Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
The GPS III Contingency Operations Program (COps) successfully connected with the first GPS III satellite on orbit on October 21. The Air Force can now operationally command and control the powerful new GPS III satellites
By Inside GNSS
Direct georeferencing improves the efficiency and accuracy of mapping from both manned and unmanned platforms. An upcoming 2-day workshop on this topic is designed for:
By Inside GNSS
The U.S. Army is reaching out to industry for the advanced inertial measurement unit (IMU) and timing technology it needs to support warfighters when GPS is unavailable or compromised.
By Dee Ann Divis
The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) constellation operated by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) consists of eight miniature satellites that use GPS signals bounced off the sea surface to measure wind speeds. One after the other at 12-minute intervals, the satellites pass over tropical storms, gathering data that can be used to predict the storms’ path and their intensity.
By Inside GNSS
The newest EGNOS satellite is aloft. Eutelsat’s 5 West B satellite was successfully launched from Kazakhstan on October 9. Among other payloads, the 5 West B carries a GEO-3 payload of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS), Europe’s regional satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS). The satellite will support EGNOS V3, the next generation of the EGNOS program.
By Inside GNSS
The U.S. Army selected Collins Aerospace Systems, a unit of United Technologies Corp. to provide a next-generation Mounted Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing System (MAPS) for the Army’s increasingly sophisticated manned ground vehicles. Known as “MAPS Gen II,” the system will maintain the integrity of positioning and timing during operations in GPS-contested environments.
By Inside GNSS
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
