Columns and Editorials Archives - Page 22 of 37 - Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design

September 30, 2014

GNSS Hotspots | September 2014

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. STOP THE CAR!
Las Vegas, Nevada USA

By Inside GNSS

Alison Brown’s Compass Points

Return to main article

Engineering Specialties

Systems design, algorithm design, systems integration and testing

GNSS Event that most signifies to you that GNSS has “arrived”.

Selective Availability being disabled to allow commercial users to benefit from full accuracy of GPS

Engineering Mentor

By Inside GNSS

September 27, 2014

A Learning Experience

My favorite bumper sticker this month: “Oh, no! Not another learning experience!”

After 20 years of putting together a European GNSS program, disappointment over the skewed launch of the first fully operational Galileo satellites is palpable and widely felt. For end users, it is uniformly bad news, and no system provider that sincerely wants to achieve interoperability and robustness in a system of GNSS systems can relish the European program’s current difficulties.

By Inside GNSS

September 24, 2014

OCX Program Restructured, Delayed Again

Editor’s Note: An exclusive interview with Gen. Hyten is available here with more details.

Details are emerging about another restructuring of the contract for the new GPS ground system, a deal that pushes completion of the project back another two years and recasts the remaining work to fit within the Air Force’s strained financial profile.

By Dee Ann Divis

How do you trust centimeter level accuracy positioning?

Q: How do you trust centimeter level accuracy positioning?

By Inside GNSS

September 17, 2014

Alison Brown: Tally Ho! The Hunt for GNSS Innovations

In 2005, Alison Brown was the first Sidney Sussex College woman alumna to be named as an honorary Fellow in recognition of her distinguished technical contributions. Pictured here with Keith Glover, now head of engineering at Cambridge University, who taught Brown control systems engineering, and Donald Green, her director of studies while she was an undergraduate.

SIDEBAR: Alison Brown’s Compass Points

On display in the Smithsonian’s “Time and Navigation” exhibit in Washington D.C. is the world’s first GPS-enabled cell phone. It was developed in 1995 by NAVSYS Corporation, a Colorado GNSS and inertial R& D company, as part of the push to build a national emergency notification system for mobile users, E911.

By Inside GNSS

Developing an Ionospheric Scintillation Monitoring Receiver

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

July 27, 2014

The Next Big Mac

Here’s the coolest “technology-meets-ingenuity-meets-sustainable-economics” story that I’ve heard in a long time: the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) Reboot Project, a crowd-funded rescue mission to repurpose a 36-year-old NASA spacecraft.

By Dee Ann Divis

July 24, 2014

GNSS Hotspots | July 2014

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. SMART BALL
Portland, Oregon USA
√ Adidas has designed every official World Cup ball since 1970. And that’s not all! The Adidas Innovation Team in Portland, Oregon, spent 4 years on a smart soccer ball with a “six-axis MEMS accelerometer sensor package” that can detect speed, spin, strike and flight path data and whip it on over to the special GPS app on your iPhone. The app interprets the data for you, coaches you, and keeps a video to show your friends. On sale now for only $299.

By Inside GNSS

July 21, 2014

New Leaders at the GPS Helm

Washington, D.C., has a peculiarity of seasons. While most of the world marks the shifts between winter and spring, summer and autumn, the politicos on the streets of the U.S. capital count the passage of time in two-year increments.

New operatives and appointees flock to the centers of power in the early days of each administration and the opening of each Congress, then migrate to friendlier climes as congressional elections loom and the administration winds down — as it is now.

By Dee Ann Divis

Assessing the Performance of GNSS Signal Acquisition

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

GNSS Position Estimates

Q: How do measurement errors propagate into GNSS position estimates?

A: Not surprisingly, GNSS positioning accuracy is largely dependent on the level of measurement errors induced by orbital inaccuracies, atmospheric effects, multipath, and noise. This article discusses how, specifically, these errors manifest as position errors.

By Inside GNSS