Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
A live demonstration in the North Sea used the Galileo Search and Rescue (SAR) service to initiate an emergency rescue in three and a half minutes after a “person in distress” operated her Galileo-enabled personal locator beacon (PLB) from a small life raft, adrift on the open water.
By Inside GNSS
While many industries benefit from GNSS, others have not though their need cries out loud. Manufacturing, indoor transportation and logistics, to name a few. Massachusetts-based Humatics furnishes indoor navigation systems for areas where GNSS technology does not perform well. Its core concept is “constellation” installations of high-frequency radio transmitters to enable centimeter- and millimeter-scale microlocation technology for positioning, navigating and collaborating.
By Inside GNSS
For the first time, a sophisticated GPS-guided Naval Strike Missile fired from the deck of a U.S. combat ship sailing in the Indo-Pacific region.
The USS Gabrielle Giffords launched the precision strike weapon, which “can find and destroy enemy ships at distances up to 100 nautical miles away,” according to a U.S. Navy statement. The NSM flies at high subsonic speed an “at sea-skimming altitude, has terrain-following capability and uses an advanced seeker for precise targeting in challenging conditions.”
The NSM can navigate by GPS, inertial and terrain reference systems. It is able to fly over and around landmasses, travel in sea skim mode, and make random avoidance maneuvers in the terminal phase. An imaging infrared (IIR) seeker and an onboard target database give NSM independent detection, recognition, and discrimination capabilities for targets at sea or on the coast. Its design and materials endow it with stealth capabilities. It weighs slightly over 400 kg (880 pounds) and has a range of at least 185 km (100 nm).
The Navy Strike Missile launch was part of exercise Pacific Griffin, in the Philippine Sea near Guam, an exercise conducted with the Singaporean navy. It marked the second time such a missile was launched, but the first time it was fired in the Indo-Pacific region, according to the Navy.
The Navy awarded Raytheon a contract in 2018 for the weapons system, developed around the missile designed by Norwegian firm Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace.
By Inside GNSS
The software and hardware development phase of the new GPS ground system program is now complete and the team is moving on to integration and testing, prime contractor Raytheon said in a statement.
By Dee Ann Divis
Gen. John E. Hyten, an officer deeply familiar with the GPS program whose testimony before Congress underscored the need to protect satellite navigation frequencies, was confirmed Thursday by the Senate to be vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nation’s second highest ranking military officer.
By Dee Ann Divis
A European aviation industry alliance will deploy new-generation GNSS-based landing systems, ground-based augmentation systems or GBAS, at airports across the continent, starting this year and gaining momentum in 2020. The GBAS Alliance includes airlines and aircraft manufacturers who will complementarily equip their planes with GBAS reception equipment. GBAS is recognized as a supplement to and future replacement of instrument landing systems (ILS).
By Inside GNSS
Auto makers, ride-service providers and system integrators all anticipate the day—perhaps sooner than some think—when fully autonomous vehicles take the road. Many rigorous technical navigation challenges must be surmounted to reach that day: safety and reliability come first, before convenience and cost-savings can be realized. Innovative engineers who have solved these challenges share their lessons learned in a free webinar, Wednesday, October 2: “Inertial + SLAM: Creating the Roadmap for Autonomous Vehicles.”
By Inside GNSS
A portable differential GPS-based precision landing system that guides aircraft in to spot landings in all weather, challenging terrain and surfaces conditions proved itself in a rapid set-up demo before military officials of five countries recently. A Raytheon team set up the company’s Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS) in less than an hour on a small footprint and promptly brought in multiple F-35Cs, long-range stealth strike fighters, to the same designated runway landing point every time over the course of six different approaches.
By Inside GNSS
Ivan Revnivykh’s life and experience encompass the far frontiers of his homeland, Russia, from the magnificent landscapes of the country’s Pacific coast to research stations in Antarctica, to the great capital city of Moscow where he lives and works today. To everything he does he brings a sense of excitement and adventure.
By Peter Gutierrez
Rochester, NY – Orolia Defense & Security announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Talen-X, a U.S. company specializing in advanced Global Navigation Simulation System (GNSS) solutions and Interference, Detection and Mitigation (IDM) technologies.
By Inside GNSS
Septentrio now provides GPS/GNSS receivers to rail equipment manufacturer Wabtec, also a provider of digital solutions and services to the train industry. Wabtec is implementing the receivers in its GoLINC Edge platform to provide positioning, connectivity, data storage and Positive Train Control (PTC) enhanced with the adoption of higher-precision positioning technology.
By Inside GNSS
The U.S. National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) has activated an orbiting ultra-precise atomic clock orbiting aboard a spacecraft provided by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems. If the clock performs as well in space as it has in the lab, losing only one second every 10 million years, the technology could enable far-reaching deep space missions—and improve the accuracy of GNSS timing and positioning.
By Inside GNSS
The Department of Transportation (DOT) will launch, in a matter of weeks, the contracting process to perform field demonstrations of different GPS-backup technologies.
By Dee Ann Divis