Tag: 2019 State of the Industry Survey Report

Economic outlook: GNSS on the rise
Trade wars may be THE only serious limiting factor

The GNSS chip market worldwide is projected to grow by $2.7 billion, guided by a compounded growth of 8%, to 2025, according to ResearchandMarkets. Other market reports cite “huge growth” and “strong development” in GNSS-related markets such as simulators, aviation and defense. We can count ourselves lucky — or remarkably prescient — to be part of such a robust industry, in such uncertain times.

The world conquest by smartphones, smart cities and the internet of things (IoT) will strongly support this market growth. Also on the horizon is the rising tide of GPS-enabled vehicles, putting automotive telematics on the road to assisted-driver and ultimately autonomous driving.

M&A. Meanwhile, the fast pace of mergers and acquisitions among manufacturers and integrators will strengthen the GNSS economy and propel it even higher. Such interactivity will bring higher revenue shares to key players as well as support overall profitability increases to come.

Accurate monitoring of operations and assets; the astonishing rise of drones to active roles in many industries; and the constant innovation and imagination churning out new products, solutions and augmented services — all will consolidate the strength of our remarkable economy. The much-heralded arrivals of BeiDou and Galileo fully upon the scene will only make the immediate future stronger for our industry.

Chart: GPS World

PNT Broadly. Where GPS, GNSS, and multi-GNSS go, they carry other positioning technologies along on their coat tails: inertial, signals of opportunity, Wi-Fi, ultra-wideband and more. The growing pie is certainly big enough for all to get a large share.

That’s not to say there are no barriers to growth, no clouds on the horizon. Licensing, laws and regulations will, as ever, constrict growth. This is not always a bad thing. Controlled growth and wise use benefit us all, and prevent runaway bubbles that can burst for lack of proper internal support.

Mapping. Meanwhile, a host of well-established businesses and nascent enterprises exploit the increased interest in location-based information as an enabler for many consumer, organizational and governmental services. This means that mapping and all manner of technologies associated with it — laser, lidar, infrared and more — may grow at even faster rates.

A brave new world awaits. Once GNSS is integrated with artificial intelligence, there’s no telling where we’re headed.

Of the many uncertainties across the globe, economic warfare poses a greater risk to GNSS than does military conflict. The latter, cynically enough, will actually benefit the industry in the short run, though its effect may chill in the long run.

Chart: GPS World

Trade. One of the biggest questions confronting the industry now is whether the trade and tariff war between the U.S. and China will continue, and what effect it will have. Experts disagree widely on both questions, though almost all of them, except the leaders who are supposed to listen to them, agree that it’s generally a bad thing.

As was stated in these pages at this time last year, if business confidence falls as a result, global output could also drop.

Opportunities Outweigh Obstacles

Industry leaders confront spectrum issues, jamming

In contrast to the rosy forecast on the previous page, serious issues confront the GNSS market. None of them are more serious, thornier or difficult to resolve (despite the many solutions offered) than spoofing and jamming.

Like a tragic hero, GNSS carries a potentially fatal weakness within its strength. To be ubiquitous and highly precise, the signals come from space. Coming from space, they are weak and susceptible to malicious meddling.

Other political and technological obstacles put pressure on the GNSS industry, and therefore upon the whole PNT industry. GNSS always will be the backbone, the center core holding together various adjunct positioning, navigation and timing technologies.

These issues, following closely on the heels of spoofing and jamming, include but are not limited to: spectrum competition and spectrum management; cybersecurity; privacy; net neutrality; national security export controls; product liability; and failure, however temporary, of GNSS systems.

We’ve seen this last most recently with Galileo, but all the GNSS have suffered such setbacks, and surely will again. The nature of the response to each occurrence is the most critical factor.

Keep on the Sunny Side. However, the opportunities far outweigh the obstacles. The greatest opportunities always arise from the greatest asset that the industry possesses: intellectual capital.

Many of the opportunities are cited on the previous page. While high precision will continue to lead the innovation charge and provide the highest profit margins, the smartphone and the automobile will increasingly take up the MVP (most valuable positioner) role within the industry.

Market Intelligence. All these factors make unprecedented demands on management attention and agility. Executives need good market intelligence to keep abreast and ahead of fast-developing research and development trends, market shifts, developments in neighboring or competing technologies, and protectionist tariffs and import/export controls.

Insight provided by all regions, sectors and job titles

This year’s State of the GNSS Industry Survey provides insight from around the globe.

Just over half our respondents work for companies or organizations headquartered in North America; 15% are from Asia-based operations; roughly 10% each for enterprises in Europe and Latin America; slightly less for the Pacific region; and the rest of the replies scattered across Africa, the Middle East and Russia. Truly an international sampling!

Chart: GPS World

Chart: GPS World

Chart: GPS World

Chart: GPS World

Demographics. For job titles, we drew in-depth data from:
- owner/president/CEO, 21%
- engineer, 20%
- general, product or program manager, 19%
- other, mostly surveyors or GIS analysts, 18%
- researcher, 10%
- vice president, CTO, COO, CFO or similar, 6%
- sales and marketing, 5%
Sector. The intelligence in the following pages accumulated from these industry verticals:
- survey and high precision, 29%
- defense, security, government, 19%
- mapping, data acquisition/processing, GIS, 14%
- satellites, signals and simulation, 9%
- machine control, precision agriculture, or transportation (non-autonomous), 6%
- autonomous vehicles (air, ground or water), 5%
- wireless and consumer, 4%
- other, 13%
September 30, 2019
Delivering the world through maps

GIS ready to meet demands of IoT, smart cities

The mapping industry has taken to UAVs — sort of. Put it this way: UAVs are only one tool in the GIS (geographic information system) toolbox.

A third of our respondents (32%) say that UAVs will be used for less than 10% of field survey activity in the next three years. In contrast, a quarter of our respondents say that drones with variety of sensors (photogrammetric, lidar, hyperspectral, etc.) will perform up to half of mapping work.

The response is similar to replies in 2018. While UAVs are an exciting new technology for mapping, most respondents to our survey recognize the continued value of hands-on, in-the-field data collection. In fact, only 11% of respondents expect that mapping work on the ground will gradually disappear over the next three years.

Chart: GPS World

Sensors Aboard. When on board a UAV, 43% say the best sensor to use in conjunction with GPS/GNSS for mapping and data collection is a high-resolution still-image camera, which is highly preferred over video cameras. Today’s high-resolution cameras can capture details down to a few centimeters on the ground, even from an aircraft hundreds of feet in the air (see our August issue for more on aerial mapping).

Other top sensor choices for our readers include lidar (light detection and ranging) at 32% and multispectral imaging cameras at 14%. Lidar (light detection and ranging) uses a pulsed laser to measure distances and generate precise, three-dimensional information.

Rather than UAVs, airplanes and helicopters are the most commonly used platforms for acquiring lidar data over broad areas. Topographic lidar uses a near-infrared laser to map the land, while bathymetric lidar uses water-penetrating green light to measure seafloor and riverbed elevations. Lidar is used to create more accurate maps, make digital elevation models, assist in emergency response operations, to name a few applications. GNSS and INS systems translate the collected sensor data into static points for GIS.

Multispectral and hyperspectral cameras capture images in infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) as well as traditional RGB (red, blue, green). The main difference between multispectral and hyperspectral is the number of bands and how narrow the bands are — from 3 to 10 bands for multispectral to hundreds for hyperspectral. Practically speaking, multispectral imagery can be used to map forested areas, while hyperspectral imagery can be used to map tree species within the forest.

Both types of cameras are used in agriculture, ecology, oil and gas, oceanography and atmospheric studies. They can map invasive species, monitor crop health, and help in mineral exploration. For building inspections, a multispectral camera can see water penetration, plumbing leaks, overloaded electrical circuits and malfunctioning mechanical systems.

Chart: GPS World

Cloudy, Chance of Maps. Anywhere, anytime access to geospatial data is increasingly important, fueled in part by both the internet of things (IoT) and smart-city initiatives. Geospatial technology enables effective and integrated planning by providing real-time location data and analytics.

Most mapping providers have developed cloud software and storage, which helps organizations access data to meet their specific requirements. Along with the cloud, advances in mobile computing are enabling organizations to take GIS to the field, interacting with the information needed to view, capture, update and synchronize changes between the field and office. The field workforce can use maps to add validity to data, record observations, and respond to events.

GIS software is also assisting connected cars and autonomous vehicles, an area expected to grow significantly (see page 38). The mobile GIS software market is expected to reach a CAGR of 18% by 2024, according to Global Market Insights.

September 30, 2019
Autonomy relies on GNSS/INS

In transportation and machine control

It’s hard to overstate the importance of inertial sensors in the transportation and machine control markets. For the second year, using inertial navigation systems (INS) to augment positioning was selected by the most respondents (43%) as the best additional solution for positioning in GPS/GNSS-challenged environments.

Inertial measurement units are based on multi-axis combinations of precision gyroscopes, accelerometers and magnetometers using algorithms to determine location, direction and position. Other tech used to increase positioning accuracy includes signals of opportunity (cellular, radio, TV), visual indicators (such as lidar) and ultra-wideband.

Automakers are pushing hard to get autonomous vehicles on our roads and highways. Nissan and Renault (with Microsoft) plan to have 10 vehicles on sale by 2020 with “significant autonomous functionality.”

Ford plans to roll out autonomous vehicles by 2021, and Hyundai is targeting them for the highway by 2020 and urban driving by 2030. While industry experts debate the time frame, it’s clear autonomous vehicles are coming.

Every Tier 1 automaker has an autonomous navigation program, along with heavyweights such as Google, Apple an Amazon. Many automakers are teaming with tech companies on R&D, such as GM with Lyft, and BMW with Intel and Mobileye. Others are teaming with each other —Volkswagen and Ford partnered to acquire AI startup Argo. Daimler has joined Volvo to invest in the platooning concept, connecting trucks through wireless signals.

Stages of Autonomy. The move to autonomous won’t be a sudden jump, but will take place in incremental steps. Formerly only offered on luxury autos such as the Tesla or Mercedes, Honda has introduced semi-autonomous advanced-driver assistance systems (ADAS) options on its entry-level Civic, offering lane-keeping, automatic braking, and adaptive cruise control functionality for the mass market.

Automakers rely on SAE International’s J3016 standard, which defines six levels of automation from Level 0 (no automation) to Level 5 (full vehicle autonomy). The pivotal change occurs between Levels 2 and 3, when responsibility for monitoring the driving environment shifts from the driver to the system.

Chart: GPS World

At Level 1 (driver assistance) is cruise control.

Level 2 (partial automation) includes Audi Traffic Jam Assist, Cadillac Super Cruise, Mercedes-Benz Driver Assistance Systems, Tesla Autopilot and Volvo Pilot Assist.

Level 3 (conditional automation) puts the car in the driver’s seat, but prompts the driver to intervene in a difficult encounter (Audi Traffic Jam Pilot).

At Level 4 (high automation), the car operates without human input, but only under select conditions (road type, geographic area). For instance, the driver might manage all driving duties on surface streets then become a passenger as the car enters a highway.

At Level 5 (full automation), the driverless car can operate on any road and in any conditions a human driver could negotiate. There are no Level 5 autos yet, but Waymo is using a fleet of 600 Chrysler Pacifica hybrids to develop Level 5 tech for production.

Machine Control. Not having to deal as much with traffic, except to navigate to the work site, machines in agriculture and construction are much more autonomous than the family car.

For liability reasons, fully autonomous machines have yet to be approved for field work in the U.S. Nevertheless, manufacturers such as Case IH, New Holland, John Deere and Komatsu are continuing to push the tech, and most tractors sold in the U.S. today include auto-steering systems.

At construction sites, GNSS technology installed in bulldozers, excavators, graders and pavers increase productivity and provide situational awareness to operators. GNSS increases the efficiency and accuracy of these machines, with the input used in task management, data management and theft-detection applications.

Operators rely on GNSS information to position the cutting edge of a bulldozer blade or an excavator bucket. GNSS enables comparison of the position against a 3D digital design to compute cut and fill amounts. Display systems provide the operator with the visual information to manually move the machine’s blade or bucket for highest accuracy.

Chart: GPS World

September 30, 2019
Defense sector sustains anti-jam

Reversing norm, cedes initiative to civil side

Nowhere is the interest in anti-jamming and anti-spoofing technology higher and more urgent than in the defense and security sectors. Overall, the anti-jamming market is about a tenth the size of the full GNSS market, but that still amounts to a considerable number. It is projected to grow at a slower rate than the overall market, according to one market report, or about 40% of the total GNSS industry pace from 2018 to 2023.

Major growth opportunities stem from high demand for robustness and resistance to enemy technology in military applications. This demand is primarily for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to conduct surveillance, reconnaissance and actual combat. Other demands are for munitions and guided implementations, and low-cost GPS anti-jamming solutions.

Chart: GPS World

While the military market has fueled growth in civil GPS products and services, this trend is being turned on its head.

For instance, U.S. Army light tanks were equipped in quick succession with new iterations of civil anti-jam units.

“[We] asked for exactly what we wanted and industry built exactly to that. We don’t know exactly what we want. Tell us how we should do this the best, and then we’ll test that,” said the acquisition officer in charge. This PNT program may set the mold for future U.S. military development — leaving requirements broad and open to change with the knowledge that technology develops quickly, and can just as quickly be shown to be vulnerable.

Go Small, Go Modernized. Two other key trends exert control over the defense market: the reduction in size, weight and requisite power (SWaP) of hundreds — if not more — of GNSS-dominated navigation and positioning devices installed aboard myriad different military platforms, and the coming need to retrofit all such platforms, not only for SWaP but for the new signals, prime among them M-code, coming with modernized and multi-GNSS.

Commercial activity in this sector is constrained to a degree by International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and Export Administration Regulations (EAR), administered by different U.S. government departments to ensure that defense-related technology does not fall into adversarial or mischievous hands. Nevertheless, all those involved in defense and security will be very, very busy for several years to come.

Chart: GPS World

September 30, 2019
UAVs active across all sectors

Different platform configurations rapidly emerge

Drones continue to move further into everyday life and activity as they become more involved in applications that touch almost everyone. Previously a curious novelty, now unmanned aircraft are almost commonplace.

Real Estate. Suppose you are buying a new house. Almost all the exterior home pictures and video on real-estate websites come from dones. The high-definition photo capability of any commercially available drone is well up to providing great panoramic aerial shots — now virtually required to market homes.

Suitable UAVs and their operators are either readily available, or real-estate agents are taking on the job, buying and flying the equipment and managing the video-processing software themselves. Approvals for regular real-estate operations using drones now can be more readily obtained The objective is near real-time approval using the U.S. FAA’s Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC) system, with drone operations provided by an expanding list of independent UAS Service Supplier companies, cleared and qualified by the FAA to provide commercial drone operations.

Crop Monitoring. In agriculture, it is virtually expected that a large farm operation will be on a crop monitoring/maintenance program that entails regular drone data-collection flights and automated processing of geo-tagged photographic, thermal and laser crop images. An initial baseline set of images establishes the starting point for the program, and then analysis identifies crop weaknesses. A fertilizer/treatment “prescription” is then drawn up to address deficiencies. After applications throughout the growing areas, follow-up drone monitoring checks whether growth rates have improved or if more remedial action is necessary.

The cycle continues throughout the growing season. A number of large and small companies offer turnkey services to farmers, or farms themselves run subsets of this UAS-based operation.

Construction and Inspection. Mining and construction now also have drone services that gather and process image data to automate significant parts of the process, as does surveying and geospatial information services (GIS).

Facility inspection using drones follows the agriculture model, with initial overflights establishing a baseline status record against which subsequent image data is compared.

Indoor automation with drones also has enabled a huge reduction in time spent in frequent physical inspection of tanks, pressure vessels, holds and more. It also has greatly improved safety for inspection personnel who no longer have to crawl through extensive, potentially toxic environments, such as the containment vessels at Fukushima Daiichi.

News and Events. News gathering has been enhanced by the use of drones. Aerial videos capture the news quickly and inexpensively compared to helicopters, and provide overview situational awareness for the news audience. In the same vein, we can add crowd surveillance at large events, where higher levels of security are required, such as the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Paris.

Chart: GPS World

Package Delivery. One classic drone application — package delivery — still hasn’t arrived fully, but many trials have been underway for several years, particularly for the delivery of medical supplies. It seems now that UPS is making a significant effort to qualify a UAS system that meets existing manned delivery standards (FAA Part 137 operations) by the end of this year. Wish them luck: there are many elements to prove and demonstrate for an unmanned delivery system, particularly in populated areas.

Security and Defense. Extensive use of drones in local and national policing and security operations has become almost commonplace, too. Cost-effective and easy-to-fly UAV systems have begun to replace manned surveillance helicopters, with police forces discovering significant improvements in reaction speed and affordability.

And, of course, the use of drones by defense forces worldwide has expanded greatly. Most people can picture the familiar silhouette of the General Atomics Reaper as their image of what a military drone looks like. Many people might even now know where the Straight of Hormuz is located, following the world-wide reports of an apparent Iranian attack that brought down a Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, followed by the takedown of one or two Iranian drones by the USS Boxer in the same area. Drones would now seem to be predominantly associated by Joe Public with a level of military aerial presence — perhaps more so than in any civilian applications.

New and different configurations of UAS continue to rapidly emerge for any and all applications in both the civil and military sectors. Now that we have operating regulations for small UAS in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world, cost-effective commercial uses abound and support new and existing tasks, and the military is rapidly creating new variations to assist or replace manned ground, navy and airborne forces. Large and small investments in artificial Intelligence for drone automation seem to be announced almost daily – so we can expect some independent drone capability to emerge over time.

There is only much, much more to come.

TONY MURFIN is a GNSS aerospace consultant with several decades experience at leading companies in the GPS/aviation and OEM sectors.

September 30, 2019
Survey advances on almost daily basis

Real-time network availability grows in appeal, extent

State of the GNSS Industry respondents who identified themselves as being from the survey sector constituted 28% of the total, roughly corresponding to the percentage of the magazine’s readership.

In similar results to 2018’s study, the most promising and practical way to gain the increased accuracy that survey and other high-precision applications demands, the choice was “dual-frequency, dual- or multi-constellation GNSS,” followed by “real-time kinematic.” The newest application in the survey, ”real-time network (RTN) availability,” came in a close third. GNSS receivers with inertial correction devices or remote sensing capability, while increasing in product exposure and advertising, continue to remain low on the respondent’s agenda.

While not surprising that dual-frequency, dual- or multi-constellation GNSS would remain on top of the list with RTK capability coming in second, what is surprising is how RTN availability is a primary choice of many of those answering the poll questions. Coverage of RTN networks is expanding, so many surveyors must be taking advantage of them, seeing the value of not relying on a base station RTK setup.

With the advancements in 5G cellphone coverage, it would not be startling to see this category increase significantly in the coming years. I also foresee an increase in precise point positioning (PPP) usage with UAV implementation because the cost of entry is quite reasonable.

What is the most promising and practical way to gain the increased accuracy that survey and other high-precision applications continue to demand? (Chart: GPS World)

The Role of Drones. This year’s question on what role drones (UAVs) will play in the next three years for the survey sector was expanded to include the broad range of remote-sensing modules being added to the aerial vehicles — and based upon the responses, rightly so.

More than 32% of the poll-takers replied that UAVs with remote-sensor capability will perform up to 50% of our field survey tasks. Those who feel that drone technology will only perform one-tenth of the survey tasks fell to 35%, down from 42% in 2018.

However, those who felt UAVs will perform up to half of survey tasks rose significantly, from 9% last year to 23% this year. Bringing up the bottom were those who felt drones will perform 80% of field tasks along with gradually phasing out field surveyors, coming in at 5% each.

What role will drones (UAVs) play during the next three years in the survey sector? (Chart: GPS World)

The expansion of remote-sensing methods (photogrammetric, lidar, hyperspectral, etc.) now available on UAVs has increased the viability for more data collection by autonomous and pilot-controlled methods. Increases in software capability, ease-of-use and storage capacity is leading to more surveying and mapping implementation in everyday tasks.

The overall increase in those who see UAVs becoming more prevalent in a surveying department’s service offerings should not be surprising as more firms adopt the newer technology to maintain a competitive edge. We will continue to watch this trend, noting how the surveying profession both adapts to emerging technology and how that will affect the workforce. The rise from 1.3% to 5% of those who feel traditional tasks by field surveyors will begin to disappear is not troublesome, but may be a sign of changes in our near future.

The surveying industry continues to embrace GNSS and UAV technology along with the advancements happening on nearly a daily basis. More professionals are upgrading to remain current with the market trends, so staying in tune with the technological advancements is a major key to success.

TIM BURCH is a professional land surveyor and secretary on the board of directors, National Society of Professional Surveyors.

September 30, 2019