Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
As urban populations grow, cities will have to become smarter to provide the same level of services to their residents, while tackling growing environmental and logistical challenges. A dedicated session at the recent Munich Satellite Navigation Summit discussed the future needs of smart cities and how synergies between GNSS and other emerging technologies support the applications that will meet these needs.
By Inside GNSS
The Copernicus Masters 2019 competition is now open for submissions. This international competition awards prizes to innovative solutions, developments and ideas for business and society that use Copernicus data.
By Stan Goff
Organized by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Eidgenössische Techniche Hochschule (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland, the 7th International Colloquium on Scientific and Fundamental Aspects of GNSS is scheduled to take place this September in Zurich.
By Inside GNSS
Automated vehicles are on the way, and the European GNSS Agency (GSA) sees satellite navigation as a core technology that will help to ensure their safe operation. At the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the GSA shared its space with the “ESCAPE” project, a European Union-funded initiative that has developed a unique positioning module for autonomous or semi-autonomous driving.
By Inside GNSS
While several smartphone models currently are fitted with chipsets from both Broadcom and Qualcomm Technologies and already have dual-frequency solutions that support Galileo E1/E5a signals, expectations are that we’ll soon see a significant increase in Galileo users coming from the United States.
By Inside GNSS
Officials representing the European Union are now publicly advancing the use of EU space assets, including the Galileo satellite-based navigation system, for military purposes. Galileo has traditionally been touted as a purely civil, purely nonmilitary system, but times and circumstances are changing.
The theme of the EU Space Week session Security and Defense was established by the introductory text that appeared in the event’s program: “The development of the European space sector has, from the outset, been linked to security, either that of the Member States or the EU itself.”
By Peter Gutierrez
Officials for the Munich Satellite Navigation Summit announced the theme for the 2019 event while attending the ION GNSS+ conference in Miami last fall and are now preparing for their 2019 conference in the spring.
“Augment Yourself with GNSS…” will be the theme of the 2019 edition of the Munich Satellite Navigation Summit, taking place on March 25–27, 2019 at the Alte Kongresshalle in Munich. The organizing Institute of Space Technology and Space Applications (ISTA) of the Universitaet der Bundeswehr Muenchen will invite experts from all over the world to talk about the latest news on Positioning, Navigation, and Timing and their role for Augmented/Mixed Reality as well as other up-to-date technologies.
By Inside GNSS
With a collection of some of the best researchers in space and aeronautics involved, the sky may indeed just be the limit.
The European Space Agency (ESA) and Stanford University are challenging global artificial intelligence (AI) specialists to train software to judge the position and orientation of a drifting satellite with a single glance. Such a skill could be used in the future for servicing or salvaging spacecraft, according to the ESA.
By Stan Goff
Thinking Allowed
In the GNSS race launches are often quoted as the main event for the coming year — there won’t be another launch for Galileo until 2020. Despite this, in 2019 new capabilities are going to be introduced that will allow users to profit even more of the unique features offered by the Galileo system. As Galileo Galilei used to say “e pur si muove” (and yet it moves).
By Inside GNSS
The European Union’s Horizon 2020 HELIOS and its coordinator Orolia have announced the launch in Europe and the United States of an upgrade to its McMurdo FastFind 220 and Kannad SafeLink Solo personal location beacons (PLB) to include Galileo.
By Inside GNSS
Spaceopal has successfully passed the Maintenance Handover Review (MHOR) for the Level 2 and 3 Maintenance of the European GNSS Service Centre (GSC) in Torrejón de Ardoz, located outside Madrid, Spain.
By Inside GNSS
Astri Polska has finalized a test environment for the space-grade GNSS receivers developed within the European Space Agency’s (ESA) FLIGhT project. On February 7, the final review was approved and the FLIGhT software officially started working as a standard ESA tool in the ESTEC European Navigation Laboratory (ENL) in Noordvijk, the Netherlands.
By Inside GNSS
The 12thedition of the ESA/JRC International Summer School on GNSS 2019 will be held in Vila Nova de Cerveira, in the north of Portugal, from July 15-26.
By Inside GNSS
Europe has been quite proud of recent Galileo achievements — with good reason — and the global navigation satellite system continues to build off that momentum.
By Stan Goff
The Institute of Navigation (ION) presented its Annual Awards during the ION International Technical Meeting (ITM) and Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications (PTTI) meeting in Reston, Virginia, January 28-31, 2019. The ION Annual Awards Program is sponsored by The Institute of Navigation to recognize individuals making significant contributions or demonstrating outstanding performance relating to the art and science of navigation.
By Inside GNSS
