While GPS will always be an integral and irreplaceable part of positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) technology, assured PNT must take a layered approach for true resiliency.
A GPS World webinar sponsored by Spirent Federal Systems will explore this topic. Registration is now open for the free webinar, which will be held June 24.
Join experts from Spirent and Northrop Grumman as they examine
the future of inertial navigation in assured PNT and GPS augmentation
EGI-Modernization
coherent GNSS and inertial sensor emulation
exploring and simulating emerging alternative space-based PNT RF signals.
Expert presentations will be followed by a question-and-answer session; questions will be accepted both before and during the webinar.
To register for the webinar, visit this link. Registration is free.
Date: Thursday, June 24, 2021 Time: 1 p.m. EDT / 10 a.m. PDT / 7 p.m. (1900h) Central European Time Duration: 60 minutes + extra time for Q&A Sponsored content by: Spirent Federal
Jennifer Smith joined Spirent Federal in 2004. Jen has responsibilities in business development as well as in general operations. She has experience in project management and contract negotiations.
Smith has a B.A. and a J.D. and is a member of the Utah Bar Association.
Naveen Joshi leads the Strategy and Business Development for Northrop Grumman’s Navigation and Integrated Cockpit business. He sets product strategy, shapes technology roadmaps, and advises Northrop Grumman leaders on the application of PNT technologies. His previous roles at Northrop include program director, program manager, engineering manager and various roles in engineering.
Outside of Northrop Grumman, Joshi held roles in management consulting and eCommerce, and ran an entrepreneurial venture.
Joshi earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Cornell University and an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.
Mark Holbrow’s 30-year professional career has concentrated on the innovative design, development, and successful commercialization of electronic test equipment.
In his current role, he is responsible for the technical team management, new product design, and future direction of Spirent’s portfolio of world-leading positioning, navigation, and time (PNT) test solutions.
Holbrow has a passion for the sometimes overlooked discipline of “test methodology” and thoroughly enjoys the technical and business development demands required to identify, and innovatively solve, complex test challenges.
Roger Hart joined Spirent Federal in 2015. Roger has responsibilities in engineering development and support, sales and customer training. He has worked in development of spacecraft navigation systems, including GPS, for civil, NASA and defense applications since 1986.
Hart has a Bachelor of Arts in physics and Master of Science in mechanical engineering (space track) from Utah State University.
To register for the webinar, visit this link. Registration is free.
The world is moving quickly toward 5G communication networks and devices to reach better performance with exponentially higher data speeds and greater reliability. However, these systems require the right combination of hardware, signal and software compatibility to work, and operating standards vary depending on the environment and the required transmission speed.
With these variables in play, global telecom, defense, and critical infrastructure organizations are in the process of thoroughly testing the functionality of this new technology on their particular systems in the appropriate operating environment before deploying 5G.
The fifth-generation technology standard for telecommunications is here, and it is already being tested and deployed in locations worldwide. This informative webinar will provide updates on the testing and implementation of 5G infrastructures, highlighting use cases in automotive and other mission-critical applications.
Panelists will discuss key factors for the successful implementation of 5G, the testing requirements needed to ensure consistent operations, and resilient positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) technologies that can help ensure accurate, continuous operations for critical applications during interference or signal loss.
What: Orolia Presents: GPS World Webinar, “Resilient PNT for a 5G World” When: May 20 at 1 p.m. EDT Where: Online, Register here
Confirmed panelists:
Lisa Perdue, Product Line Director, Simulation, Orolia
Septentrio, Kespry share UAV advances; Game of Thrones, Mission Impossible also highlighted in GPS World webinar.
The UAV inspection industry continues to grow, as evidenced by these case studies of end-user application, presented in a free webinar available to readers of GPS World. As unmanned systems follow precise flight paths to gather data needed for missions in — to cite just a few examples — insurance, mining, construction and the pulp paper industry, they drastically reduce project time, workload and costs.
Narratives of how these tasks and other inspections are performed, and the requirements and challenges for positioning technology they pose, made up the October webinar, “Development Trends and Challenges for UAV Inspection Applications.”
Four expert speakers covered commercial applications in urban and remote areas, including issues generated by obstruction, interference and spoofing. The full webinar audio and slides are available for download.
Septentrio. Gustavo Lopez, product manager for Septentrio, introduced the webinar and covered the main technical challenges and requirements for UAS inspection applications: reliable and accurate relative positioning and orientation; power efficient, vibration-robust technology; fail-safe systems; all-weather flying capability; long-duration precision flying; small data compression; sense and avoid mechanisms; and network centric infrastructure.
Lopez specified the capabilities an onboard GNSS receiver must have: interference monitoring and mitigation, and anti-spoofing — and briefly displayed the company’s products tailored for UAS inspection.
These include: AsteRx-m2, a single-antenna RTK/PPK base and rover; AsteRx-m2a, a dual-antenna RTK chip with 2D orientation; AsteRx-m2(a) UAS, an auto-pilot ready device for easy UAS integration; and AsteRx-i, a GNSS/inertial solution with RTK and 3D orientation.
Multi-Drone Mapping. Todd Humphreys from the University of Texas presented recent research developing the concept of collaborative mapping with multiple drones, creating a 3D display with decimeter accuracy. Ultimately the products from this prototype will serve in autonomous driving applications.
Humphreys displayed the Sensorium, an automobile equipped with stereo cameras, dual-antenna triple-frequency software-defined GNSS, an industrial-grade IMU, automotive radar, LTE connectivity — and a companion deployable UAV for reconnaissance.
Representing “eyes in the sky” for difficult or dangerous intersections. This little fellow carries a dual-antenna GNSS-IMU system developed in-house based on a software receiver delivering centimeter-accurate 2-degree UAV pose estimates.
The webinar then progressed to several Septentrio clients who are out on the leading edge of UAS inspections.
Kespry provides a complete solution for construction and engineering companies to better manage proposed and active earthwork operations. Without using multiple, cumbersome ground control points, survey-grade field data can be collected for an entire site in as little as 30 minutes. (Photo: Nathan Stump/Kespry)
Kespry. UAV manufacturer Kespry provides a complete solution for construction and engineering companies to manage proposed and active earthwork operations. Without using multiple, cumbersome ground-control points, survey-grade field data can be collected for an entire site in as little as 30 minutes.
Attendees learned how drone technology is being used to:
Validate proposed earthwork – reduce rework and extra earthmoving costs before the job begins
Safely measure earthwork activity – ensure subcontractor work and delivered material are constantly measured
Applied to insurance claims for inspections of roof damage, Kespry’s autonomous system improves safety, reduces loss adjustment expenses, and delivers more accurate assessments, while reducing overall costs.
For commercial property, the UAV solution helps prevent losses and informs underwriting decisions with high-resolution aerial and thermal imagery to identify exposures. Mobile tools are provided to review inspection imagery within minutes of flight; artificial intelligence technology generates fully dimensioned wireframes and 3D roof models.
Flying Cam. The webinar links to a YouTube video presentation by Flying-Cam CEO Emanuel Previnaire, showing exciting film footage from popular entertainment. Flying-Cam was closely involved in Game of Thrones, season 7, filming in Los Barruecos Natural Park in Spain; and Mission Impossible 6, filming in the heart of Paris.
The footage, delivered by the company’s UAVs flying very exact, high-speed pre-programmed flightpaths, was used to cinematically recreate flying dragons and exciting helicopter stunt work has been recognized over the years with two Oscars and one Emmy.
The Flying-Cam SARAH E unmanned helicopter, with a payload capability of 10 kg, is open to many sensor integrations. Recent projects have included several high-end sensors: magnetometer, hyperspectral camera system, lidar and more.
Flying-Cam introduced the specific use case of their customer Altametris, in a solution for rail inspection applications. Flying-Cam’s SARAH E successfully performed a lidar aerial survey in a populated area, the train station of Marseille Saint-Charles.
Altametris. A subsidiary of the French National Railway (SNCF), one of the densest and most complex networks in Europe, Altametris participates in monitoring and inspecting a system encompassing 58,000 kilometers of track, 1,700 tunnels, 27,000 bridges and 3,000 stations by using non-intrusive measurement methods (UAVs, robots and more).
Challenges for beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) inspections of this vast network include countless obstructions, safety and regulations governing flights over populated areas, and the need to avoid interference with railway operations.
A typical rural scenario of long-range inspection involves a fixed-wing UAV with camera, lidar, multispectral camera and other sensors, flying at 150-meter altitude over a 50- to 100-kilometer stretch. Urban inspection uses rotary-wing UAVs with camera and lidar at even lower altitude (50 meters), along a 5-kilometer corridor.
Employing GNSS/INS solution for positioning and georeferencing combined with lidar leads to precise and valuable data (high-density point cloud, up to 1000 points/square meter). A highly accurate and robust GNSS system is also mandatory for safety and security as it could help to monitor and avoid drone fly-away.
Robust GNSS systems are therefore a key technology for the UAV industry and could open new business opportunities, through safe deployment in inhabited areas, high quality data for metrology,and more.
On Wednesday, May 2, 3:15–3:45 p.m., Swift Navigation’s Product Manager Akshay Bandiwdekar and Sales Executive David Fischer will lead an educational session on “The Role of RTK in the Autonomous System Sensor Suite.” Join them in Room 203, where they will discuss how one sensor — a multi-band, multi-constellation RTK GNSS receiver — is a unique sensor in autonomy as the only sensor within the autonomous vehicle sensor suite to deliver absolute position, velocity and time.
Swift Navigation’s Duro.
At Booth 3311 in the exhibit hall, Swift Navigation is featuring its multi-band, multi-constellation real-time kinematic (RTK) GNSS receiver, the Piksi Multi GNSS Module, and its Duro Ruggedized Receiver, an easy-to-deploy GNSS sensor that is protected against weather, moisture, vibration, dust, water immersion and the unexpected that can occur in long-term outdoor deployments, such as for robotics applications.
The company will also be featuring its newest Internet service Skylark, a cloud-based GNSS corrections service that delivers affordable, fast, centimeter-level accuracy and eliminates the complexity of deploying and maintaining GNSS networks.
Fergus Noble
Webinar on Location and IoT
Those unable to attend Xponential 2018 but interested in Swift Navigation’s recent product announcements or looking to learn more about what is next for the company can join Swift’s upcoming webinar with GPS World: Location’s Role in the Internet of Things (registration is free).
Oliver Cameron
The webinar takes place on May 17 and features Fergus Noble, co-founder and CTO of Swift Navigation, along with Oliver Cameron, co-founder and CEO of Voyage — a company that deploys self-driving taxis in private communities across North America and uses both Skylark and Piksi Multi in its real-world autonomous driving application.
“Xponential 2018 is the ideal venue for Swift to showcase its end-to-end ecosystem of products and cloud services, including our most recent innovation, Skylark,” said Diana Schlosser, executive vice president of marketing at Swift Navigation. “We are excited to demonstrate our low-cost, centimeter-accurate GNSS solutions to the unmanned systems industry.”
While GPS will always be an integral and irreplaceable part of positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) technology, assured PNT must take a layered approach for true resiliency.
