While there are low-cost and even free corrections providers out there, they either don’t have the station density required for true Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) corrections or the stations aren’t modernized and can’t provide it, he said. GEODNET, with a blockchain-based decentralized network of high-precision multi-band GNSS base stations, offers a different, affordable approach that anyone can access.

Horton got the idea to create this dense geospatial network after seeing another similar successful blockchain project, and it’s an idea that’s mostly been met with enthusiasm in the industry. Since the official launch in 2022, the network of Web3 GNSS base stations has grown to more than 3,000 globally, becoming a reliable solution for RTK applications. The goal is to have between 50,000 and 100,000 base stations by 2026. A technical introduction to GEODNET was published in the Journal of Navigation Winter 2023 issue.

The key, Horton said, is the fact GEODNET is decentralized. Station owners set up a Satellite Mining station and are rewarded in the project’s native Polygon token, GEOD. When new stations join the blockchain, they prove their location using a published algorithm. And the people who set them up are rewarded with tokens.

“It’s a good use of blockchain in the real world,” said Horton, who is the GEODNET project manager. “It’s not just people trading pictures back and forth, which is what a lot of people do with cryptocurrency. This is a way to efficiently and fairly finance an infrastructure that couldn’t be built in other ways.”

The token trades every day, Horton said, and offers an incentive for people to set up stations no matter where they live. As data from the network is paid for and used by end-users, this “burns up” mined tokens. Tokens are purchased back with cash and sent to a one-way safe on the blockchain. This buyback and burn mechanism is at the core of how the network functions economically.

“We provide open access to data throughout the world for all applications that use corrections networks,” Horton said. “People set up stations at their home or office and then are rewarded for having that station online, depending on how good the quality is. It lets people participate in the network, setting up stations and then earning tokens they can sell on the crypto exchanges.”

How it Works

Anyone who wants to be part of the network can set up a station, use the network or build on top of the network, Horton said. It’s “a very open, flexible system,” with users trading tokens earned to access the data they need for their applications.

And because it’s all bound together by blockchain, there isn’t a company in control behind the scenes. It’s a true community approach, Horton said, with everything connected through a protocol that all systems adhere to. Users can add stations to areas that don’t have any or much coverage or tap into existing stations in their area with a subscription.

“The token is how people exchange value in the ecosystem, and that’s the part that’s radical,” Horton said. “But it’s a way to create independent operations and allow businesses to make use of GEODNET data by also contributing. It’s like a cycle. The more people put up stations, the more successful the network becomes, and the more people then want to put time and energy into the ecosystem.”

It is important to keep in mind GEODNET is not really a company, Horton said, but a community. The non-profit GEODNET Foundation manages the open network protocol and promotes service use within the traditional GNSS and IoT industry. It “works to align the interest of the community of miners with the community of customers, with the goal of constantly improving the utility and value of the GEOD token.”

The Need for Accuracy

Of course, the data provided from the GEODNET stations must be high-quality, Horton said, and it is. There are two tiers of stations: the backbone stations with greater than 99% reliability and the more affordable stations with a target of 98% reliability. And because there are so many stations, with the number continually growing, there’s also redundancy.

The signals are monitored for accuracy and spoofing, Horton said, and each device has a unique ID so it’s easy to spot if someone sets up a station and tries to put fake GPS data into the network.

“Normally, if you set up a receiver you know it’s good,” Horton said. “Here, you have to trust others and need proof the stations are valid. We put a unique crypto chip in every station that identifies which device data is coming from.”

A Strong Start in Romania

The GEODNET location service offers centimeter location accuracy for many different applications including drones, robotic vehicles, agriculture, augmented reality, and IoT/mobile devices.

Some of the first base stations were set up in Romania, Horton said, and there are now more than 200 of them online. Agriculture is one of the main industries benefiting from the service there.

Before GEODNET, users in Romania mostly used one network, the Romanian position determination system (ROMPOS). ROMPOS is owned by the government and only has about 50 stations, said Marius Negreanu, one of the owners of Romania based distributor EuGeo. There are also a few stations set up by smaller companies, but they don’t have the density GEODNET provides. Some use these more expensive services as backups to ROMPOS, resulting in a more complicated solution.

Negreanu likes that GEODNET offers subscriptions to users anywhere in the world, and that you can use the same subscription no matter where you are.

Negreanu sells affordable autonomous tractor kits to farmers, he said, and is using the kits as a bridge to promote the network. An antenna that links to the closest GEODNET station is part of the kit that turns a manual tractor autonomous. This is something more farmers in Romania are becoming open to, as they realize the centimeter precision such kits provide lead to a larger harvest and less field consumption.

Negreanu recently worked with a client originally using a kit without a good GNSS network, so the accuracy was off. Turns out that client was using a virtual station some 100 kilometers away. Connecting the kit to GEODNET solved their positioning problems.

Negreanu has a list of potential large customers that he’ll reach out to as the network develops. And Negreanu expects it to continue to grow. The business model is similar to other projects he’s been involved with (he’s part of a community in Romania that invests in crypto projects) but unlike the others, GEODNET is the first he thinks will “evolve into something bigger, something of real use, not just a project where miners cash out and forget about it.”

“It has a lot of potential,” he said. “It’s one of the most economical stations we’ve found. It’s simple and it doesn’t have a lot of extra fees like the other stations.”

Finding More Uses

Lonestar Tracking, a GPS tracking company, never had a need for high-precision GPS until they began working with refinery clients who required better accuracy, Co-Founder and CTO Thomas Remmert said. To meet that need, they began taking off the shelf consumer grade tracking devices and improving them by adding different GNSS satellites to the external antennas. But they still weren’t able to achieve the necessary accuracy.

Remmert met Horton during a webinar they both spoke on, and after hearing about GEODNET, he realized RTK might be the solution. The team went to work to develop a low cost, consumer grade hardware tracking solution with a subscription based service for corrections. That went well at first, but it became clear these clients would rather not rely on public infrastructure and instead wanted access to base stations located on their property.

GEODNET provides an affordable solution to do exactly that, Remmert said.

“We set up a test unit to get an idea of performance and see if it’s going to be reliable and it has been,” he said. “We ended up taking his electronics and putting them in a ruggedized outdoor enclosure that we can deploy at these facilities. That gives us correction data that is sourced right there, at the location it’s being used.”

High precision GPS is typically associated with a high price tag, Remmert said, so the fact he’s able to tap into GEODNET for less was a big reason he decided to go for the subscription based service.

“As the network grows, it’s easy for us to look at a map and say ok, we have a customer here, here’s a station we can subscribe to for an affordable rate,” he said. “It’s very easy to figure out if we need to deploy a station for a customer or if we can subscribe to a different one. I really like the model. It gives us options.”

Lonestar has one customer using GEODNET at a refinery in Lousiana for asset tracking, Remmert said. A second customer, a Colorado ski resort, has a pilot program to see if Lonestar’s tracking devices, mounted on snow groomers, and GEODNET corrections can be used to accurately measure snow depth.

The groomers travel through the mountains in the evening taking measurements. Position and location are displayed in the groomer and also transmitted back down the mountain to the operations center. Data can be imported directly into the ski resort’s operations software to provide equipment location as well as snow depth, which tells them where they need to deliver snow.

“This is not new technology for ski resorts, but the differentiator is the price,” Remmert said. “They can go out and buy 10,000 plus RTK units for grooming equipment, which is fine, but where we come in is we’re able to offer similar equipment at a fraction of the cost and that pushes the same amount of updates over the air as the equipment is moving across the mountain.”

Providing Corrections for Drones

Creating a decentralized GNSS corrections network solves a lot of core issues for ROCK Robotic customers, including asset use. So when CEO Harrison Knoll, heard about GEODNET, he knew he wanted to be involved.

ROCK uses GEODNET as part of its LiDAR drone scanning solution, with customers ranging from land surveyors to drone survey providers to utilities. The company launched ROCK BASE earlier this year, a miner that’s pre-qualified to earn GEOD tokens.

ROCK Base, a triple-band multi-constellation RTK/GNSS base station, gives customers access to the GEODNET base-station network to geo-reference ROCK Robotic’s 3D data products to millimeter-absolute position accuracy. And it does so without the cost and aggravation that comes with setting up ground control points. The solution will support applications in civil surveying, high-definition mapping and digital twin creation. Knoll is in the process of reaching out to current customers, such as DOTS and municipalities, to get them set up on the RTK network.

ROCK Base tracks all major signals transmitted from GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou, QZSS, and the IRNSS navigation satellite constellations. It includes a survey-grade antennae, cables and the antennae-mounting equipment needed to set up a permanent Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS).

Users can now achieve centimeter level geolocation for photos collected via drone, and that’s becoming a big use case.

The service gives users more control, Knoll said. They can put base stations right outside their office and get really accurate data, and don’t have to worry about government agencies or large corporations getting involved.

“Drone operators won’t ever need a base station again,” he said. “They can get RTK and PPK accurate data anywhere in the world just by stepping outside. They won’t need to lug around a second GNSS receiver; they can run it all through the network in real time or calculate in post processing. It’s big for drone surveyors and map makers.”

Alexandre Cottier, who recently started his own drone company, Tiercot Drone Cottier, in Switzerland, decided it was best to have his own RTK network as subscriptions in his country aren’t cheap. He bought GEODNET’s dual band miner at first, but ended up moving to the triple band upgrade card, which gave him access to NTRIP information. He now uses the service for various missions, including 3D mapping and search and rescue.

Cottier mounted his antenna to his car with a 4G modem, with everything set up on a battery to ensure power. He’s connected to the antenna with his drone and with this setup has an RTK connection wherever he goes for a job. Cottier is also a farmer and plans to perform tests with a tractor and harvester for agricultural applications, as “high precision positioning is coming fast into agriculture.”

Like the others, Cottier expects the network to continue to grow and make a huge impact on those who need high precision GNSS.

“Making an international RTK provider is the most ambitious concept I know,” he said. “It cuts all governmental process and local RTK providers who are asking so much for the connectivity to a network.”

Moving Forward

The plan in the coming months is to more broadly introduce the service, Horton said. Setting up the stations is fairly easy (there are videos to walk new users through it) and mining is also very straightforward. By filling out a form on the website you can get access to the data; they’re not charging for it yet other than a few key customers who are using it in bulk. And as the service rolls out, the team will continue to work on adding more stations around the world to make it even more robust.

Anyone can access the data, Horton said, and while there is a charge, you don’t have to get permission to use the data to build your own custom services. Most companies won’t let you use their station data, but that’s another difference with GEODNET. It’s completely open and available.

This new idea has a lot of potential, with early users expecting big things, especially with the need for RTK in emerging industries like self-driving vehicles and autonomous drones.

“If the license isn’t too expensive, it can become the main RTK provider in the world,” Cottier said. “The community is growing really fast and the mentality of the GEODNET teams seems great for a big evolution in the near future.”

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With nearly four decades of experience, Trimble Inc. has been a leader in precise positioning systems for passenger cars. The company has provided its RTX technology for GNSS/GPS correction to General Motors for the Super Cruise hands-free highway driving system since 2018 and more recently for the hands-off freeway driving capabilities of Nissan’s ProPILOT Assist 2.0 on the 2023 Ariya electric SUV.

At Informa’s AutoTech event in Novi, MI, last month, we caught up with Marcus McCarthy, Director, of Autonomous Navigation Solutions, for Trimble’s on-road division, to discuss the latest trends and challenges for passenger-car positioning.

The company’s GNSS chips are used extensively in agriculture and construction applications for which the value of positioning is higher and tied into a business process. That is not the case for the passenger car industry, which tends to use comparatively low-end GNSS receivers from other suppliers with one or two frequencies and a limited number of channels—all for cost reasons, according to McCarthy.

For passenger cars, the company avoids hardware but provides positioning-engine software that makes the best use of the data stream to and from GNSS receiver chips. Its solution improves the average precision from roughly 3-10 m to better than 20 cm in open skies, which makes a big difference in the targeted car applications, he said. “The challenge for us over the last number of years has been to make those inexpensive receivers as accurate as possible” with software.

The company’s positioning engine does this by outputting position, time, and orientation data, which are fused with data from precision maps and sensors like cameras or lidars. If data from those sources “line up, within reason,” then the system is deemed safe and can be used for driving, he said. If they’re not, that’s a risky situation, and so the system disengages.

“For a lane that is 3 m wide, a tolerance within that 20 cm is generally going to be good enough,” he said, for Trimble’s systems used in SAE Level 2 and 3 automated driving systems. However, he says that higher levels of autonomy may need greater precision—in the 10-cm range.

“We already have R&D systems that are there,” McCarthy said. “We will get there with this inexpensive [GNSS receiver] technology.”

However, he says that error estimation is even more important than precision at higher autonomy levels.

“When we output a position, we also output an estimate of error with that position,” he explained. “That estimate of error, in my mind, is more important than the precision of the position because it tells the system whether it can use the position data or not. It’s kind of a black-and-white thing when it comes to saving lives.”

At what point is the data not usable? He put it into numbers.

“The target integrity risk of 10-7, which is one failure in 1244 years of continuous operation,” said McCarthy. “When we get to Level 4, that’s the standard [at which] we’re operating. I’m not going to trust my family in a vehicle if it’s not operating at that level.”

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The Boreas A90 and A70 are strategic-grade inertial measurement units (IMU) that deliver acceleration and orientation with superior accuracy, stability and reliability under all conditions with no reliance on GNSS. They also feature automatic gyrocompassing with industry-leading reductions in size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) compared to competing systems on the market, the company said.

“Our world-first Boreas DFOG technology represented a step-change for fiber-optic gyroscopes. The addition of the A Series ensures we have greater ability to meet the rapidly growing demand for ultra-high accuracy solutions, even in the most demanding conditions,” said Xavier Orr, CEO and cofounder of Advanced Navigation.

“The A Series is an embodiment of industry-leading performance and cost-effectiveness. We look forward to seeing this technology unlock new possibilities across an expanse of fields, from autonomous vehicles and land surveying to subsea navigation and mining.”

The Boreas A90 and A70 are IMUs that contain ultra-high accuracy DFOG and high-performance closed-loop accelerometers. Boreas A90 offers ultra-high performance, while the A70 offers high performance. Featuring ultra-fast gyrocompassing, both systems can acquire and maintain an accurate heading under all conditions with no reliance on GNSS, making them well-suited for surveying, mapping and navigation across subsea, marine, land and air applications.

The Boreas A90 and A70 also offer an optional license to add INS capabilities and enable integration with external GNSS receivers using Advanced Navigation’s comprehensive range of interfaces and communication protocols.

The Boreas range is targeted at applications requiring always available, ultra-high accuracy orientation and navigation scenarios including marine, surveying, subsea, aerospace, robotics and space.
DFOG is Advanced Navigation’s patented technology, developed over 25 years involving two research institutions. DFOG was created to meet the demand for smaller and more cost-effective FOGs, while increasing reliability and accuracy.

The first generation of FOG made available in 1976 used analog signals and analog signal processing. The second generation was developed in 1994 and is still used to this day. It improved upon the first generation with a hybrid approach using an analog signal in the coil with digital signal processing.
In 2021, FOG evolved into DFOG. This third generation of FOG sets itself apart by being completely digital, providing higher performance and reliability while enabling up to 40% reductions in SWaP-C.

To achieve this, three different, yet complementary, technologies have been developed to improve the capabilities of FOG: Digital modulation techniques, which allows in-run variable errors in the coil to be measured and removed from the measurements; a revolutionary optical chip that integrates five sensitive components into a single chip and removing all the fiber splices; and a specially designed optical coil developed to take full advantage of the digital modulation techniques.

Prof. Arnan Mitchell, director of the Integrated Photonics and Applications Centre at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), was a key partner in developing DFOG technology with Advanced Navigation. He is a noted authority on microtechnology and nanotechnology whose work on shrinking the components of a fiber-optic gyroscope onto a single chip proved to be one of the key aspects of DFOG’s revolutionary technology. This innovation allows DFOG to have a significantly lower SWaP-C than other similar FOGs, all the while delivering higher accuracy and reliability.

“By printing optical components onto a tiny chip, we are creating more compact and reliable fiber-optic gyroscopes with Advanced Navigation,” Mitchell said.

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The unmanned systems industry is preparing for federal rulemaking so flights beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) will become the rule rather than the exception. But how can industry and government safely achieve that outcome? And what technology is needed to make routine BVLOS flights a reality?

Our Inside discussion will include:

• How to achieve assured connectivity for BVLOS
• Techniques for command and control utilizing LTE, C Band, ISM and Satcom
• How BVLOS can be scaled
• Integrating BVLOS into the NAS

uAvionix, based in Bigfork, Montana and Leesburg, Virginia, is working with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to answer those questions. The company brings its SkyLine command and control software and pingRID drone remote identification system to the Choctaw Nation’s expansive test range, which covers more than 44,000 acres in the southeastern part of the state.

Their partnership will be explored in the upcoming webinar, “Entering the Age of BVLOS.” Join us for this free in-depth webinar on Tuesday, April 4, 2023 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM EDT. REGISTER HERE

The post Get Inside Perspectives on Making the BVLOS Safety Case appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

GPS III is now on its ways to its operational orbit of about 12,500 miles above Earth, according to a Lockheed Martin news release. U.S. Space Force and Lockheed Martin engineers confirmed signal acquisition about 83 minutes after the 7:24 a.m. Eastern lift off.

“Collectively, within the system’s already operational satellites, the payload today will further the U.S. Space Force’s ability to provide mission critical global access, persistence and awareness for our national security,” SpaceX quality systems engineering manager Kate Tice said during the launch’s webcast.

GPS III SV06 is the 25th Military-Code satellite introduced to the constellation, with GPS III providing three times greater accuracy and eight times greater anti-jamming capability than the others. It also features a modular design so new technology and capabilities can be easily added in the future.

The Falcon 9 that carried the GPS III is a two-stage liquid fueled launch vehicle, Tice said. The bottom two thirds of the vehicle is the first stage, which successfully completed its job of accelerating the vehicle to the edge of space and separating from the second stage, which carries the payload.

After separation, the first stage autonomously steered itself to and landed on the Shortfall of Gravitas drone ship waiting in the Atlantic Ocean a few hundred miles from the Florida coast.

This marked the fifth overall GPS mission for SpaceX, with one satellite launched in 2018, two in 2020 and one in 2021, Tice said.

Lockheed Martin has completed production on its original GPS III SV1-10 contract, with the Space Force declaring SV10 Available for Launch last December. GPS III SV06 will soon join SV01-05 in orbit. GPS III SV07-10 are completed and in storage waiting to be called up for launch.

The company is also designing and building the GPS III Follow On (GPS IIIF), which will feature an accuracy-enhancing laser retroreflector array, a new search and rescue payload, a fully digital navigation payload as well as other technologies. Last November, Space Systems Command contracted Lockheed Martin to build the SV11-20, announcing it had exercised the third production option valued at about $744 million for the procurement of three additional GPS IIIF satellites.

“Lockheed Martin is incredibly proud to support the Space Force’s GPS team as it continues to add world-class capabilities that underpin U.S. national security with enhanced performance and accuracy,” Lockheed Martin Vice President for Navigation Systems Andre Trotter said, according to the release. “With the last GPS III satellite complete and ready to launch, production of the first GPS IIIF vehicle is underway.”

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ESA will present this and other initiatives at the Ministerial Council (CM22) later this month. The goal of the LEO-PNT initiative is to build and fly an initial constellation consisting of six to 12 satellites to test capabilities and demonstrate use of new frequency bands. The demo is expected to take place in 2026.

As user applications and demand grows, standard GNSS alone is not enough. LEO-PNT will help make satnav coverage more robust and more resilient, ESA Director of Navigation Javier Benedicto said during a media briefing about the future of navigation, putting Europe ahead in this technical field.

“Extending GNSS to low Earth orbit would offer higher signal strength with more reliable indoor coverage and resistance to jamming. We can also provide two way authentication signals, which are possible over the shorter distance provided by the low Earth orbit satellites,” Benedicto said. “And by bringing it closer to Earth, LEO-PNT has the potential to make satellites cheaper and more efficient and launches more economical.”

LEO satellites provide shorter latency for communication back to the ground than traditional GNSS, another benefit. And they don’t have to rely on atomic clocks to calculate an accurate time; other methods can be used, such as relayed signals from Europe’s Galileo satellites.

While the architecture for the operational system hasn’t been determined yet, the vision is to develop a multi-layer satnav system-of-systems that may include communication capabilities, enabling more accurate and robust PNT services in the future.

“We see a growth, an evolution of the architecture of satellite navigation systems for which the current MEO-based GNSS system will play kind of the backbone role, and this will be complemented by other systems in low Earth orbit with dedicated or piggyback payloads on other satellites,” Benedicto said. “There will also be an interconnection between those layers, the medium Earth orbit layer and the low Earth orbit layer and the satellites in between. These are all things we are studying and precisely the purpose of the in-orbit demonstration.”

The program, he said, will “demonstrate to ourselves the added value of all those new technologies,” before decisions are made on the future evolution of the overall architecture for satellite navigation.

Other areas of focus

Benedicto hit on two other new initiatives during the briefing, Genesis and Moonlight, that will be presented at CM22. ESA will also seek support for a third phase of its Navigation Innovation and Support Programme (NAVISP), which works with European businesses and researchers to develop innovative solutions. It also supports Member States in national objectives.

Through Genesis, also part of FutureNAV, ESA plans to enhance Galileo’s positioning performance and to improve modeling of the Earth, Benedicto said. Genesis will precisely map the Earth’s shape using, for the first time, four satellite-based measuring methods combined onto one platform. This will reduce biases and errors to create an updated global model of the Earth, known as the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF), achieving 1 mm accuracy.

The more precise model, Benedicto said, will have a large impact on navigation and Earth science applications like land surveying and measuring seal level rise.

Going beyond Earth, Moonlight, ESA’s Lunar Communication and Navigation System, will extend satnav coverage to the Moon, Benedicto said. Based on GNSS, it will provide real-time position, velocity and time to the lunar surface and Cislunar users. With Moonlight, there will no longer be a need to rely on support from the ground, making these missions more affordable and sustainable. ESA is collaborating with NASA and JAXA on this project.

Enhancing Galileo and EGNOS

Benedicto also provided updates on Galileo and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS). Galileo now has 28 satellites in orbit, 24 of which are operational, and provides accuracy of better than 1 meter.

The satellites in orbit now continue to perform well, Benedicto said, though 10 first gen Galileo satellites are tested, qualified and ready to fly if needed. The additional satellites can provide service resilience and will likely be deployed at the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024.

There are now 12 second generation Galileo satellites under development with plans to procure up to 24. These all digital satellites will be deployed into space with electrical propulsion for the first time, making such deployments more affordable. They’ll also have more powerful navigation payloads with more precise atomic clocks, advanced protection mechanisms to safeguard the signals and the ability to respond to evolving user needs.

For EGNOS, the first pan-European satellite navigation system, ESA plans to develop a new generation that will combine the use of Galileo signals with GPS signals for the first time, adding accuracy and robustness of navigation for air traffic and other safety-of-life applications. This latest generation, EGNOS v3, will be introduced later this decade.

“The addition of the frequency L5, which will be incorporated into EGNOS v3, will improve service resilience and will introduce new services for other sectors such as maritime navigation and rail,” Benedicto said, “extending coverage from the European continent to link up seamlessly with other systems worldwide.”

Looking to the Future

Through various initiatives, ESA is focused on moving satnav forward and cementing Europe’s place as a leader in this field.

“We have developed the best satnav systems in the world, but we have to go beyond that,” Benedicto said in a video on the ESA website. “Our ambition at the [CM22] conference is to look into the future. We have to prepare technology and solutions to meet the expectations of our citizens …we want to continue to be leaders and our system to be used as the reference worldwide.”

Image Copyright: ESA-P. Carril

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SouthPAN will use Lockheed Martin’s Second-Generation Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS), broadcasting on two frequencies to augment signals from two GNSS: the U.S.’s GPS and the European Union’s Galileo system. The network is expected to be fully operational by 2028. It will be provided as a service for 19 years with an option to extend, improving accuracy from 5 to 10 meters to within 10 centimeters.

SouthPAN is a partnership between Geoscience Australia and Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) under the Australia New Zealand Science, Research and Innovation Cooperation Agreement.

“SouthPAN will deliver instant enhanced precision and reliable positioning to a number of industries,” said Andre Trotter, Lockheed Martin’s VP for the Navigation Systems mission area. “We have the ability to expand this enabling technology globally, and we’re really excited about that. We already have an understanding of the benefits of second-generation SBAS, and we expect more will be realized as we bring in users and learn about new applications of the technology.”

The benefits
The second-generation SBAS augments messages for dual frequencies via multiple constellations (DFMC), using both L1 and L5 frequencies from the GPS constellation and E1 and E5a frequencies from Galileo. This enhances integrity and accuracy and eliminates reliance on just one GNSS. Industries that can take advantage of SouthPAN include aviation, agriculture, maritime, construction, mining, rail and utilities.

The Lockheed Martin team developing SouthPAN has experience with every certified SBAS currently deployed, said Bob Jackson, Lockheed Martin’s SouthPAN program manager. They looked at what has worked well with the other programs and what could be improved, and “designed a system to maximize those lessons learned.” These include the U.S.’s Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) and Japan’s Multi-functional Satellite Augmentation System (MSAS), all of which only augment GPS-like L1 signals.

Introducing the DFMC signal on the L5 frequency represents a huge step forward, Jackson said, as does bringing precise point positioning (PPP) signal broadcasting to the E5a signal.

“DFMC SBAS has some promising capabilities, including much more expansive coverage with fewer assets,” Jackson said. “It will also perform very well in the equatorial region, which is known to have been a constraint of legacy L1 SBAS. The introduction of PPP on E5a has some exciting medium to longer term potential applications for end users as well. They’re not only getting very precise positioning, but they’re broadcasting it on a frequency in the protected aeronautical band for safety of life applications, so that has a lot of good potential going forward.”

SouthPAN has a widely dispersed set of reference stations, Jackson said, with good accuracy and integrity because of their geometry to the GPS and Galileo satellites they’re augmenting. The team also has made improvements to the system design, simplifying and streamlining the architecture to make it more robust and the process more secure.

Second-Generation SBAS will be optimized as more E5a and L5-capable Galileo and GPS III/IIIF satellites continue to enhance those constellations.

How it works
The second generation SBAS receives and monitors basic signals from multiple GNSS through widely distributed reference stations. The data is collected by a SBAS testbed master station that computes corrections and integrity bounds for each signal and then generates augmentation messages.

Those messages are sent to an SBAS payload hosted on an Inmarsat geostationary Earth orbit satellite via an uplink antenna in Uralla, New South Wales. The Inmarsat satellite rebroadcasts the augmentation messages with the corrections and integrity data to end users’ GNSS receivers. And it all happens in less than 6 seconds.

In partnership with Geoscience Australia, a variety of demos and trials of various capabilities were conducted through a testbed between 2017 and 2020, Jackson said, providing the governments with “the information and confidence they needed to go forward with the operational system.”

For example, an autonomous vehicle was configured to drive around a test track and demonstrate the navigation of a vehicle using the SBAS signal, Jackson said. Innovative applications were also demonstrated for precision farming that go beyond applying fertilizer and crop field monitoring. One example is putting collars on cattle to manage grazing patterns in the field, enabling more efficient use of the land, reducing environmental degradation and increasing the farm’s output.

The maritime industry, as another example, is interested in the efficiency the system can bring to autonomously docking ships at port as well as maximizing ship loads for increased efficiency.
This, of course, is only the beginning, with new applications expected to emerge over time.

The future
The plan is to expand the technology globally, Trotter said, and to make it available through a service-based business model so acquisition is fast and easy. Multiple users will have access to the same system, much like GPS today, so the cost can be spread out among them, making it more affordable.

“This is an enabling technology, and all the end users will be able to innovate,” Trotter said. “That is the intent, to provide the technology and allow the art of the possible to come to fruition.”

Photo credit: Michael Hull.

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The product gives access to the company’s global reference station network and L-band satellite distribution supplying corrections for GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou.

The Vega 34 board connectors have no circuitry changes and are identical for all Vector users who can now add Atlas H10 and H30 PPP in their solutions. “Vega 34 gives our integrators an easy path forward to enrich their own product offerings,” said Miles Ware, Director of Marketing at Hemisphere. “They can take advantage of other standard features like over 1100 tracking channels, Cygnus interference mitigation technology and spectral analysis.” 

The Vega 34 uses dual antenna ports to create a series of additional capabilities including fast, high-accuracy heading over short baselines, RTK positioning, onboard Atlas L band, RTK-enabled heave, low-power consumption, and precise timing.

Scalable Solutions

With the Vega 34, positioning is scalable and field upgradeable with all Hemisphere software and service options. Utilize the same centimeter-level accuracy in either single-frequency mode, or employ the full performance and fast RTK initialization times over long distances with multi-frequency multi-constellation GNSS signals. High-accuracy L-band positioning from meter to sub-decimeter levels available via Atlas correction service.

Key Features

• Extremely accurate heading with long baselines
• Available multi-frequency position, dual-frequency heading supporting GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo, QZSS, IRNSS, and L band (Atlas®)
• Atlas L band capable to 4 cm RMS
• Athena GNSS engine providing best-in-class RTK performance
• Excellent coasting performance
• 5 cm RMS RTK-enabled heave accuracy
• Strong multipath mitigation and interference rejection
• New multi-axis gyro and tilt sensor for reliable coverage during short GNSS outages

The introduction of the Vega 34 board brings a new firmware release. Version 6.05 extends several features and improvements and introduces NavIC (IRNSS) tracking and positioning across the Vega and Phantom product lines. Both RTK and Atlas positioning solutions are enhanced with an improved performance in challenging environments. Users of the BeiDou satellite systems and B2b PPP integrators will see significant advances in their solutions.

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The Pulse-40 is a 6 degrees-of-freedom, tactical grade IMU integrating micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) three-axes accelerometers and gyroscopes in a unique redundant design that permits reducing system size while pushing performance level to the maximum.

Among the performance specifications, the Pulse-40 features excellent gyro and accelerometer bias instability of 0.8°/h and 6µg respectively, enabling long dead reckoning and maintaining excellent heading performance.
 
Thanks to a rigorous selection of sensors featuring extremely low vibration rectification error (VRE), the Pulse-40 can sustain high-vibration environments, up to 10g RMS. Data reliability during operation is also ensured by the embedded continuous built-in-test, enabled by redundant sensor integration. This functionality is a key parameter for critical applications. The Pulse-40 requires no periodic maintenance. An intensive qualification process including accelerated aging guarantees that the sensor behavior is stable over time.

The Pulse-40 comes with a 2-year warranty. It is export license-free and ITAR-free.
 
SBG Systems has a long-term history of designing quality MEMS-based inertial navigation systems (INS). Extensive research in signal processing, micro-electronics, calibration algorithms, and sensor qualification have won the company a reputation for accuracy and reliability since 2007. Its sensor calibration and validation tools, initially based on a single axis motion simulator with a temperature chamber, have evolved over the years and are now based on 100% automated, multi-axis motion simulators with temperature chambers. The high level of automation mitigates human error risk and ensures that all the delivered products meet their specifications.
 

SBG Systems is an ISO 9001:2015 certified company.
 

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The Trimble AP+ Land is a comprehensive solution for land vehicle applications that is small enough to easily integrate into the most compact mobile mapping systems. It is also compatible with virtually any type of mapping sensor, according to the company, including single or multi-LiDAR systems, video cameras, photogrammetric and panoramic cameras and other similar sensors.

Configurable to meet the mapping, positioning and direct georeferencing (DG) accuracy demands of mapping and positioning applications in challenging GNSS signal environments, the Trimble AP+ Land solution features:

• Applanix IN-Fusion+ GNSS-aided inertial firmware with Trimble ProPoint GNSS positioning technology
• Dual embedded survey-grade GNSS chipsets that can receive multi-frequency and multi-constellation signals
• Dual custom designed inertial measurement units (IMUs)
• Distance measurement indicator (DMI)
• Compact size
• Low power consumption
• Optional RTK and Trimble CenterPoint RTX real-time correction service support
• Full integration and post-sales support through the Applanix Global support network

“We have taken the most advanced features of Applanix inertial and Trimble GNSS technology, and packaged them into a powerful compact and versatile solution optimized for mobile mapping and positioning applications,” said Joe Hutton, Applanix’s director of inertial technology, air and land products.

The Trimble AP+ Land OEM solution is supported by the Applanix POSPac MMS post-processing software, which features Trimble CenterPoint RTX post-processing for centimeter-level positioning globally without the need for base stations. These capabilities enable integrators to produce an efficient land mobile mapping system.

For LiDAR integrators, the Trimble AP+ Land OEM is compatible with the POSPac MMS LiDAR QC tools.  SLAM technology computes the IMU to LiDAR boresight misalignment angles and also adjusts the trajectory to achieve the highest level of georeferencing accuracy in the generated point cloud.

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