201311 November/December 2013 Archives - Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design

GNSS Hotspots | November 2013

Inside GNSS — Sat, 30 Nov 2013 13:53:58 +0000

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, PLEASE.
Silver Spring, Maryland USA
√ The USA will stop printing nautical charts next April, the end of a 150 year tradition. Why? “Declining demand, electronic and digital charts and federal budget realities,” said NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey. They will maintain and update PDFs of more than a thousand coastal charts and refer those who admire traditional lithography to private printers who can do the job.

2. COMPLAINTS
New York, New York USA
√ Bankrupt LightSquared sued Deere & Co., Trimble, Garmin and GPS industry groups on November 1, saying the companies misrepresented the compatibility of their equipment with the proposed broadband network and didn’t raise the issue until LightSquared had spent 10 years and $4 billion. The case was filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

3. APPLE A DAY
Durham, New Hampshire USA
√ Drones may be used to keep the dreaded apple scab at bay in the New England states. Two University of New Hampshire plant pathologists are designing a UAV with Rotary Robotics. It’s equipped with GPS plus infrared technology that can parse the details of the red spectrum, identifying diseases and nutrient stress faster — and earlier — than the human eye. The fungus thrives in cool, wet climates and creates scab-like blemishes on leaves and fruit that make the apples unmarketable.

4. WATCH ME
Connecticut, Delaware, Missouri USA
√ When it comes to workplace surveillance, U.S. law generally assumes employee monitoring is just fine on the Internet, email, cell phones and vehicles with no need to notify the observed except in Connecticut and Delaware. In 2005, Missouri decided a workplace vehicle could be tracked — and telematics can identify behavior as well as location. Is it time to quit your job and turn to crime? In criminal law, the trend is towards a warrant requirement before police can track a suspect.

5. 24,000 IDEAS
Munich, Germany
√ What do a performance-enhancing new signal design for Galileo, a car parking app, a new signal jamming mitigation idea, field sports player tracking, tactile personal navigation system and a coordinated time-and-place reminder system have in common? They are all special prize winners in the 2013 European Satellite Navigation Competition, which over the past 10 years boasts “24,000 innovative business cases for satellite navigation in everyday life.” galileo-masters.eu/

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