GPS World

Tag: metadata standard

  • GNSS software-defined radio metadata standard published

    GNSS software-defined radio metadata standard published

    The GNSS Software Defined Radio Metadata Standard document has been published in NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation’s Spring 2021 issue, Volume 68, No. 1, pp. 11-20.

    The metadata standard is the product of a three year-long effort of the ION GNSS SDR Standard Working Group and defines the parameters and schema to express the contents of SDR sample data files. The standard promotes the interoperability of GNSS SDR data-collection systems and processors.

    In the past several years there has been a proliferation of software-defined radio (SDR) data-collection systems and processing platforms designed for or applicable to satellite navigation applications. These systems necessarily produce datasets in a wide range of different formats.

    To correctly interpret this SDR data, essential information such as the packed sample format and sampling rate is needed. Communicating this metadata between creators and users has historically been an ad-hoc, cumbersome, and error-prone process.

    To address this issue, the satnav SDR community developed the metadata standard and normative software library to automate the process, thus simplifying the exchange of datasets and promoting the interoperability of satnav SDR systems.

    The standard was ratified and formally accepted as an Institute of Navigation Standard in January.

    The formal standards document export citation is here.

    Illustration of ad-hoc metadata exchange between SDR data creators and users. (Image: NAVIGATION)
    Illustration of ad-hoc metadata exchange between SDR data creators and users. (Image: NAVIGATION)
  • ION requests final comments on GNSS SDR Metadata Standard

    ION requests final comments on GNSS SDR Metadata Standard

    Logo: ION

    The Institute of Navigation’s GNSS Software Defined Radio Metadata Standard working group is seeking its second and final public comment on the standard through Nov. 30.

    In recent years, there has been a proliferation of software-defined radio (SDR) data-collection systems and
    processing platforms designed for GNSS receiver applications or those that support GNSS bands.

    For post-processing, correctly interpreting the GNSS SDR sampled datasets produced or consumed by these systems has historically been a cumbersome and error-prone process. This is because these systems necessarily produce datasets of various formats, the subtleties of which are often lost in translation when communicating between the producer and consumer of these datasets.

    The GNSS SDR Metadata Standard standardizes the metadata associated with GNSS SDR sampled data files and the layout of the binary sample files.

    The standard defines parameters and schema to express the contents of SDR sample data files. It is designed to promote the interoperability of GNSS SDR data-collection systems and processors. The metadata files are human readable and in XML format.

    A compliant open-source C++ API for reading metadata and binary samples is also officially supported to promote ease of integration into existing SDR systems.

    Comments can be made by going to sdr.ion.org and clicking on “Submit a Comment.” Public comments are being accepted through Nov. 30.