parameters as transmitted by the different GNSS constellations.

RINEX 4.00 is a major revision of the format document to modernize the Navigation message files to be able to accommodate the new navigation messages from all the GNSS constellations, and system data messages such as; ionospheric corrections, earth orientation parameters and system time offsets. The Observation file format remains the same with some added QZSS signals and tracking codes to fully support the upcoming L1 C/B signal. The Meteo file format also remains the same. All RINEX file types also have new optional header lines to support FAIR data usage; Finding, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable data.

For more information, see the RINEX page on the IGS website. Image above courtesy IGS.

The post RINEX 4.0 Announced appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

Good thing the global navigation satellite systems hadn’t been invented yet in 1859. From August 27 to September 7 the first observation of a solar flare and the most powerful geomagnetic storm in history happened, and it shook everybody up.

The solar coronal mass ejection was so powerful, particles traveled from Sun to Earth in 18 hours. the Northern Lights were visible in Cuba and Hawaii, and the Sourthern Lights in Brisbane, Australia.

Good thing the global navigation satellite systems hadn’t been invented yet in 1859. From August 27 to September 7 the first observation of a solar flare and the most powerful geomagnetic storm in history happened, and it shook everybody up.

The solar coronal mass ejection was so powerful, particles traveled from Sun to Earth in 18 hours. the Northern Lights were visible in Cuba and Hawaii, and the Sourthern Lights in Brisbane, Australia.

The world’s communication infrastructure was in its infancy, so it was mainly the electric telegraph systems of the time in Europe and North America that went haywire on September 2. Boston operators told the New York Times, “We observed the influence upon the lines at the time of commencing
business — 8 o’clock — and it continued so strong up to 9 1/2 as to
prevent any business from being done, excepting by throwing off the batteries at each end of the line and working by the atmospheric current entirely!”

Luckily, neither airflight nor satellites nor electronic bank transfers nor GPS-aided navigation nor powerlines were around to suffer from the ionospheric disturbance.

In June 2013, researchers at Lloyd’s of London
and Atmospheric and Environmental Research Inc.
used data from the the Great Geomagnetic Storm to estimate that it would cost $600 billtion to $2.6 trillion in the United States alone if it hapened today.

Observations at the time set the foundation of the study of space weather as we know it. Sunspots had been known since Galileo’s time, but two Londoners -both serious amateurs- made and confirmed the first scientific observations of a solar flare. Astronomer Richard Carrington noted in his report "two patches of intensely white and brith light broke out," and R. L Hodgson, who worked several miles away, confirmed it.

The Greenwich Observatory recorded the effects of the world’s largest magnetic storm between August 27 and September 7, 1859  and you can download a poster with all 12 magnetograms at the British Geological Survey website here.

The post On This Week in History: The Great Geomagnetic Storm, 1859 appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

The Radio Frequency environment for GNSS is not getting any friendlier. What is the current state of interference and jamming and how can we mitigate their effects?

Join us online Wednesday, May 25 at 10 A.M. PDT for a 90-minute live event.

The Radio Frequency environment for GNSS is not getting any friendlier. What is the current state of interference and jamming and how can we mitigate their effects?

Join us online Wednesday, May 25 at 10 A.M. PDT for a 90-minute live event.

This free web seminar from Inside GNSS and NovAtel features a PNT security technologist at Spirent Communications, an official with the U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center and the Civil GPS Service Interface Committee (CGSIC), and a signal expert now on the faculty of the aerospace engineering department at the University of Illinois.

Our moderator Demoz Gebre-Egziabher and the three speakers will cover interference sources and signal types, mitigation approaches for receiver designs, and program and policy efforts now underway to improve interference detection and mitigation.

The live event includes real-time question and answer sessions with the panelists. Registration is required. Those who are unable to participate in the live event may access a webinar recording later.

Register Here

Panelists

GUY BUESNEL is a PNT security technologist for Spirent Communications with more than 16 years’ experience in protecting GNSS receivers from emerging threats. He started his career as a systems engineer involved in the development of GPS adaptive antenna systems at Raytheon Systems Limited in the UK and later spent time at Rockwell Collins UK as lead systems engineer – European GNSS. Buesnel also advised UK businesses on GNSS vulnerabilities during a spell at the Satellite Applications Catapult, before joining Spirent’s Robust Positioning Navigation and Timing group in 2014. He was awarded his M.Sc. (Eng) in communications engineering from the University of Birmingham and his B.Sc. (Hons) in physics with atmospheric physics from the University of Wales Aberytstwyth. Buesnel was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation in 2015 in recognition of his contributions to the field of GNSS vulnerabilities.

RICK HAMILTON retired as a U.S. Coast Guard master chief quartermaster after 28 years of active duty. As a civilian, he returned to the Coast Guard as Executive Secretariat for the U.S. government’s Civil GPS Service Interface Committee (CGSIC). Hamilton serves as GPS Information Analysis Team Lead at the U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center working directly with the Air Force Second Space Operations Squadron for provision of civil GPS services in information dissemination and response to GPS problem reports. He is a member of the U.S. delegation and an associate member of the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG), representing the CGSIC and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). He is Co-Chair of the ICG’s Interference Detection and Mitigation Task Force.

GRACE XINGXIN GAO is an assistant professor in the Aerospace Engineering Department at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She obtained her Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the GPS Laboratory at Stanford University in 2008. Before joining Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an assistant professor in 2012, Gao was a research associate at Stanford University. She has won a number of awards, including RTCA William E. Jackson Award and Institute of Navigation Early Achievement Award. She has won Best Paper/Presentation of the Session Awards nine times at ION GNSS+ conferences.

Moderator

DEMOZ GEBRE-EGZIABHER is an associate professor of aerospace engineering and mechanics at University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, USA. His research deals with the design of mutlti-sensor navigation and attitude determination systems for aerospace vehicles. Recently his work has focused on multi-sensor solutions for operations in GNSS-stressed and -denied environments.

The post Noises Off appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

Inside GNSS editor and publisher Glen Gibbons received the Harold Spencer-Jones Medal for "outstanding contributions to navigation as a journalist and publisher" by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and husband of Elizabeth II, on behalf of the Royal Institute of Navigation at the Royal Geographical Society in London on July 15. Gibbons has been covering GPS and other space-based positioning, navigation and timing techologies since 1989.

The post Oregon technology publisher awarded United Kingdom navigation medal for GNSS Journalism appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

January/February 2017 issue

2017 ION International Technical Meeting /PTTI
Monterey, California USA
Munich Satellite Navigation Summit 2017
Munich, Germany

March/April 2017 issue

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January/February 2017 issue

2017 ION International Technical Meeting /PTTI
Monterey, California USA
Munich Satellite Navigation Summit 2017
Munich, Germany

March/April 2017 issue

ION Pacific PNT 2017
Honolulu, Hawaii
AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2017
Dallas, Texas USA
ENC 2017—European Navigation Conference
Lausanne, Switzerland
China Satellite Navigation Conference 2017
Shanghai, China

May/June 2017 issue

ION Joint Navigation Conference (JNC) 2017
Dayton, Ohio USA

September/October 2017 issue

ION GNSS 2017
Portland, Oregon USA
INTERGEO 2017
Berlin, Germany

(This list consists of confirmed bonus distribution events only. The list is updated throughout the year.)

For more information about targeting the GNSS decisionmakers at these events, contact Richard Fischer or E-mail sa***@********ss.com

All GNSS conferences and events

The post Conference and Event Bonus Distribution appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

» Return to ESNC page

The following is one of the five top submissions to the 2011 USA Challenge. The North American regional contest in the European Satellite Navigation Competition(ESNC) is a global search for the newest, best and most innovative GNSS application ideas with €20,000 in prize money for the international winner, the 2011 Galileo Master.

» Return to ESNC page

The following is one of the five top submissions to the 2011 USA Challenge. The North American regional contest in the European Satellite Navigation Competition(ESNC) is a global search for the newest, best and most innovative GNSS application ideas with €20,000 in prize money for the international winner, the 2011 Galileo Master.

ION GNSS participants chose Georeader as the “People’s Choice” award winner from the Final Five, in September 2011.

Georeader

Georeader is a free Android Smartphone app. This unique app allows any written text to be placed at any GPS location in the world. When a user travels by that area, this text is automatically spoken aloud by the text to speech feature of the phone.

There are many useful applications for Georeader. The most obvious is as a mobile travel guide. Most travelers don’t take the time to stop at roadside historical markers to read about the history of a location they are in.

Georeader is connected to one of the largest historical markers databases in the world, and also includes many other points of interest. Instead of stopping the car, Georeader will automatically read the text of the historical marker as the user drives past. With more than 120,000 points in the US, UK, and Europe, including many US states entire historical roadside maker collections, Georeader provides a compelling reason to use the app as a tour guide when traveling as there is always something nearby to hear.

It is designed to be hands free for safe travel, and since the information is read out loud by the phone, there is no need to look at the Smartphone while driving, allowing users to safely keep their eyes on the road. The app is designed to run in the background so it will not interfere with the phone’s GPS navigation or music players.

Georeader is unique because of its use of the phone’s text to speech functionality, and also because it allows anyone to create their own messages and place them anywhere in the world. These points, called Talking Points, can be created either on the phone through the app, or through a web interface. Talking Points consist of a title, a descriptive text of 200 characters maximum, a tag or summary words, a desired broadcast access level of private, friends only, or public, where all users can hear them. A filter will be available to allow users to hear information only on topics they are interested in, such as history, art, geology, etc.

Users are also encouraged to share their knowledge by creating Talking Points™ about a GPS location. This crowd sourcing feature allows the public to create a wide variety of interesting GPS specific Talking Points™ including speed traps, dangerous intersections, hiking trailheads, Ufo Sighting locations, local history and legends, and more.

With a growing user base, Georeader can now attract advertisers with an easy to use and affordable offering. Global GPS linked advertising points can easily be added to Georeader, and just like historical landmarks, when the user approaches a point, the advertising message will be read. This creates an opportunity for an advertiser to provide a message when a customer is at a specific GPS location, for example, directly in front of a retail store or just before a highway exit.

The Georeader app’s website is www.mygeoreader.com, and the app can also be found on the Android, Amazon, and Orange Market.

WHO DID IT?
Georeader LLC
Fayetteville, New York, USA

Dave Moreau, Deb Dihel, Jeff Dihel and Dan Rogas, Social Mobility

FOR MORE INFO
mygeodreader.com
in**@*********er.com

Learn about the other finalists:

True3D Volumetric HUD

TRANM

hitchON

SMPTE/GNSS

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

» Return to ESNC page

The following was first of five finalists in the 2011 USA Challenge. The North American regional contest in the European Satellite Navigation Competition(ESNC) is part of a global search for the newest, best and most innovative GNSS application ideas. True 3D Volumetric HUD went on to win  €20,000 in prize money as the international winner, the 2011 Galileo Master.

» Return to ESNC page

The following was first of five finalists in the 2011 USA Challenge. The North American regional contest in the European Satellite Navigation Competition(ESNC) is part of a global search for the newest, best and most innovative GNSS application ideas. True 3D Volumetric HUD went on to win  €20,000 in prize money as the international winner, the 2011 Galileo Master.

True3D Volumetric HUD

What is the True3D head-up display (HUD), and how is it different? 
MVSC is home to inventors and engineer-developers who have mastered the art of miniaturizing 3D, volumetric, conformal display hardware for cars, trucks and all other vessels and craft. Our hardware design offers drivers an exceptionally wide field of view and components that are easily sourced and generally inexpensive.

Why do these qualities matter? While many of us have seen, or own cars with 2-dimensional Head Up Displays, this is not a comparable tool. 2D HUDs in cars today display images “on” our windshields. They can never display images any further ahead than the depth of the windshield itself. Never “out there” in the landscape, as military-grade HUDs are expected to do.

To get “out there,” a Head Up Display must offer images that conform to the true locations of object like road signs by enhancing their actual location with translucent, augmented imagery, hence the term “conformal display.” In studies focused on airport safety, NASA demonstrated that conformal display is always superior to flat, “on the windshield” display when helping pilots get their bearings on the ground. Situational awareness improves only when our navigational cues are out there, in synch with the depth and location of real objects.

MVSC designed our HUD with NASA’s studies firmly in mind. Images are illuminated delicately so as to enhance, never muddy, the driver’s total view through the windshield.

For years, 3D conformal Head Up Display has only been offered in military aircraft. Car-makers and manufacturers of smaller, more ubiquitous aircraft and vessels have been unable to source conformal HUDs at prices their buyers would accept. Moreover, the size of these systems has been prohibitively large. Researchers have attempted to reduce size and component cost, but all have failed thus far to produce a reliable, small hardware package and the capacity to display objects from close-up to the driver, to an “infinity” depth in the landscape.

No HUD developers have done so in a way that offers moving images, constantly refreshing, in a package small, light and inexpensive enough to make its way into all cars eventually. The MVSC True3D Volumetric Head Up Display does all of these things.

The closest that others (Audi/VW, BMW, Bosch, Denso, GM, Light Blue) have come to building a 3D conformal display is placing objects at fixed distances, not moving, about two meters in front of a driver’s eyes, in a hardware package about the size of an under-counter refrigerator.

The world’s foremost automotive display researchers had essentially given up trying to push the size and cost of 3D conformal HUDs down far enough to enter the automotive supply chain. We did not. Chris Grabowski, Tom Zamojdo and Dave Kessler built the elusive small, inexpensive, 3D volumetric HUD.

WHO DID IT?
MVS California LLC
San Francisco, California USA
Juliana Carnes, Chris Grabowski, Tom Zamojdo, Dave Kessler

FOR MORE INFO
www.mvs.net

Learn about the other finalists:

TRANM

hitchON

SMPTE/GNSS

Georeader

The post True3D Volumetric HUD appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

» Return to ESNC page

The following is one of the five top submissions to the 2011 USA Challenge. The North American regional contest in the European Satellite Navigation Competition(ESNC) is a global search for the newest, best and most innovative GNSS application ideas with €20,000 in prize money for the international winner, the 2011 Galileo Master.

SMPTE/GNSS

» Return to ESNC page

The following is one of the five top submissions to the 2011 USA Challenge. The North American regional contest in the European Satellite Navigation Competition(ESNC) is a global search for the newest, best and most innovative GNSS application ideas with €20,000 in prize money for the international winner, the 2011 Galileo Master.

SMPTE/GNSS

GNSS data comes out as NMEA or proprietary binary data, typically as a UART or other serial stream.

So, the challenge is, how do you put UART data into digital video? Define a new subtype in the container? For MPEG and WebM? Rewrite the codecs on both ends to include it? How do you send UART data over common mediums like cell phone audio? Old FSK modems? What about >1Hz

SMS is really low bandwidth and high latency. Data communications can be difficult or expensive, and coverage is an issue. UART data doesn’t work well for really cheap RF equipment.

However, SMPTE linear time code (LTC) has been around for decades. It has been used with MIDI sequencers by encoding a track, and then, when it is played back, you know the precise time.

SMPTE LTC has fields for Hours, Minutes, Seconds, and Frames. There are variants for film, TV (US, European), and 30fps video, each picture has a frame. It also has space for 8 user defined (4bit) digits per frame.

So, a simple solution is to merge the GNSS data into the user bytes of the SMPTE LTC stream. For 30fps, there are six frames for a 5Hz GNSS stream. That is room enough for 48 digits; so, with some smart packing (e.g., N/S, E/W, Longitude >= 100 as bits within a digit), most if not all of the data, including fix quality and year/month/date, can be inserted into the stream.

The standard SMPTE HH:MM:SS:FF would come directly from the GNSS UTC time, and if high precision is desired, the first bit of frame zero can be synchronized with a PPS output using a PLL technique. This can be done with existing inexpensive microcontrollers, or built into advanced GNSS chips by adding or replacing the UART with variable pulse width output.

Applications: Most video allows for extra audio tracks, e.g., other languages, director’s comments, etc., but even simple recorders typically have stereo. Use one track for SMPTE/GNSS and your video now has contemporaneous location as well as velocity information.

The bandwidth is under 5kHz but the audio codec used might create an issue. However, most audio that can carry voice and music with adequate fidelity should work, or the frequency could be altered or stream-transcoded to fit within cell phone audio limitations.

Simple RF transmitters can handle the low-bandwidth pulse stream waveform since it is continuous.

WHO DID IT?
Thomas Zerucha, Z Designs
Toledo, Ohio USA

FOR MORE INFO
http://zdez.com/smptegps/
th****@**ch.com

Learn about the other finalists:

True3D Volumetric HUD

TRANM

hitchON

Georeader

The post SMPTE/GNSS appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

» Return to ESNC page

The following is one of the five top submissions to the 2011 USA Challenge. The North American regional contest in the European Satellite Navigation Competition(ESNC) is a global search for the newest, best and most innovative GNSS application ideas with €20,000 in prize money for the international winner, the 2011 Galileo Master.

hitchON

» Return to ESNC page

The following is one of the five top submissions to the 2011 USA Challenge. The North American regional contest in the European Satellite Navigation Competition(ESNC) is a global search for the newest, best and most innovative GNSS application ideas with €20,000 in prize money for the international winner, the 2011 Galileo Master.

hitchON

hitchON (formerly TravelEasy) is an innovative application for smartphones and tablets integrated with GNSS that provides travelers relevant information on their local surroundings wherever they go. Though many travel applications are currently on the market, hitchON differentiates itself through offering worldwide coverage as well as comprehensive and unique features.

The nine major features of hitchON include providing information on hotels, traffic, restaurants and cafes, attractions, transportation options, fuel,prices of goods and services without scanning barcodes, crime areas, and other nearby users using hitchON. A competitive analysis has shown that no current apps cover all such features and no phone app covers the specific features of providing crime information or local prices of goods and services.

hitchON acquires its data from multiple sources which includes third-party web services such as Yelp, TripAdviser, Poynt, and Wikipedia, as well as user-uploaded data and Navteq maps. Information duplication is handled through a user-rating system, which allows users to vote on the most reliable source of information. Using the PhoneGap framework, the coding of hitchON is greatly simplified through coding in HTML5/CSS/Javascript while concurrently circumventing cross-platform issues between different operating systems.

After the initial beta version hits the market within the next half year, hitchON will promote itself through social media and online blogs. Furthermore, a free “lite” version will be offered in addition to the full beta-version. This will enable prospective customers to have a basic package representative of the full capabilities of hitchON, which will convince some users to purchase the more advanced full software. The revenue stream of hitchON is not only from its advanced users. Advertisers, notably local businesses, can use hitchON as a platform to attract local residents and travelers.

With a development timeline of roughly nine months, a startup cost of ~$9000, and an overhead per annum of ~$200K, hitchON only requires moderate resources to hit the market. Undoubtedly, its affordability, convenience, uniqueness, and comprehensiveness will give it an edge over other apps in the travel application industry.

WHO DID IT?
Shen Ge, Aerospace Engineering, Texas A&M University
Anish Bhattacharya, Goa Institute of Management, India
Tejal Thakore, aerospace engineer and member of YGNSS, currently working in the travel industry
Neha Satak, Aerospace Engineering, Texas A&M University

FOR MORE INFO
Shen Ge’s e-mail: sh******@***il.com  and website

Learn about the other finalists:

True3D Volumetric HUD

TRANM

SMPTE/GNSS

Georeader

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

» Return to ESNC page

The following is one of the five top submissions to the 2011 USA Challenge. The North American regional contest in the European Satellite Navigation Competition(ESNC) is a global search for the newest, best and most innovative GNSS application ideas with €20,000 in prize money for the international winner, the 2011 Galileo Master.

TRANM

» Return to ESNC page

The following is one of the five top submissions to the 2011 USA Challenge. The North American regional contest in the European Satellite Navigation Competition(ESNC) is a global search for the newest, best and most innovative GNSS application ideas with €20,000 in prize money for the international winner, the 2011 Galileo Master.

TRANM

TRANM is an innovative concept providing secure Time Reference Authentication for GNSS receivers. The operations of many infrastructures rely nowadays on GPS signals for network synchronisation. TRANM protects from jamming/spoofing/meaconing events that can induce network outage and severe economical losses to operators of infrastructures and services (telecom, energy/oil distribution, banking, etc.).

TRANM relies on the inherent differences of the data contained in the stream of the navigation messages signals received from different satellites of one (or more) GNSS constellations.

The PRN spread spectrum codes, though different for each SV, show cyclical repetitive patterns that are used for calculating user’s position. The PRN chip code is always the same through the SV lifetime. However the received navigation messages data streams evolve continuously in time as a function of the uploaded data, the position of the satellites and the position of the user.

TRANM compares the signals received from GNSS satellites with a reference provided by a control center that is continuously monitoring all navigation messages from all GNSS satellites in a constellation (i.e. GPS). From these records, the control center can calculate the corresponding combination of navigation messages on any point on the Earth at any instant and issues a “Unique Signature in 4 Dimensions” (US4D). This product is used as the reference to authenticate the received information at each location and for a given instant.

The method does not impose any requirement to the space segment nor to the ground segment of the GNSS system. The method can be implemented as an additional layer on top of the GNSS service and does not interfere with it (similarly to SBAS systems).

Thanks to GNSS and SBAS systems, Position, and Integrity are possible nowadays. With the introduction of TRANM a global and definitive PIA service will be available to GNSS users: Position, Integrity and Authentication, all in one.

WHO DID IT?
Antonio Pujante-Cuadrupani, PanamNav.com
Murcia, Spain

FOR MORE INFO
www.panamnav.com
pr*****@******av.com

Learn about the other finalists:

True3D Volumetric HUD

hitchON

SMPTE/GNSS

Georeader

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