GPS World

Tag: Directions 2020

  • Directions 2020: BeiDou in the new era of globalization

    Directions 2020: BeiDou in the new era of globalization

    Yang Changfeng, Chief Architect, BeiDou Navigation Satellite System. (Photo: BeiDou)
    Yang Changfeng, Chief Architect, BeiDou Navigation Satellite System. (Photo: BeiDou)

    By Yang Changfeng
    Chief Architect,
    BeiDou Navigation Satellite System

    As one of the core Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) providers, the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (“BDS”) has been developed steadily following a three-step strategy. BDS has been providing global services since the end of 2018. By around 2020, the BDS-3 system will be entirely completed to provide global users with free, open and high-quality navigation, positioning, timing, short message communication and other services. A more ubiquitous, integrated and intelligent positioning, navigation, timing system will be built before 2035.

    In 2019, BDS has progressed with regard to aspects of system construction, integrated applications and international development.

    System Construction

    Accelerating Satellite Deployment. From January to November 2019, three BDS-3 satellites in inclined geosynchronous satellite orbit (IGSO) and four satellites in medium Earth orbit (MEO) were launched, and one IGSO satellite has completed in-orbit tests, to further improve the global system constellation.

    The last two MEO satellites are planned to be launched by the end of 2019, marking the completion of the BDS core global constellation deployment. By June 2020, another two GEO satellites will be launched, and the full deployment of the BDS-3 system will be completed.

    Ground System Construction. In 2019, 12 new ground operation and control stations (including one uplink station and 11 class-II monitoring stations) have been built, to complete the satellite-ground joint debug and integration tests, and the overall operation of the system is stable.

    By the end of October 2019, 34 BDS satellites are operating in orbit to provide services to global users, including 15 BDS-2 satellites and 19 BDS-3 satellites.

    Improving Service Performance

    Key Service Areas. In May 2019, the last BDS-2 backup satellite was launched to further improve the performance in the key service areas of the BDS-2 system. As the BDS-3 satellites go into operation, the accuracy and availability of the BDS B1I and B3I signals, in the BDS-2service area, has been improved by about 30% and 5% respectively, compared with that of solely relying on the BDS-2 system.

    Global Service Areas. The BDS B1I and B3I service areas have been expanded from the Asia Pacific region to the world, and the accuracy and availability have been further improved. With the condition of PDOP ≤6, the availability is better than 99% in most regions all over the world (in parts of the United States, better than 97%). In the global area, the mean value of the actual measured positioning accuracy is about 3.6m horizontally and 6.6m vertically, velocity measurement accuracy is about 0.05m/s, and timing accuracy is about 9.8 nanoseconds (95% confidence). So far, the BDS-3 new signals, B1C and B2a, have possessed service capacity worldwide. The system availability is better than 87%, in the condition of PDOP ≤ 6. The mean value of the actual measured positioning accuracy is about 2.4m horizontally and 4.3m vertically, velocity measurement accuracy is about 0.06m/s and timing accuracy is about 19.9 nanoseconds (95% confidence).

    BDS Availability (PDOP≤6). (Image: BeiDou)
    BDS Availability (PDOP≤6). (Image: BeiDou)
    Measured BDS B1C Positioning Accuracy. (Image: BeiDou)
    Measured BDS B1C Positioning Accuracy. (Image: BeiDou)

    Building of the Featured Capacity. The BDS/GNSS ground based augmentation system has been providing basic services. It consists of 155 framework reference stations and nearly 2,200 regional stations in China. The system has carried out high-precision applications in many fields, such as surveying and mapping, land resources, earthquake, transportation and meteorology. Its basic services include real-time positioning at the meter, decimeter and centimeter level, as well as precise post-processing positioning at the millimeter level.

    The BeiDou Satellite-Based Augmentation System (BDSBAS) is being developed in accordance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards to provide navigation services with superior accuracy and integrity. In 2019, the first GEO satellite with the BDSBAS payload has been tested in orbit and the satellite is in good condition.

    Integrated Applications

    As the system construction accelerates, BDS is also making great efforts to strengthen the development of the fundamental products and applications in various fields. The integrated applications adopt the “BDS+” model to stimulate the growth of satellite navigation industry.

    Fundamental Products. At present, the fundamental BDS products have been used in such areas as mass market applications, of which the performance has reached or is close-to the world-class level. The development of full-frequency integrated high-precision chips is near its completion, and the performance of the BDS chips will improve further. By the end of 2019, BDS navigation chips, modules and antennas have been exported to more than 100 countries and regions. In 2018, the domestic output value was more than RMB 300 billion (US$43 billion), in which the BDS contribution exceeds 80%.

    Industrial Applications. BDS has been widely used in various fields — communication and transportation, public security, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, hydrological monitoring, meteorological forecast, time synchronization, power dispatching, disaster prevention and mitigation — generating significant economic and social benefits. In the field of transportation, by September 2019, more than 6.47 million road operating vehicles and 42,300 postal and express delivery vehicles in China are using BDS, and the world’s largest dynamic supervision system of operating vehicles has been formed, which effectively improved management efficiency and road transportation safety.

    In agriculture, a BDS-based automatic driving system has been equipped on more than 20,000 sets of agricultural machinery and equipment, saving 50% of the labor cost. The BDS-based agricultural machinery operation supervision platform and the IoT platform has been serving 10 million units of agricultural machinery equipment, greatly improving management and operational efficiency.

    In disaster prevention and mitigation, a tri-level platform covering the national ministry, the provinces, and cities and counties has been built to offer six-tier application services, with more than 45,000 terminals using BDS. The BDS/GNSS high-precision technologies have been applied in the field of geological disaster monitoring, while the landslides in Gansu province have been successfully forecast repeatedly, with time accuracy at the second level and deformation accuracy at the millimeter level.

    Mass Market Applications. The BDS-based navigation and positioning services have been adopted by various enterprises in the fields of e-commerce, smart mobile terminal manufacture, location-based services (LBS), the sharing economy and the mass market, thereby changing people’s production and life style profoundly. Mainstream manufacturers in China and around the world have introduced BDS-compatible chips that integrate communication and navigation functions.

    According to Chinese market statistics, in the third quarter of 2019, 151 types of mobile phones applying for license have positioning functions, among which 110 models support BDS. Using BDS/GNSS ground based augmentation stations, the spatial-temporal services including centimeter-level positioning, millimeter-level perception and nanometer-level timing services can be provided, while the accelerated positioning services cover 220 countries and regions with more than 390 million global users.

    International Development

    Bilateral Cooperation. BDS continues to carry out bilateral cooperation with other navigation satellite systems, to promote compatibility and joint applications. China and the United States have set up joint working groups in areas such as compatibility and interoperability, augmentation systems and civil services to continuously develop cooperation and exchanges.

    China and the EU set up a technical working group on the compatibility and interoperability between the BDS and Galileo systems to carry out coordination, exchanges and cooperation, under the framework of the China-EU space cooperation dialogue and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The agreement between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the Russian Federation on Cooperation in the Field of the Use of BeiDou and GLONASS for Peaceful Purposes has come into effect.

    In August 2019, China and the Russian Federation held their sixth bilateral meeting in Kazan, Russia, signed the site survey certificate of GNSS monitoring stations, and achieved many cooperation results. In addition, the bilateral cooperation with Iraq, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia has also been steadily promoted.

    Multilateral Cooperation. During the 62nd session of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in June 2019, an exhibition on ancient Chinese navigation technologies was held at the Vienna International Center with the theme “From Compass to BeiDou,” which vividly demonstrated China’s brilliant achievements in timing, mapping, cartography and navigation science and technology. In April and October, 2019, the second China-Arab States BDS Cooperation Forum and China-Central Asia BDS cooperation forum were held in Tunis and Nanning, China, respectively, to promote the BDS to serve the Arab region and Central Asian countries.

    The BDS Overseas Applications Were Steadily Promoted. With BDS high-precision products being exported, BDS has been widely used in different regions and fields, such as land registration, precision agriculture, warehouse logistics in ASEAN countries, construction in Western Asia, airport timing and piling at seas in South Asia, electric power inspection in Eastern Europe, and land survey in African countries. As BDS-3 system continues to improve construction, it will provide quality services for more people in a wider area.

    Ratification of BDS by International Standards. BDS has made a clear schedule to be ratified by the ICAO standards in 2020. It has formulated 26 standards in the field of international mobile communication based on the BDS B1I signal, and other standards based on the B1C and B2a signals are being developed. A receiver positioning result output protocol (NMEA0183) and a receiver data exchange format (RINEX 3.04) supporting BDS are to be released. Technical parameters and index information of BDS search and rescue (SAR) payloads are included in relevant COSPAS-SARSAT documents, and the development and in-orbit test of the first batch of SAR payload has been completed. The first BDS standard in the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has been developed and approved and is expected to be released in June 2020.

    Future Plans

    After BDS achieves global service capabilities by 2020, it will further improve global navigation, positioning, timing and regional short-message communication services, and finalize global short-message communication, international search and rescue, satellite-based augmentation, precise point positioning, and other service capabilities. China’s BDS will contribute Chinese solutions to the world, and give full play of its role, with a renewed attitude, stronger capabilities and better services, to serve the world and benefit humankind.

  • Directions 2020: Delivering GPS capabilities

    Directions 2020: Delivering GPS capabilities

    By Colonel John Claxton
    Chief, PNT Mission Integration, Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center

    Image: USAF
    Image: USAF

    The Global Positioning System has provided the citizens of the United States and the world the gold standard for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) for the past 40 years. These days, GPS is seamlessly integrated into our daily lives in ways that we hardly notice. In fact, most of us expect GPS to be available in much the same way that our lights come on when we flip a switch or water comes out when we use the kitchen faucet.

    None of this is easy, however, and wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for the incredible work and communication by the members of the GPS Program Office and our terrific enterprise partners. During the next 18–24 months, the GPS enterprise will deliver the new and more powerful modernized GPS III capabilities across all segments of the system, which have been in the works and promised for the past 8–10 years. As we transition to the Space and Missile Systems Center’s (SMC) 2.0, this is a very exciting time for the GPS program. Below are some updates on our major programs.

    Program Updates

    GPS III. The space segment of modernized GPS has reached our goals from 2018, and then some. SV01 “Vespucci” launched on Dec. 23, 2018, heralded by celebrations across the GPS community. The GPS III team was honored to share this event with so many giants of the GPS world. We completed space vehicle (SV) 01’s On-Orbit Checkout Test in July, meeting and exceeding all performance objectives, and plan to transfer SV01 Satellite Control Authority from SMC to the 14th Air Force by the end of the year. SV01 then begins operational testing and is expected to be certified for full operations in April 2020.

    SV02 “Magellan” launched on Aug. 22 aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Medium rocket — the last Delta of its class — to much fanfare and celebration as well. We completed SV02 orbit raising and initial checkout in early September, and Magellan is next in line to transition to operations in 2020.

    We received delivery of SV03 and SV04 from Lockheed Martin Space Systems on May 16 and Sept. 10, respectively, with launches targeted for March and July 2020.

    Challenges remain — this business is hard — but the GPS III team is focused on delivering capability: improving and streamlining the largest big-satellite production line in the Department of Defense and driving our launch campaign to bring modernized capabilities, higher power performance, and the shared international L1C signal to the GPS-using world.

    Figure 1. Mature Glonass-M satellites show improved cesium frequency standards performance in terms of daily stability. (Image: Roscosmos)
    Figure 1. Mature Glonass-M satellites show improved cesium frequency standards performance in terms of daily stability. (Image: Roscosmos)

    GPS IIIF. The GPS III Follow-On program looks to continue the success of GPS III as it moves forward in production of the first two GPS IIIF satellites. The program is well into a year-long set of detailed design reviews projected to conclude in March 2020. With Lockheed Martin as the prime contractor for both GPS satellite programs, GPS IIIF can take advantage of production-line improvements learned from GPS III to significantly reduce assembly, integration and test timelines.

    Additionally, the program is helping to shape SMC’s Enterprise Commonality Initiative: an effort focused on aligning common products and processes across multiple programs to improve quality, speed up delivery and lower costs. With plans to procure 22 satellites and a delivery timeline spanning 15 years, the program has implemented a technology-insertion strategy and partnered with the Air Force Research Laboratory to ensure a timely transition of new capabilities to meet future military requirements. It is great to see the progress GPS IIIF is making in delivering its new baseline capabilities along with the steps it’s taking toward future capability insertion. The first GPS IIIF satellite launch is forecast for 2026.

    GPS Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX). This past year, we used OCX Block 0, also known as the GPS III Launch and Checkout System, to launch and initialize both GPS III SV01 and SV02 and have been flying them in caretaker status until they are ready to be incorporated into the operational constellation. On OCX Block 1, all coding is complete, and the program focus is transitioning from development to system integration, test, and then transitioning the system to operations. Program investments over the past couple of years to change the program culture and modernize the factory infrastructure (often referred to DevOps) is paying off and yielding real-time metrics used to make data-driven decisions and produce higher quality code at a significantly faster rate. As a result, OCX is no longer troubled, but is now a typical large-complex software-intensive program that will experience challenges and risks. Fortunately, the right tools are in place to deliver this critical capability.

    GPS Legacy Ground Sustainment. We continue to sustain our existing GPS infrastructure associated with the current Operational Control System (OCS). These sustainment efforts ensure GPS will continue to deliver the gold standard in PNT while providing the crucial on-ramp to incorporate the next generation of modernized GPS capabilities. We operationally accepted the largest OCS upgrade in GPS history. This upgrade, known as Version 7.5, virtualized the network, implemented two-factor authentication, secured connections to worldwide ground antennas, and improved encryption for mission data.

    Challenged with a need to rapidly mitigate mission risk and provide enhanced cyber protection, the Red Dragon Cybersecurity Suite (RDCSS) emerged as the GPS OCS monitoring platform, providing data aggregation, analytics and multi-level Indicators of Compromise (IOC). It has evolved into an efficient and effective means to detect, investigate, and report security events and incidents.

    Additionally, in August 2019 we established an RDCSS connection into the Space Enterprise Defensive Cyber Operations (DCO) solution, known as the Cyber Defense Correlation Cell for Space. This created a layered defense and a tiered DCO environment for protecting and sustaining the GPS mission.

    GPS User Equipment. Over the past year our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen continued testing and integrating mature, next-generation GPS receiver cards that provide more accurate and reliable positioning, navigation and timing. The first

    Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE) receiver card was qualified this year, and the core technologies are being leveraged to develop many other types of GPS receiver cards for a wide range of DoD weapon systems. This exciting work is the culmination of nearly two decades of modernization efforts throughout the GPS enterprise.

    In the near term, we are utilizing M-code-capable lead platforms — the USAF B-2 Bomber, USMC Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, USN Arleigh-Burke Class Guided Missile Destroyer and Army Stryker combat vehicle — to prove those capabilities. The second increment of MGUE now underway will focus on requirements for precision-guided munitions, a joint common modular handheld unit, as well as circuit cards and components for low size, weight and power needs. With MGUE, the DoD and services are poised to have enduring PNT solutions the warfighter can leverage for years to come.

    GPS Integration Roadmaps

    Integration of modernized GPS III capabilities into our major programs is a key focus of the GPS Program Office as we deliver capabilities to our warfighter and civilians users. We have continued to refine our plans and further integrate our programs and teams to ensure a seamless transition and continued high level of service.

    Enterprise Road to Launch (ERTL). The Road to Launch team achieved an historic victory of firsts in December 2018. We successfully launched GPS III SV01, the first of its class. SMC partnered with SpaceX to launch SV01 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket — their first National Security Space Launch. SV01 reached orbit under the command and control of our first GPS OCX delivery, the GPS III Launch and Checkout System.

    This colossal accomplishment of firsts was only possible because of the exceptionally close integration, tenacity and highly collaborative effort among all players in the community — spacecraft, payloads, launch, control, signal monitoring, acquisition, operations, test and many others. For SV01, the ERTL has now passed the torch to the Enterprise Road to Mission team — but the Road to Launch team is as busy as ever.

    The mission planners, launch and orbital operations crew ensured SV02 reached medium Earth orbit with needle-threading precision in August; the team is implementing improvements based on experience as we prepare for up to three more GPS III launches in 2020; and we are already ramping up efforts to design the launch campaign for GPS IIIF.

    GPS Enterprise Road to Mission (ERM). With two GPS III satellites now on orbit, it is now time to execute the Enterprise “Integration Playbook” we have developed and coordinated over the past year. The Contingency Operations (COps) modification upgrade has now been integrated into OCS on the 2 SOPS operations floor and is undergoing Developmental Testing with the GPS III SV on orbit. The program anticipates operational testing in January 2020 and Operational Acceptance in April 2020. All of our community stakeholders are ready, and with the COps modification to OCS in place, it is time to get the GPS III satellites into mission and start providing its new capabilities to our users. Over the next few months, the GPS III capabilities are expected to be operationally certified and ready for use.

    GPS Enterprise Road to M-Code Mission (ERM-M-Code). With COps now in place, the next major delivery will be M-Code Early Use modification to OCS, installation of new M-code signal monitoring equipment at sites around the globe, modification of mission planning software, MGUE Increment 1 development, service lead platform integration efforts, and operationalization of space receivers. It is our continued objective to improve the ability of the Combined Space Operations Center, to respond to urgent PNT needs of the combatant commanders as they engage more sophisticated adversaries. We remain closely aligned with our peers at USSTRATCOM, AFSPC and our worldwide users across the Joint Service and allied team.

    Conclusion

    It has never been a more exciting time to be part of the GPS program and enterprise. Our outstanding government and contractor teams have worked so incredibly hard on integrating and communicating our programs to ensure the successful and seamless delivery of GPS III capabilities to both our warfighter and civilian users. It is a great world we live in today, and GPS makes it even better.