Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Recent leadership appointments at Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS) reflect the company’s efforts to expand its focus from being a vendor of equipment for surveying, civil engineering, and construction to a broad-spectrum provider of positioning solutions drawing heavily on GNSS-based technologies.
By Glen Gibbons
GPS manufacturers and users who employ so-called codeless and semi-codeless techniques based on exploiting the L2 carrier phase of the military P(Y)-code signals may want to comment on a new proposal to ensure that capability through 2020.
By Glen Gibbons
CNS-5000NovAtel, Inc., and KVH Industries took advantage of the auspicious occasion of the PLANS 2008 conference to launch their separately labeled but common-design versions of a GNSS/fiberoptic gyro (FOG) inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor.
By Inside GNSS
Applanix has announced the availability of a high altitude tactical mapping option for its DSS RapidOrtho system as well as the integration of the Trimble BD960 GNSS receiver module for its POS AV airborne position and orientation system.
With the GNSS module, POS AV products now support GPS L1/L2 and GLONASS L1/L2 processing, both in real-time and post-mission. The BD960 will also be able to receive and process the next-generation GPS L2C and L5 signals.
By Inside GNSS
Hemisphere GPS has reported US$25.9 million in revenues for the first quarter of 2008, an increase of 56 percent from the year-earlier period (US$16.7 million) and a record for the company.
The company also reported record first quarter net income of $5.8 million, or $0.11, an increase of 169 percent compared to $2.2 million, or $0.05 per share, in the first quarter of 2007.
By Glen Gibbons
NovAtel Inc. has launched its new GL1DE technology, the latest enhancement to the Calgary, Alberta, Canada–based company’s high-precision OEMV GNSS product line.
GL1DE is a relative pseudorange/delta-phase filter enhancement available in the coompany’s OEMV 3.400 firmware. The new technology is targeted for agricultural guidance applications in which pass-to-pass repeatability and elimination of position “jumps” is critical.
By Glen Gibbons
Hemisphere GPS has released an OEM development kit for its Eclipse dual-frequency GPS receiver technology.
Development kits allow product designers and system integrators to more easily access and test all of the available features on an Eclipse board, simplifying the effort needed to reach a proof of concept and shortening the time required to bring a product to market.
By Glen Gibbons
Turkey’s Istanbul Kultur University has selected Trimble to supply GNSS equipment and establish a 150-station, nationwide GNSS infrastructure network
By Glen Gibbons
Astrium Services and Allsat GmbH network+services have created a joint venture, AXIO-NET GmbH, to offer precise navigation and positioning services across Europe.
The companies, which formed a JV in September 2007 to operate the German ascos service, have created a trans-European brand — AXIO-NET — to extend the service, based on a network of reference stations that generate high-accuracy differential corrections of GPS and GLONASS satellite signals.
By Glen Gibbons
The European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA) has invited bids on an estimated €500,000 ($732,000), 18-month contract to evaluate and propose refinements in the Galileo signals to optimize the system’s prospects in a multi-system GNSS world.
By Glen Gibbons
Calgary, Alberta-based Hemisphere GPS has appointed Jim Chinnick as its new vice president of engineering.
Chinnick has depth of experience in the wireless and telecommunications industries. He was responsible for technology development at Wave Wireless and was engineering vice president at Wave Rider.
By Inside GNSS
Even as the fate of the inland portions of the Nationwide Differential GPS (NDGPS) reference network hangs in the balance, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has awarded a contract to Trimble for up to 400 high-accuracy GPS reference receivers.
The Trimble NetRS reference receivers will be installed over the next three years as part of the coast guard’s modernization of the Maritime DGPS Service, which is not part of the NDGPS elements that being considered for termination.
By Glen Gibbons
Swedish technology group Hexagon AB, which acquired Leica Geosystems in 2005, launched its tender offer to acquire all the issued and outstanding common shares of NovAtel Inc., a Calgary, Alberta, Canada–based developer and manufacturer of OEM GNSS and related products, at a price per share of US$50 cash.
By Glen Gibbons
