Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Passengers stranded at airports is not an uncommon occurrence, but when weather does not appear to be an issue, anxious travelers can get restless searching for answers.
Over the last day or two, a number of U.S. flights were canceled as aircraft were grounded and passengers were left scratching their heads.
By Stan Goff
With the rethinking of the Galileo Commercial Service (CS), the E6B signal will disseminate Precise Point Positioning (PPP) corrections whereas the E6C component will be encrypted for authentication purposes. Different processing options for the E6 signals are investigated and it is shown that the sensitivity gap between data and pilot processing can be bridged by introducing non-coherent integrations and inter-frequency aiding. Extended integrations mitigate the impact of noise while inter-frequency aiding reduces the dynamics perceived by the E6B tracking loop.
By Daniele Borio and Melania Susi
The House Appropriations Committee approved all but $10 million of the $1.758 billion requested by the White House for the GPS program.
By Dee Ann Divis
Curtis Hay is a Technical Fellow at General Motors, where he develops precise GNSS and map technology for safe and reliable autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. He has appeared on many international stages, but while he very much enjoys traveling and meeting people in faraway lands, both for work and for pleasure, he knows where home is.
By Peter Gutierrez
Hostile cyber operations such as jamming and spoofing of GNSS signals are a growing concern. While they do not cause major damages to the satellite navigation system as such, they can have severe effects on critical national infrastructures and many other systems. Here, we address how international telecommunications law as well as the international law on the prevention of war apply in this context.
By Ingo Baumann
Improvements to GPS performance are often incremental, achieved by squeezing better performance out of existing systems with clever tweaks, smarter analysis and sharper receivers. Then again, every once in a while, there’s a huge leap in the capabilities of the system itself—an advance so big that it makes you appreciate all over again the elegant wizardry of satellite navigation.
By Dee Ann Divis
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is considering a contract for research and development of celestial-aided navigation technologies. The primary focus is to develop a Star Tracker that can reliably perform celestial sightings for sensor altitudes between 30,000 feet and 80,000 feet. The goal is to reduce the risks to guidance, navigation and control in GPS-denied environments, especially for operations over feature-poor terrain such as desert, water, snow and ice where existing terrain-aided methods may not be used for position, navigation, and timing (PNT) updates.
By Inside GNSS
NovAtel® Expands GPS Anti-Jam Portfolio with the GAJT®-410ML
NovAtel announced today an addition to their GPS Anti-Jam Technology (GAJT®) portfolio, the GAJT-410ML. Designed specifically for rapid integration into space-constrained military land applications, this easy-to-use system protects GPS-based navigation and precise timing receivers, including M-Code, from both intentional and accidental interference.
By Inside GNSS
In testimony and reports U.S. military officials have been stressing for some time that the GPS constellation is a top target on the hit list of America’s space adversaries.
By Dee Ann Divis
All the heavy-hitters showed up in late March for the 2019 Munich Satellite Navigation Summit, from the U.S. government’s GPS crew to BeiDou, GLONASS and Galileo, flanked by up-and-coming regional players, including Japan, India and new kid on the block Korea.
By Peter Gutierrez
China’s stated goal is to have its BeiDou global navigation satellite system completed sometime in 2020, and the country made big advances toward that goal last weekend when it launched a 20th satellite late on Saturday.
By Stan Goff
Efforts in the realm of electric propulsion have been both steady and cutting-edge. Past, present, and future projects are discussed along with both realized and potential mission benefits arising from this recent technology.
Electric Propulsion (EP) is a class of space propulsion, which makes use of electrical power to accelerate a propellant by different possible electrical and/or magnetic means. The use of electrical power enhances the propulsive performances of the EP thrusters compared with conventional chemical thrusters. Unlike chemical systems, electric propulsion requires very little mass to accelerate a spacecraft.
By Günter W. Hein