“Seen & Heard” is a monthly feature of GPS World magazine, traveling the world to capture interesting and unusual news stories involving the GNSS/PNT industry.
Photo: Karma drone/GoPro
Bad karma
The GoPro Karma drone has been grounded since the new year began, reports The Verge. Multiple owners say their Karma controllers are flashing errors about not receiving a GPS signal, and that they can’t calibrate the compass. They’re not able to fly the drones even after disabling GPS. A GoPro spokesperson told The Verge that it is “actively troubleshooting” the issue.
Going wild at the casino
A Waze ad in January misdirected drivers headed to Atlantic City’s Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa into New Jersey’s Pine Barrens. Jackson Township police helped numerous motorists stuck on unpaved roads about 45 miles from the casino, which is just off the Atlantic City Expressway. The address on the ad was correct, but the location pinned with the ad is actually in the Colliers Mills wildlife area.
Photo: Rock penguins/Charles Bergman/Shutterstock.com
Feed the birds, not the mice
Irish structural engineer John Houston used a Trimble R10 GNSS receiver and Centerpoint RTX to help mitigate a serious threat to Gough Island’s birds. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds seeks to eradicate invasive mice left from 19th-century ships. The survey will help locate temporary infrastructure for workers to distribute poisoned bait to kill the voracious rodents, which feed on two million defenseless eggs and chicks each year. Though 1,000 kilometers from the nearest reference station, Houston achieved centimeter accuracy on all survey points. See the monster mice here.
Photo: U.S. Marines at Al Asad Air Base in 2018. (Cpl. Jered T. Stone/Marine Corps)
Missiles guided by GLONASS
According to Israeli military intelligence website DEBKAfile, Russia gave Iran access to GLONASS to target the U.S. base in Iraq on Jan. 8. The strike injured 34 American soldiers. DEBKAfile reports that Russia-provided GLONASS access allowed Iranian missiles to hit with an accuracy of 10 meters at the Ain Assad base in western Iraq. “According to Russian sources, 19 missiles were fired from the territory of Iran, 17 of which hit the targets,” DEBKAfile said.
U.S. forces and air-defense missile batteries across the Middle East were placed on high alert Jan. 7 in preparation for possible Iranian drone attacks, reports CNN, including all Patriot batteries and forces in the area.
U.S. officials told CNN that intelligence mounted about a threat of an imminent attack against U.S. targets in the wake of the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. U.S. intelligence also observed Iran moving military equipment, including drones and ballistic missiles, over the last several days.
The movement may be an Iranian effort to secure its weapons from a potential U.S. strike, or put them in positions to launch their own attacks.
Iran has put missiles on its drones that have been used in other attacks, including a significant attack on Saudi oil installations last year (see below).
Targets of concern are U.S. locations in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
2019 Drone Tensions
Drones forces from both sides targeted assets in 2019. In June, Iran shot down a U.S. military drone that it claimed was an intruding American spy drone entering its territory. The U.S. said the drone was shot down in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz.
In July, U.S. Marines jammed and destroyed an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz from aboard the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship, because the drone has closed too close, to approximately 1,000 yards. Iran denied losing any of its drones.
In September, Iran was blamed for an attack on the Saudi oil industry, with drones and cruise missiles assumed launched from an Iranian base in Iran close to the border with Iraq. The Abqaiq oil plant was struck by more than a dozen projectiles.
Maritime Alert
On Monday, the U.S. Maritime Administration issued an alert to commercial vessels operating in the Middle East, citing multiple maritime threats and stating “there remains the possibility of Iranian action against U.S. maritime interests in the region.”
According to the alert, “The U.S. government is continually assessing the maritime security situation in the region to safeguard freedom of navigation, ensure the free flow of commerce, and protect U.S. vessels, personnel, and interests.
“U.S. Fifth Fleet Naval Cooperation and Guidance for Shipping (NCAGS) has the latest information on the dynamic maritime security threats and operational environment in this region. U.S. commercial vessels are advised to exercise caution and coordinate vessel voyage planning for transits of the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman, North Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Red Sea with NCAGS and follow NCAGS’s recommendations and guidance whenever possible.”
Figure 1. Suomi NPP/VIIRS night-time light images for Iraq: (a) May 2014, (b) December 2014.
A new paper published in the academic journal International Journal of Remote Sensing analyzed city night lights in Northern Iraq during 2014, suggesting a major loss of electrical power supply within the Iraqi cities seized by ISIS.
The territory controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has grown rapidly since the start of the Syrian Civil War, and in 2014 ISIS expanded its control into Northern Iraq. While there are many media reports on violence and geopolitical issues surrounding the takeover of these areas, the impact on everyday life, such as access to electricity for people living in ISIS-controlled regions, is less clear.
In the study, Xi Li and Deren Li (Wuhan University, China) and Rui Zhang and Chengquan Huang (University of Maryland) analyzed city lights as a proxy for the power supply in ISIS-controlled regions between May 2014 and December 2014. The city light data were acquired from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor on the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite.
The analysis indicates that most of the ISIS-controlled cities, including Mosul and Tikrit, experienced a decrease of more than 90 percent in city light after being seized by ISIS, while the loss of light in cities controlled by the Iraqi security forces (ISF) was very limited. However, the city lights in Ar Raqqa, Syria, ISIS’ de facto capital, did not show a decline after that region was seized by ISIS.
These comparisons suggest that the conflict in Northern Iraq has resulted in a major loss of electrical power supply within the Iraqi cities seized by ISIS, and that this loss is most likely due to lack of access to the Iraqi power grid, rather than a deliberate ISIS strategy of limiting night-time light.
The insurgency in Northern Iraq since 2014 has led to a severe humanitarian crisis, the study authors say. It is widely known that it is extremely dangerous to collect information from ISIS-controlled regions; therefore, the use of remotely sensed night-time light images such as these offer humanitarian agencies and NGOs a low-risk indicator of socioeconomic conditions in war-torn countries like Iraq.
The team installs a HARNS in the southern province of Basra. Since 2005, Iraqi engineers have attempted to recover HARNS, but many were destroyed by locals who thought they indicated buried treasure.
As a geodetic surveyor, I served in the U.S Army for 10 years. During that time, my team and I developed a nationwide GPS infrastructure system called the Iraqi Geospatial Reference System (IGRS). We installed Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) and High Accuracy Reference Network Stations (HARNS), the first Iraqi owned and maintained system of its type.
As a native Arabic speaker, my role was to train the Iraqi engineers to install additional CORS, as well as update and maintain the IGRS as a part of the International GNSS Service (IGS) network to sustain the accuracy of engineering and mapping projects. The IGRS was critical to other major infrastructure projects in the effort of rebuilding the battered nation, such as telecommunications, public works, and natural resource management to name a few.
Some of the CORS we installed have Virtual Reference System (VRS) capability, a technology newly developed to establish real-time corrections in the field by using CORS as a base station for real-time kinematic (RTK) data collection.
Key coordinators for the installation included Wisam Al-Hassani of the Iraq Ministry of Water Resources, Paul McKenzie of the Canadian Army, Linda Allen of the U.S. State Department, and myself, representing the U.S. Army, in addition to representatives from National Geodetic Survey (NGS), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and Trimble Navigation.
In addition to developing the IGRS, we performed several critical projects to assist in the rebuilding efforts as well as providing force protection, navigation, and mapping. My topographic engineering unit was responsible for providing coalition forces with GIS analysis, map production, and geodetic surveys.
GPS equipment collecting data on a reference benchmark used to monitor the deformation of the Haditha Dam.
For my second tour in Iraq (2007–2008), I was the platoon sergeant, which is equivalent to a project manager in a surveying firm. During the 15-month deployment, my team performed various survey projects including: 10 airport obstruction surveys, a dam deformation survey, more than 30 artillery and target-acquisition radar surveys, base-camp designs, site layouts, and ground-truth data collection for photogrammetry and remote sensing projects. We also established a nationwide database of all survey control stations in Iraq. The CORS was installed using Trimble NetRS receivers and Zephyr geodetic antennas. Trimble GPSNet and GPSBase software were used to process the continuous satellite data, for inclusion in the worldwide CORS network for public use. Field survey operations were conducted using Trimble 5700 GPS equipment.
Traveling in Iraq was a major obstacle for survey operations. We had a choice: either fly on helicopters or drive military vehicles. Flying in helicopters with survey equipment was a challenge because we could never fit all our personnel and equipment. However, it was much safer than ground transportation through the dangerous roads of Iraq. In one incident, we were building a bridge in Baiji to help Iraqis and coalition forces cross the Tigris River after the original bridge was destroyed during the 2003 invasion. Our vehicle hit an improvised explosive device (IED). Some of the survey equipment was damaged, but we went back the next day and eventually built the bridge.
Anas Malkawi served 10 years in the Army as a geodetic surveyor and senior technical engineer. He is currently enrolled in Old Dominion University’s Civil Engineering program while working at Transocean International Corporation as the Iraq program manager.
The initial plan of IGRS and placement of CORS/HARN through the Southern provinces.Soldiers establish geodetic control for an airport aeronautical survey.Soldiers survey airport navigational aids that require high geodetic accuracy.Malkawi discusses installation of Iraqi operated and maintained CORS with Al-Hassani.The result of traveling in military vehicles over roads infested with IED.Key coordinators for the installation of the first Iraqi owned and maintained Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS.) From left are Hussein, Malkawi, McKenzie, and Allen.The 2005 U.S./British IGRS Team. Despite the difficulties, the soldiers I am honored to have served with stayed motivated and performed exceptionally every day by providing accurate data that saved lives.
