Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
The Russian GLONASS system, which had appeared to be recovering from a series of organizational and technical problems in recent years, suffered two major disruptions during April.
By Inside GNSS
Working Papers explore the technical and scientific themes that underpin GNSS programs and applications. This regular column is coordinated by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Günter Hein, head of Europe’s Galileo Operations and Evolution.
By Inside GNSS
Q: How do you compute a relative position using GNSS?
A: In many applications the absolute position of an object is less important than the relative position to other objects in the vicinity. An obvious example is a collision avoidance system, wherein the proximity of nearly vehicles is much more important than whether the vehicles are located on street “X” or “Y.”
By Inside GNSS
SIDEBAR: Michel Monnerat’s Compass Points
“I was born in Arles, in the south of France,” says Michel Monnerat, “but I left France before my first birthday. We moved many times, from place to place.”
Monnerat’s father worked for a civil engineering company, specializing in maritime works — harbor construction, coastal protection, and such. His family lived in Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Tunisia, but Monnerat spent most of my early life in Lomé, the capital city of Togo.
By Inside GNSS
Europe has been talking up its European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS, for short) — and why shouldn’t it? Talking about Galileo doesn’t get satellites off the ground. EGNOS, on the other hand, is up and running, and has been since 2009. If the object is to build confidence in European savoir faire, why not talk about a real success like EGNOS?
By Peter Gutierrez
A shift in the Air Force’s acquisition plan should shave a year off the time needed to finish development of new M-code–equipped receivers and potentially inspire more commercially flavored innovation — and perhaps even the entry of new vendors.
The new approach enables the Pentagon to fulfill a congressional mandate to buy only M-code receivers after fiscal year 2017 and could help convince the user community, jaded by previous delays, to speed adoption of the more resilient devices.
By Dee Ann Divis
Smartphone apps represent the most prominent market for GNSS. No other device or community of users has achieved a larger growth and market penetration in the period 2008–2013.
Apple introduced the first GPS capability on a smartphone in June 2008 with the iPhone3, and one year later Samsung introduced its Samsung Galaxy, incorporating the first GPS receiver for this brand.
By Inside GNSS
This webinar took place on May 7, 2014
Recorded version for on-demand viewing (Requires Windows Media Player 9 or higher to view)
Webinar Presentation Slides
By Inside GNSS
Don’t be misled by the title. This is not another round of speculation about who should be proclaimed the rightful “Father of GPS.”
By Inside GNSS
With the optimism of college-bound seniors touring the Ivy League, GPS managers have been weighing options to dramatically change the GPS constellation. Now, after studying the costs, considering the benefits, and assessing the funding climate, officials have made the starkly fiscal decision to stick close to home and take a few extra years to finish.
By Dee Ann Divis
The world’s GNSS systems are entering a phase of transformation — modernization of existing systems (the U.S. Global Positioning System and Russia’s GLONASS) and development of new systems (China’s BeiDou and Europe’s Galileo) that benefit from the lessons learned from the original GNSSs.
Notable among the modernization initiatives is an interest in implementing new satellite signal designs. These include the GPS L5, L2C, and L1C signals as well as those signals designed for Galileo and BeiDou. GLONASS designers are also working on modernized signals.
By Inside GNSS
