Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has begun the delayed process of selecting six research and test sites where unmanned aerial systems or UAS will finally be able to spread their wings and, hopefully, launch a new, multi-billion dollar industry.
By Inside GNSS
Spectracom has announced the upgrade capability of its GNSS simulators to China’s BeiDou system.
The Spectracom GSG Series 5 and Series 6 GNSS simulators, released last year, are designed to be field upgradeable to simulate current and future GNSS constellations.
The recent release of the Beidou ICD specification has enabled Spectracom to ensure that its GSG Series 5 and Series 6 equipment will be able to simulate these satellites with a simple field-upgradeable firmware update.
By Inside GNSS
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. TIMING IS EVERYTHING
Washington, D.C.
Chris Rizos, University of New South WalesGNSS is in a class of its own and the positioning/navigation/timing (PNT) technology of choice for most applications. Why wouldn’t we always use it?
It is affordable, it is a mature technology with many form factors, and its level of performance spans several orders of magnitude — millimeters to meters. There are a bewildering number of permutations of user equipment, augmentation solutions, processing algorithms, and operational procedures to choose from.
However. . . .
By Inside GNSS
The whole GNSS world should have a warm spot in its heart for centripetal forces.
After all, a centripetal force — in this case, gravity — is what keeps planets in rotation around our Sun and satellites, around the Earth.
Centrifugal force, of course, is what throws us off a merry-go-round or carousel. Centripetal force is what keeps us on board.
For those on a merry-go-round, the centripetal force is not gravity, but rather the tensile strength of our arms pulling us toward the center of rotation, at right angles to the motion of our seats.
By Inside GNSS
FIGURE 1: Characterization of interference from the user perspectiveIncreasing demand for ensuring the authenticity of satellite signals and position/velocity/time (PVT) calculations raises the need for tools capable of assessing and testing innovative solutions for verifying GNSS signals and PVT. Today’s civilian systems do not provide authentication at the system level, and a number of mitigation strategies have been developed in the last 10 years at user segment in order to protect receivers from interference and deception.
By Inside GNSS
The world’s four GNSS programs aren’t exactly a classical quartet, weaving Mozart stanzas in disciplined execution.
By Inside GNSS
View of Pevchesky Lane from Malaya Posadskaya (Wikimedia, photo by Lisidze)The 20th St. Petersburg International Conference on Integrated Navigation Systems (МКИНС2013) will take place at Elektrobribor company, the Russian Federation State Research Center, on May 27-29, 2013.
Conference topics will cover civil uses and aspects of:
By Inside GNSS
The 2013 European Geosciences Union General Assembly and exhibition will take place in the Austria Center Vienna (ACV) from April 7 through April 12.
The event attracts more than 11,000 geoscientists from all over the world. The official language is English. The early registration deadline is March 13. The program will be available after March 25.
By Inside GNSS
The 2013 Geospatial World Forum and industry exhibition will be held at the Beurs – World Trade Center in the international port city of Rotterdam on May 13-16.
This year’s theme is "Monetizing Geospatial Value and Practices." The keynote speakers are Chris Gibson, vice president of Trimble and Mark Reichardt, president and CEO of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).
By Inside GNSS
This five-day workshop is one of several sponsored by the Office for Outer Space Affairs of the United Nations in various European countries. The workshops will give participants an overview of GNSS systems and applications with the aim of strengthening a network of national reference stations and promoting the interoperability of navigation, positioning and timing systems in the region.
The UN/Croatia workshop will take place on Baška, Krk Island on April 21-25, 2013.
It is free.
The third symposium on Enhanced Solutions for Aircraft and Vehicle Surveillance Applications will take place at the MARITIM proArte Hotel in Berlin, germany on March 20 and 21, 2013. The event will be held in English. It is organized by the German Institute of Navigation (DGON).
This emerging field of next-generation surveillance is driven by increasing air traffic volume, business demands for increased capacity and efficiency and citizen and government concerns about emissions and other environmental pressures.
By Inside GNSS
A free three-day program on "GNSS Integrity Monitoring" will take place at Ecole Nationale de l’Aviation Civile (ENAC) at 7, Ave. Edouard Belin in Toulouse on June 18, 19 and 20, 2013.
This is third course in the EU’s GENIUS project series of 3-day GNSS training programs for professionals. Five are scheduled in 2013 and five in 2014.
The instructors are Dr. Christophe Macabiu, head of ENAC’s Telecom lab, Dr. Anaïs Martineau, head of the Electronics, Electromagnetism and Signal division of ENAC and Prof. Carl Milner, also of ENAC Telecom lab.
By Inside GNSS
