GPS World

Tag: Ismael Colomina

  • Editorial Advisory Board Q&A: Location accuracy

    What is the most promising approach to increasing the location accuracy of smartphones?

    Headshot: Ismael Colomina
    Ismael Colomina

    “In addition to the use of increasingly available augmentation services, such as Galileo’s free High-Accuracy Service (HAS), I see two development directions that may help, particularly in the context of positioning in urban areas where smartphones are most used. One is the use of 3D city models — in general, 3D geoinformation — to compensate for multipath, non-line-of-sight and occlusion effects. The other is to use signals that are robust against those effects, which today are only available in geodetic-grade receivers.” — Ismael Colomina, GeoNumerics

    For the navigation of autonomous vehicles, will GNSS become essential, or will it be relegated to a secondary role by robotic navigation methods?

    John Fischer
    John Fischer

    “The PNT solution cannot be from a single source because autonomous navigation requires high integrity. Therefore, it’s not that GNSS will be relegated to secondary status, it’s that no one method will be primary. An intelligent fusion of diverse sensors —including GNSS — will provide the PNT solution along with an integrity metric that safeguards operation. The various sensors must agree. If they don’t, no trust can be put into the solution and autonomous navigation will cease. The definition of a new integrity metric that quantifies this trust level is needed.” — John Fischer, Orolia

    Ellen Hall
    Ellen Hall

    “Because GNSS provides high precision and widely available PNT, it will continue to be a critical component in navigation while working with computer vision, inertial measurement units (IMUs) and lidar through sensor fusion. As a secondary component, GNSS serves a vital role for localization and validation.” — Ellen Hall, Spirent Federal Systems

  • Editorial Advisory Board PNT Q&A: Autonomous vehicles & GNSS

    How is the completion of Galileo and BeiDou affecting the development of autonomous vehicles?

    Headshot: Ismael Colomina
    Ismael Colomina, chief scientist, Geonumerics

    “GNSS has had a limited impact on the development of AVs because their developers regard it as insufficiently accurate, reliable, and ubiquitous. Only a minority of them are aware of the benefits that the new/modernized constellations bring. More and improved signals and new services— both commercial and public—such as Galileo’s HAS, NMA and CAS will enable and complement visual, lidar and radar sensors for SAE levels of automation 2 and higher and for ASIL D safety levels.”
    Ismael Colomina
    GeoNumerics

    Ellen Hall
    Ellen Hall, Spirent Federal System

    “Safety is critical to the implementation of AVs and this safety relies upon PNT accuracy, availability and robustness. These three requirements all benefit from constellation diversification in terms of multiple signals, frequencies, satellites, and constellation providers. In addition to the four civilian signals available on three frequencies from the GPS constellation, signals from Galileo and BeiDou provide suitably equipped receivers with extra satellites, signals and ground segment diversity.”
    Ellen Hall
    Spirent Federal Systems

    Brad Parkinson
    Brad Parkinson

    “The economic potential of self-driving vehicles is the major driver for their development. Can they be made affordable, safe, dependable, and useful? More operational GNSS constellations may help resolve these issues favorably, but GNSS progress should not significantly influence the large number of developers. My favorite such application is long-haul trucking, which may have some very favorable profit and safety benefits.”
    Bradford W. Parkinson
    Stanford Center for Position, Navigation and Time

  • Discovering a new GPS journal

    Discovering a new GPS journal

    Headshot: Ismael Colomina
    Ismael Colomina, chief scientist, Geonumerics

    Believe it or not, I remember clearly when one of my colleagues, at the beginning of 1990 in my office, made me aware of the upcoming GPS World journal. He went through the list of the already-appointed members of the editorial board and found some key names; Vidal Ashkenazi comes now to my mind. Later on, we received the first issue which, I am sure, must be carefully stored in the library of, at the time my employer, the Institute of Cartography of Catalonia (ICC).

    I also remember the day we were processing GPS kinematic measurements of an aerial survey conducted with Sercel NR52 and TR5SB C/A-code L1 GPS receivers (one was 33 x 38 x 33 cm3 and 18 kg; the other was even bulkier, and both operated on valves). That was for the new GPS aerial triangulation method.

    Shortly after, the application to airborne laser scanning came, and then INS/GPS integration for airborne remote sensing and mobile mapping. Then came the reinforcing high-speed loop of new applications, technology and challenges. The rest is history. An invariant of these 30 years has been that on our tables there were always one or more issues of GPS World. GPS World issues are always around us, part of our offices’ landscapes.

    Last but not least, I cannot tell apart the early days of the journal from its founding editor, Glen Gibbons, who has to be credited for about half the life of the magazine. He brought me onboard GeoConvergencia and, later on, when GeoConvergencia was stopped, to GPS World. I used to share with him ideas and results, and he used to scold me about not publishing them in his journal.

  • Editorial Advisory Board PNT Q&A: 3D in construction

    What are the key obstacles to widespread adoption of 3D positioning and guidance in the construction industry?

    Ismael Colomina
    Ismael Colomina, GeoNumerics

    “Construction site monitoring with UAVs requires regulated standard scenarios that allow flying over people and in urban areas without spending weeks obtaining the needed permissions. It also requires the development of critical UAV components, especially the guidance, navigation and control (GNC) systems. Safe UAV navigation — guaranteeing positional accuracy with small probabilities of actual errors larger than the specified ones — is still under development and will involve a multi-sensor navigation system. Current GNSS augmentation systems, such as WAAS and EGNOS, may not be appropriate for flights in the very-low-level (VLL) airspace.”
    Ismael Colomina, GeoNumerics

    Members of the EAB

    Tony Agresta
    Nearmap

    Miguel Amor
    Hexagon Positioning Intelligence

    Thibault Bonnevie
    SBG Systems

    Alison Brown
    NAVSYS Corporation

    Ismael Colomina
    GeoNumerics

    Clem Driscoll
    C.J. Driscoll & Associates

    John Fischer
    Orolia

    Ellen Hall
    Spirent Federal Systems

    Jules McNeff
    Overlook Systems Technologies, Inc.

    Terry Moore
    University of Nottingham

    Bradford W. Parkinson
    Stanford Center for Position, Navigation and Time

    Jean-Marie Sleewaegen
    Septentrio

    Michael Swiek
    GPS Alliance

    Julian Thomas
    Racelogic Ltd.

    Greg Turetzky
    Consultant

  • Editorial Advisory Board PNT Q&A: How mapping improves PNT tech

    Editorial Advisory Board PNT Q&A: How mapping improves PNT tech

    How have improvements in mapping data-collection advanced other PNT technologies?

    Photo: Nearmap
    Tony Agresta

    “Real-time positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) benefit from high-resolution aerial maps captured and published on a consistent basis. With sub 3-inch aerial photographs streamed through custom applications or instantly accessible solutions, governments and commercial use cases apply these maps for emergency 9-1-1 dispatch, routing guidance, and new information applications to inform citizens.”
    Tony Agresta
    Nearmap

    Ismael Colomina
    Ismael Colomina

    “In principle, PNT shall be based on linear/angular motion sensors. However, since the origins of aerial triangulation down to contemporaneous hybrid multi-sensor systems, mapping and motion sensors have cooperated in PNT tasks. Current visual- and lidar-odometry are brilliant examples thereof.”
    Ismael Colomina
    GeoNumerics

    Members of the EAB

    Tony Agresta
    Nearmap

    Miguel Amor
    Hexagon Positioning Intelligence

    Thibault Bonnevie
    SBG Systems

    Alison Brown
    NAVSYS Corporation

    Ismael Colomina
    GeoNumerics

    Clem Driscoll
    C.J. Driscoll & Associates

    John Fischer
    Orolia

    Ellen Hall
    Spirent Federal Systems

    Jules McNeff
    Overlook Systems Technologies, Inc.

    Terry Moore
    University of Nottingham

    Bradford W. Parkinson
    Stanford Center for Position, Navigation and Time

    Jean-Marie Sleewaegen
    Septentrio

    Michael Swiek
    GPS Alliance

    Julian Thomas
    Racelogic Ltd.

    Greg Turetzky
    Consultant

  • Editorial Advisory Board PNT Q&A: Are UAVs disruptive?

    Editorial Advisory Board PNT Q&A: Are UAVs disruptive?

    Are drones (UAVs) a disruptive or constructive technology for high-precision mapping that yields practical, actionable results for the end user/customer?

     

    Ismael Colomina
    Ismael Colomina

    “More constructive than disruptive. Drone mapping is opening new markets that, to a large extent, were not serviceable by conventional manned flights. On the other hand, the profound changes — and crisis — in the mapping business were not produced by drones.”
    Ismael Colomina
    GeoNumerics

     

    Jean-Marie Sleewaegen
    Jean-Marie Sleewaegen

    “Drones have dramatically reshaped the surveying and mapping industry. Combined with reliable positioning and recent advancements in high-resolution cameras, photogrammetry and computer vision, drones now enable high-accuracy mapping faster and at much lower cost than conventional mapping techniques.”
    Jean-Marie Sleewaegen
    Septentrio

     

    Jules McNeff
    Jules McNeff

    “Drones can be constructive augmentations to high-precision map products because of their ready access to diverse locations. Drone imagery can document real-time physical changes that affect mapping applications during natural disasters or other events — but images alone aren’t maps without a geo-referenced grid such as the U.S. National Grid.”
    Jules McNeff
    Overlook Systems Technologies Inc.

     

    Other members of the EAB

    Tony Agresta
    Nearmap

    Miguel Amor
    Hexagon Positioning Intelligence

    Thibault Bonnevie
    SBG Systems

    Alison Brown
    NAVSYS Corporation

    Clem Driscoll
    C.J. Driscoll & Associates

    John Fischer
    Orolia

    Ellen Hall
    Spirent Federal Systems

    Terry Moore
    University of Nottingham

    Bradford W. Parkinson
    Stanford Center for Position,Navigation and Time

    Michael Swiek
    GPS Alliance

    Julian Thomas
    Racelogic Ltd.

    Greg Turetzky
    Consultant