Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
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: Genene Fisher’s Compass Points
As Solar Cycle 24 rolls around toward its maximum peak next May, when a hundred or more sunspots may appear during the course of a single day, no single navigator stands at the helm to guide the hundreds of companies, research groups, users, and policy workers through the uncharted realm of spiking solar activity and its inevitable effects on GNSS.
By Inside GNSS
This article describes an integration of a single-frequency GNSS, two-antenna heading system with low-cost inertial and magnetic field sensors in order to improve the availability and reliability of pure GNSS attitude determination. This method calculates a redundant attitude solution in an error-state Kalman filter using different sensor setups. As a result, the process of carrier phase ambiguity resolution accelerates.
By Inside GNSS
El Centro Europeo de Astronomía Espacial (ESAC) Organized by the European Space Agency with the collaboration of a number of national space organizations, this intensive course will cover GNSS error sources related to radiowave propagation and interference effects.
It is aimed at engineers, geodesists, physicists and advanced students with appropriate degrees and a knowledge of GNSS fundamentals, statistics and signal processing.
By Inside GNSS
Noordwijk beach in December"Multi-GNSS Navigation Technologies: Galileo’s Here" is the theme of the 6th ESA Workshop on Satellite Navigation Technologies.
The European Space Agency event will be held from December 5 to 7, 2012 at ESTEC, at the northern tip of Noordwijk, Netherlands.
Online registration is open until December 4 at the website below. After that, you must register at the conference itself.
By Inside GNSS
Marriott Waikiki BeachIt’s a big year for the Institute of Navigation, with the venerable ION GNSS 2012 happening this September in Nashville and the new and highly anticipated Pacific PNT conference opening for the first time next April in Honolulu.
ION GNSS 2012, the granddaddy of all GNSS events, begins shortly in Music City, USA: Nashville, Tennessee.
It’s scheduled during the third week of September at the downtown Nashville Convention Center, a five minute walk to the Country Music Hall of Fame and other attractions.
By Inside GNSS
Launch of the Radiation Belt Storm Probe satellitesNASA launched its Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) yesterday (August 30, 2012), with a scientific mission to explore the planet’s radiation belts, where solar storms can amplify space weather effects, posing dangers to GPS satellites, communications, and human spaceflight.
By Inside GNSS
A cross-industry group comprising 22 companies has launched the In-Location Alliance to drive technology innovation and market adoption of high-accuracy indoor positioning solutions such as Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi in environments where GNSS has difficulty providing service.
Established August 23, alliance members include leading handset manufacturers Nokia and Samsung as well as chipset providers, among them GNSS and mixed-signal RF companies Qualcomm, CSR (most of whose assets were recently acquired by Samsung), and Broadcom.
By Inside GNSS
Abstract submission for the 5th International Conference on Spacecraft Formation Flying Missions and Technologies (SFFMT 2013) is now open. Deadline for submissions is December 31, 2012. Organized by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Space Operations Center (GSOC), the event is supported by numerous national space agencies and related aerospace organizations. Organizations interested in cosponsoring the event should contact the chairman for SFFMT 2013, Simone D’Amico, of DLR-GSOC.
By Inside GNSS
NavtechGPS will host its 11th Annual Open Mic Night on Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012, from 8 p.m. to midnight during the ION GNSS 2012 conference at none other than the well-known Cannery Ballroom at the Mercy Lounge on Cannery Row. This musical evening will include performances by ION’s own Augmentations — complete with back-up singers, the Pseudorandom Noise, together with other talented folks from the conference. In addition to live music and a night of fun and Karaoke, five $100 cash prizes will be raffled off.
By Inside GNSS
One of 12 magnetograms recorded at Greenwich Observatory during the Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1859
1996 soccer game in the Midwest, (Rick Dikeman image)
Nouméa ground station after the flood
A pencil and a coffee cup show the size of NASA’s teeny tiny PhoneSat
Bonus Hotspot: Naro Tartaruga AUV
Pacific lamprey spawning (photo by Jeremy Monroe, Fresh Waters Illustrated)
“Return of the Bucentaurn to the Molo on Ascension Day”, by (Giovanni Antonio Canal) Canaletto
The U.S. Naval Observatory Alternate Master Clock at 2nd Space Operations Squadron, Schriever AFB in Colorado. This photo was taken in January, 2006 during the addition of a leap second. The USNO master clocks control GPS timing. They are accurate to within one second every 20 million years (Satellites are so picky! Humans, on the other hand, just want to know if we’re too late for lunch) USAF photo by A1C Jason Ridder. 
Detail of Compass/ BeiDou2 system diagram
Hotspot 6: Beluga A300 600ST
1. PAPER CUTS
Washington, Oklahoma, Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania
√ State transportation departments in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Ohio are printing fewer state highway maps, says the Associated Press. Washington did away with them entirely. Blame it on the double whammy of public sector budget cuts and smartphone, handheld, and in-car GPS. But there are lots of holdouts. As one Indiana man said, without a paper map, “You’re beholden to the GPS lady, you know?”
A new U.S. appellate court decision could bring the issue of warrantless tracking of suspects using GPS and other positioning data derived from mobile phones back before the Supreme Court.
And if the case — United States of America v. Melvin Skinner — is appealed to and accepted for review by the “Supremes,” they would probably have an opportunity to more directly address the question of whether U.S. citizens have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their personal location information garnered surreptitiously from GPS-enabled cell phones by police.
By Inside GNSS
