Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS) has announced the MR-1 Heading System, an OEM GNSS solution for high-performance positioning and heading applications on moving platforms.
Using the MR-1 receiver and Topcon’s patented MG-A8 antenna, the system provides “centimeter-accurate RTK positioning and better than 1/10 of a degree heading accuracy in challenging environments,” said Doug Langen, TPS GNSS product manager.
By Inside GNSS
The U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety will use Locata positioning to control automated testing of frontal collision avoidance and other safety systems. IIHS imageIn announcing the selection of its terrestrial positioning system as the core PNT technology for the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Vehicle Research Center (VRC), Locata Corporation has opened up a new front in its campaign to augment or replace GNSS in application environments where the latter technology is unreliable or unavailable.
By Inside GNSS
NovAtel Inc. has announced its new SPAN-IGM series of micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) inertial sensor products, including the IMU-IGM-A1 MEMS enclosure and the SPAN-IGM-A1 GNSS/INS enclosure.
The IMU-IGM-A1 is a small , rugged enclosure that houses a MEMS inertial sensor, which can be configured from the factory as an integrated GNSS + Inertial Navigation System (INS) or as a standalone IMU sensor for pairing with a customer’s existing SPAN-enabled OEM6 receiver. Its dimensions are 152 (length) x137 (width/diameter) X 51 (height) millimeters.
By Inside GNSS
Furuno Electric Company has announced that new multi-GNSS receiver chips eRideOPUS 6 and eRideOPUS 7 — with active anti-jamming, multipath mitigation, and dead reckoning interfaces — will be available to the market beginning August 2013.
The eRideOPUS 7 receiver chip can process GPS and GLONASS signals (with a combined antenna), satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) transmissions, Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), and — with a software update —Galileo signals. The eRideOPUS 6 is not GLONASS-capable.
By Inside GNSS
Signal Sentry 1000ITT Exelis offers the Signal Sentry 1000, a system designed to detect, geolocate, and characterize sources of intentional and unintentional interference to GPS and other GNSS ssignals and provide actionable intelligence to the user.
By Inside GNSS
With the 10th edition of the European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) set to begin on April 1, 2013, competition organizers are inviting submission of innovative GNSS application ideas.
By Inside GNSS
IFEN has announced the opening of its U.S. subsidiary, IFEN Inc., to address the American market for GNSS test equipment.
The Poing, Germany–based company has named Mark Wilson as vice-president of sales at IFEN Inc. Wilson, who has more than 20 years’ experience in the GNSS market, said he was "very excited to join the IFEN team. . . . Our exceptional products offer unrivalled flexibility and capability, at realistic prices providing huge advantages to our customers.”
By Inside GNSS
Xinping Guo, president and chairman, Beijing UniStrongAlthough not on the scale or at the strategic level of China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s takeover of Canada’s Nexen Inc., the recent acquisition of the Precise Products business of Hemisphere GPS by Beijing UniStrong Science & Technology Co. Ltd. marks a notable achievement in the GNSS world — the acquisition of a North American manufacturer with core GNSS receiver intellectual property by a Chinese enterprise.
By Inside GNSS
[Updated February 4, 2013] Hemisphere GPS Inc. moved closer to a final exit from the OEM GNSS space yesterday (January 31, 2013) by signing a definitive agreement to sell the business assets associated with its non-agricultural operations to the Canadian subsidiary of Beijing UniStrong Science & Technology Co. Ltd., which will operate under the name The cash sale price was $14.96 million.
By Inside GNSS
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has selected Surrey Satellite Technology US LLC (SST-US), of Englewood, Colorado, to investigate cost reduction and augmentation of the current GPS constellation through the application of a small satellite approach.
AFRL has contracted with SST-US to identify and analyze how small satellites can improve aspects of GPS system performance, such as accuracy, coverage, and robustness at costs far below those of past procurements.
By Inside GNSS
NovAtel has announced support for the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System on its OEM6 family and selected OEMStar GNSS receivers.
The long-anticipated BeiDou Interface Control Document (ICD) release is a
significant milestone that facilitates global acceptance of the Chinese
GNSS system into the growing range of satellite-based positioning
applications, the company says.
Unmanned Innovation, a provider of development platforms for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), has partnered with VectorNav Technologies to integrate VectorNav’s VN-100 inertial measurement unit (IMU) into Unmanned Innovation’s os-Series Autopilots.
The VN-100 uses the same base IMU components (gyro, accelerometer, magnetometer) that are used to support the VN-200 GPS-aided integrated navigation system surface-mount chip that VectorNav introduced at this year’s Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) North America conference.
By Inside GNSS
Spirent Communications has announced the availability of test systems with support for China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System in addition to GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo.
Spirent’s positioning and navigation group based in Paignton, United Kingdom, started shipping BeiDou-ready test systems to customers in 2012. The company’s equipment will now be upgraded to full BeiDou capability using the information from the recently released first full issue of the BeiDou-2 Signal-In-Space Interface Control Document (ICD).
