Tag: Munich Navigation Summit

A Professional OEM View of the Munich Summit
This month I am writing to you from Munich, where I have just attended the Munich Satellite Navigation Conference. I have written up the full Summit proceedings for GPS World’s new European GNSS & Earth Obersvation Report (EAGER) newsletter. You can read that (much longer) column here and while you’re at it, sign up for the new quarterly newsletter. What follows is an excerpt of it, specially focused on professional GNSS OEM interests.

I used to spend quite a lot of time in Munich working on a multi-national, multi-role fighter aircraft program, so returning for this year’s Munich Satellite Navigation Summit stirred some good memories for me. Held in the opulent Residenz Muenchen March 25-27, the conference always has a special atmosphere that these historic 1385 surroundings convey to the attendees.

Munich is in the Southern German state of Bavaria, and Bavaria has taken a real interest in the promotion and success of Galileo; witness the extensive Bavarian booth at recent European and North American GNSS conferences. Germany has, of course, been one of the principle nations providing significant funding for Galileo from its inception.

So with this backdrop, the summit brings together people involved with GNSS from around the world to report on the current status of GNSS and to relate how their participation in satellite navigation has progressed. And, of course, Europe, Germany, Bavaria and the European GNSS industry, which is now recognized around the world, all take the opportunity to present their capabilities and successes.

The first day’s session contained constellation updates from GPS, Galileo, Beidou and the UN International Committee on GNSS (ICG) — GLONASS delegates were notably absent. There was much speculation that they declined to attend due to the Crimean situation, and one U.S. delegate even inferred that they were “uninvited.” For the constellation updates, see the longer article referenced above.

Munich Highlights

A collection of examples of Bavarian GNSS innovations followed in a very interesting session led off by an overview of Business Incubation Centers and their collaboration with government agencies and research centers. Small business start-ups are apparently encouraged to apply during four annual time-slots, and receive two years’ incubation support and cash incentives. This has lead to 81 new ventures and has apparently been the source of the 1,000 new jobs mentioned by the Minister of Economic Affairs. The annual European Satellite Navigation Competition and Galileo Masters competition have also generated a whole bunch of ideas and concepts (8,000), some of which have found support through this incubation process.

Airbus Defence gave a short overview of the testing work it accomplished in supporting the first Galileo fix and has prepared several vehicle test platforms, ready to take the next phase of Galileo testing to the streets in realistic, real-world environments.

DLR provided insights into a number of its activities, namely:
- Iono mapping
- Signal distortion
- Multipath
- Jammer mitigation – adaptive antenna and processing
- GNSS repeaters – how they can become unintentional jammers
- Spoofer and Multipath inbvestigations
- Antenna designs
- GNSS evolution – Maser and clock combination benefits
Army University of Munich discussed radio science experiments in the Solar System and experiments using Mars Express (above) in polar orbit around Mars and resulting measurements of the moon Phobos. Internal and external outreach efforts with numerous organizations were also mentioned.

IFEN provided more down-to-Earth information on the on-going activities at the GATE ground-based pseudolite range, which has enabled realistic outdoors testing of Galileo receivers, well in advance of signals from orbiting satellites. Recent testing has now been able to include the four operating Galileo SVs on orbit with GATE pseudolite signals. GATE will continue to evolve over the next few years to keep up as more Galileo orbital signals come on-line.

Fraunhofer presented information on its 40-channel GPS/Galileo/GLONASS chip-receiver (above) – claiming 1-meter accuracy, low-cost, robust reliable position solution, small form-factor and low-power. Following PRS test-bed development efforts, Fraunhofer has now received a contract to also deliver 20 pre-operational Galileo PRS receivers for use in initial pilot projects.

GNSS Interference

Vidal Ashkenazi, in his inimitable form, lead a panel discussion on interference, jamming (in particular Personal Privacy Devices, or PPD) and spoofing, and coaxed his panel members to provide a whole bunch of information on what’s being done, mitigation capabilities and potential enforcement. Unlike all the other sessions, Vidal’s panel members didn’t use presentations, but rather responded to wide-ranging questions on the subject from the session chair. For a complete view of this, as well as a subsequent session on “Legal Impacts of Personal Privacy Devices (PPDs),” see the EAGER newsletter column.

Precise Point Positioning (PPP)

The group discussing PPP options consisted of the the European GNSS Agency (GSA, charged with exploitation of Galileo services), several principle industry service providers of PPP, and the federal agency, which provides PPP-like services in Germany.

The GSA presented its ideas concerning the provision of high-accuracy PPP corrections over the Galileo E6 signal – the so-called Commercial Service (CS). The intent, however, would not be to disrupt the commercial marketplace. Nevertheless, GSA is proposing a public-funded service to be sold to users within a market that is already well served by commercial worldwide service providers who charge users for cm-level PPP service.

And while Trimble made a polite presentation on the many levels of capabilities of its TerraSat services, as did Veripos and to some extent Fugro, it was clear that the commercial providers are not eager to find competition in their market from a government entity. NovAtel also chimed in on this conflict as it will be involved in Veripos/TerraStar, following its acquisition by Hexagon. Fugro appeared to be interested in acquiring rights to distribute CS on behalf of GSA.

The German federal agency promoted open data, source and standards from the IGS network to which it contributes: IGS is supported by numerous national agencies around the world. Orbit and clock PPP service is available 24/7 from multiple sources. However, the service is offered on a best efforts basis without a service guarantee, and cannot achieve the accuracies or convergence times of commercial services.

I talked subsequently with Michael Ritter, CEO of NovAtel, to learn the background to the Veripos/TerraStar acquisition. It’s clear that providing PPP services means added value to NovAtel when they sell receivers with PPP capability, so they will quickly discontinue offering Omnistar subscriptions and will shortly launch NovAtel Correct, offering Veripos (marine) and TerraStar (land) PPP subscription services. NovAtel is making significant inroads in the agriculture segment, and they see PPP service as an essential element of this and other businesses. The acquisition was worth something on the order of $200 million, so there is a vested interest in making these services pay and discouraging GSA entry into this market. Veripos will continue supplying other GNSS OEM receiver manufacturers — notably Septentrio, who use TerraStar services, now also NovAtel, and potentially another major GNSS manufacturer.

Future of GNSS in User Segment

Chaired by Greg Turetzky of Intel, this session opened the third day of the Summit. The presenters offered their concepts for current and future GNSS equipment and systems.

Stanford University outlined its work with FAA on an alternate PNT system to be used as a back-up to GNSS. It used to be that GNSS systems were designed to overcome space-weather effects and faults in equipment design or manufacture — nowadays, there are “bad guys” out there and we need to “protect, toughen and augment” these systems. Antennas can be built that impart a specific signature to the signals they transmit, and this may aid in finding and prosecuting the bad guys, but the main focus of work is development of a hybrid system using Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) and a pseudolite.

Tests have demonstrated good performance, and these prototype efforts could lead to aviation requirements (MOPS) development by 2018 and deployment by 2020.

Septentrio has been involved in Galileo since it began and was the first company with Galileo receivers. Nowadays, they have receivers fielded in multiple commercial applications, including machine control, maritime, aviation, automation, and measurement, delivering accuracies from a meter down to a centimeter. They will add E6 to their AsteRx family of multiple-channel, multi-frequency, multi-constellation receivers, and have developed a number of hardware and software mitigation techniques to combat jamming, interference and multipath, and to integrate receivers with inertial units for aiding.

Furuno is interested in resilient PNT for marine applications, and has examined the use of eLoran as an alternative to GPS, but has moved towards a system of radar beacons that detect radar pulses from passing ships and transmit their positions, enabling position determination. In tests, accuracies of around 2 meters have been obtained with two beacons.

Quascom’s approach is to add firewalls inside receivers, which toughen the processing and prevent distortion of position information. Quascom believes this will be necessary until authentication can be added into the GNSS system itself, so that any data received is validated and is known to be good.

Chris Rizos from the University of New South Wales, Australia, drew attention to the “holes” that exist in GNSS, and reviewed a number of possible “Band-Aid” fixes, such as Wi-Fi especially for indoor location. However, his solution seems to be to establish terrestrial networks transmitting GNSS-like signals.

Eurocontrol indicated that aircraft currently use inertial and DME extensively as a back-up to GNSS navigation. By 2030, there will be multiple constellations, and dual-frequency use should become commonplace in aviation, so GNSS navigation should be much more robust. Aircraft approaches are required to be in conformance with Required Navigation Performance (RNP), so would it be possible to develop RNP procedures for DME and inertial to be used as back-up during approaches in the event GNSS is disrupted?

To conclude the session, Airbus provided a “starter course” overview on inertial systems – how they work, the range of different types available, what they can achieve, costs, strengths and weaknesses and integration with GNSS.

The summit continued with subsequent sessions on:
- Space technologies and users
- GNSS monitoring of Earth and disaster management
- Copernicus – Earth Observation
- GNSS Education
Unfortunately, my deadline didn’t allow me to attend these equally interesting presentations.

There is also a manufacturers’ exhibit area at the summit that just fits into a couple of corridors near the main hall – around 20 booths. I talked with several of the manufacturers, including Spirent who has launched its latest GSS9000 multi-frequency-constellation simulator, with a four-fold increase in system iteration rate over the previous model. Exhibitors appeared to be pleased to be at the summit and by the level of interest shown by the attendees.

So, as this year’s Munich Summit concludes, where does this leave us? We’ve learned some new things about several GNSS topics and heard some interesting new concepts. Europe appears to be now focused on users and applications, to ensure there is market growth and use of Galileo. What stands out for me is the contrast between how European governments go about GNSS and how North America and the commercial world does the same thing without as much direct influence. This is nothing new, of course, it’s just the European way…

Tony Murfin
GNSS Aerospace
March 31, 2014
Grand Setting for a Grand Summit

Most of Munich is an ultra-modern German city, albeit one of the most expensive cities in Europe, where you can travel anywhere by tram, automobile, S-Bahn, rail or taxi. But why bother when you have the opportunity and thrill of walking through the old city center and have Bavarians greet you with “May God greet you” or “God bless”? — what a way to say hello. That experience, which brings back fond memories — more on that in my main column — combined with the wonderful aromas from bakeries and early morning baristas hard at work, which are hard to pass by, made the short walk to the Residenz München seem all too short; and then you are there — greeted with the magnificence of the Munich Satellite Summit venue.

The Residenz München served as the seat of government and residence of Bavarian dukes, electors and kings from 1508 to 1918. The Residenz began life in 1385 as a castle on the outskirts of München and subsequently transformed over the centuries into a magnificent palace or Schloss, its buildings and gardens extending further into the center of town or Stadtmitte. And this is the incredible venue for the Munich Satellite Summit. It is breathtakingly magnificent and yet for all its age and history the Residenz serves its varied and ever-changing purposes well, and certainly is the perfect venue for the summit. This is the 10^th anniversary of the summit in this location, and hopefully it will never change. Anything else now, with so much grandeur and history, would be a huge disappointment.

As you ascend steps that have been trod and worn down daily by kings, dukes, barons, and commoners alike for more than 625 years, it comes home that you are in a very special place. If that is not enough, the König’s guarded banquet room, which is still set with silver place settings, silverware, and crystal goblets to feed more than 100 at one grand table, soon gives you a clue that you are someplace special. Whilst there are several large banquet rooms and court areas easily capable of holding the 400+ attendees, the organizers have wisely chosen to keep you moving from place to place to pique your interest in the old castle and to keep the blood flowing after sitting through a series of high-tech presentations.

In the alte Schloss, the summit presentations are in one area, the company and sponsor booths are in another, and the German coffee and refreshments in yet another. This keeps you moving and also keeps the noise and modern-day distractions to a manageable level — plus, of course, it is perfect for networking. There are a myriad of interesting nooks and crannies for meet-ups and impromptu discussions. Fortunately the conveniently provided summit Wi-Fi signals penetrate the thick stone walls and are available in all meeting and presentation areas.

The real danger of meeting in this iconic Bavarian palace is that you are constantly distracted by the beauty and history surrounding you. I constantly reminded myself I was attending a 21st-century satellite summit and not a whirlwind tour of gorgeous historical Bavarian architecture. Although I must admit I managed to do a little of the latter in between presentations and meetings. Just don’t tell my editor.

Fortunately, lunch is served in-suite, so you do not have to leave the fabulous Schloss for sustenance — and what a gourmet lunch. You guessed it: the meals were fit for a King or König, certainly more than sufficient for a mere journalist. Although I must admit to being a bit worried since as a vegetarian, Germany does not exactly have the reputation of providing veggie substitutes for wurst und sauerbraten. However, to say I was happily surprised is putting it mildly.

Frauleins Heike Haas and Bärbel Deisting, whom I cannot praise highly enough, the intrepid and unflappable organizers of this wonderful international event, had obviously warned their chef and he provided sumptuous vegetarian or “vegetarisch auf Deutsch,” options for every meal. My most common refrain at mealtimes, as I returned for seconds and thirds, was…are you sure this does not have any meat in it? The meals, snacks, and of course the coffee are not to be missed. You might miss five minutes of a presentation but don’t dare miss a meal.

This was my first year to attend the Munich Summit as Alan Cameron, our intrepid editor-in-chief and now publisher, has always attended in the past. So most of the greetings went like this: “Hi Don, glad you are here. Where’s Alan?” My invariable response was, “Busy being the publisher.”

The opening plenary, as it is so aptly named, took place in the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche, or Court Church of All Saints, and it was a fitting venue. The master of ceremonies opined that the Court Church of All Saints only took 11 years to complete in the 1800s, in direct contrast to the Galileo constellation, which has already been in existence for more than 11 years with…well, you get the point.

Now for an historical note: King Ludwig 1 who commissioned the Court Church of All Saints married Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen in October 1810 and the resulting wedding celebration was the occasion for the first ever Oktoberfest. Beer drinkers for the last 200 years are still celebrating that wedding. I know I did when I attended University in München more than 45 years ago, but that is a story for another time. And no, this is not the Neuschwanstein, Wagner loving, mad King Ludwig, who unfortunately after a lifetime of swimming forgot how at the crucial moment…that was his grandson.

April 11, 2012
Grüss Gott – Munich Satellite Summit

There is a reason the Munich Satellite Summit is billed as a summit and not a symposium or conference. It’s a different atmosphere that invites group chats, informal get-togethers, and networking. One item of note that I came away with is that the Chinese are looking for help and partners for their PNT constellations, of which there appear to be three in the making. But asked point blank when they would finally release the full ICD specifications for receivers (a partial ICD has been released) the answer was the same as last year. They did not know when that might happen. It is hard to build receivers and support a specific program, much less three PNT constellations, when you don’t have the specifications.

Grüss Gott! rang out across the ancient cobblestoned Marienplatz, home of the beautiful and timeless Glockenspiel or mechanized clock tower as I strolled along. The Glockenspeil is located in the heart of the old city of München, Germany and I passed it every morning as I strolled toward the Residenz München, which centuries ago was home and castle to the Kings of Bavaria. This particular beautiful spring morning the ancient castle was my destination and the incredible venue for the Munich Satellite Summit. Talk about location, location, location! (Read more about this incredible setting.)

Plenary Session

There were no less than 10 plenary speakers on opening night. In retrospect there should have only been five, but that is a lesson learned, as is the fact that the Chinese presenter was totally indecipherable. Even reading his slides I still could not understand a word he said. As an organizer of such events, and yes I know from experience, you quickly learn that poor and even unintelligible speakers are just a curse that comes with the territory. However, the musical interludes presented by an a cappella musical group were outstanding. This was the highlight of the evening, which tells you something about the plenary — it was not bad actually as plenaries go, everything worked like clockwork. It was just a tad bit too long. No one ever hopes…well maybe that is backwards…actually everyone hopes to attend a plenary that is actually informative but it rarely occurs. The summit plenary wasn’t bad; the food, drink and networking opportunities were great, but next year I vote for more songs, fewer indecipherable speeches and, until they get their act together, the only Chinese item on the plenary or any summit agenda should be egg rolls.

This is not an expression of Xenophobia or bigotry, not at all — I just hate to waste my time. I spent several hours listening to the Chinese presentations during the summit and literally understanding about 10% or less, and unless I, and everyone else missed it, there was absolutely nothing new announced. It was a total rehash of the National Space Symposiums uninformative Chinese forum from last April.

The one item of note that I did comprehend is that the Chinese are looking for help and partners for their PNT constellations, of which there appear to be three in the making. But asked point blank when they would finally release the full ICD specifications for receivers (a partial ICD has been released), the answer was the same as last year. They did not know when that might happen. It is hard to build receivers and support a specific program, much less three PNT constellations, when you don’t have the specifications.

I met Joel Szabat, the senior government representative at the plenary who is currently serving as a senior official in the U.S. Department of Transportation. Joel and I have corresponded but never met, so this was a great opportunity to get acquainted. And I must add that Joel’s comments during the plenary session were right on the mark. They were short, concise, and to the point. Very well done. If only others had emulated him.

Other notable U.S. attendees were Colonel Bernie Gruber, director of the GPS Directorate, who gave a well received but brief GPS status briefing, and some of his staff along with Hank Skalski, the Civil GPS liaison at HQ AFSPC; Ron Hatch from John Deere (Starfire); as well as an old friend, Dr. Per Enge, director of the GPS laboratory and senior professor in the Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics at Stanford University. Representatives from Lockheed-Martin Space Systems and other U.S. companies were present as well, so the U.S. space program was well represented.

One of the Royal Lions Guarding the entrance
to the Munich Satellite Summit.

Summit

There is a reason the Munich Satellite Summit is billed as a summit and not a symposium or conference. There is a different atmosphere that invites group chats, informal get-togethers and networking. It may sound strange; however, in an ancient German palace the atmosphere is a bit less formal than at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which is the largest Space Symposium in the world. The Munich Satellite Summit will garner ~400 international attendees while at the Broadmoor Resort there will be closer to 5,000 attending. So the summit is definitely a bit more intimate and less rushed. More conducive to networking, which in my estimation is the real value of the summit. At the summit you can easily visit all the booths in 30 minutes or less and in Colorado Springs you will be lucky to get through all the booths in less than three days of dedicated booth-hopping. In Germany everyone is a bit more relaxed, and at the National Space Symposium everyone is trying to see and attend everything; it is definitely a bit more frenetic and yet both venues are amazing in their own way and each event has its place in the scheme of things.

Both the Munich Space Summit and the National Space Symposium, which includes Cyber 1.2 (15-19 April 2012), are about more than GPS and PNT, yet these are the predominant themes at both events…and this is only as it should be… Who me? Biased!

eLORAN

Seriously, the Munich Space Summit is naturally more European Space Agency (ESA) and Galileo-oriented than the National Space Symposium, and yet this year one of the main themes and topics of conversation was eLORAN and the USCG-supported UrsaNav foray into that endeavor.

My GPS World column on that timely topic came out on March 14, the first full day of the summit, so it was a constant topic of conversation for me and I was happy to hear that sections from the article were quoted numerous times during the summit. Many were happily surprised by the UrsaNav efforts and even more surprised by the USCG support.

A dedicated eLORAN session included Professor David Last from the UK and a speaker from the subcontinent, who told some pretty hair-raising pirate stories to illustrate his points of why a strong, impervious to jamming, low-frequency timing and PNT system is needed in his part of the world and is generally a good idea on a global basis. I would agree — when being attacked by pirates, knowing immediately exactly where and when you are can be of critical importance when seeking help. It was an entertaining, informative session that was standing-room only.

During the entire summit, I only heard the word LightSquared used as an expletive. Most everyone said…thank goodness that “§”&%” is over… or words to that effect. Most everyone marveled that it took a year to get through the whole fiasco and wondered what will happen next…it is like waiting for the other shoe to drop…but there was an obvious huge sigh of relief and then inevitably comments like “…see, that’s why the United States needs an eLORAN system. ” Point taken I hope.

And the U.S. does desperately need a proven high-power LF Stratum-1 timing signal that covers the U.S., approaches to the U.S. as well as portions of Canada and Latin America. Faithful readers know that I often quote the statistic that 90% of GPS users globally use GPS for time. Time and frequency standards are critical to our national infrastructure, even more so since GPS freely provides time to a very high degree of accuracy for all and using the GPS timing source has become ubiquitous among most U.S. government agencies.

Time is critically important to all we do — more so than most of us ever take the time to consider. However the subject of time fascinates many. I remember a conference on timing a few months ago in Boulder, Colorado, at NIST with numerous timing briefings given by an old friend, Judah Levine. The topics included, “What is Time?”, “What is a Second?”, “What is a Leap Second?” and “The Importance of Frequency” — I don’t remember anyone leaving the room while Judah was speaking.

Some of the more critical factors concerning time as associated with GPS and eLORAN are that unlike mechanical devices — such as an INS (inertial navigation system) that display your position — GPS and eLORAN signals contain data that informs you when you are as well as where you are. GPS and eLORAN can give you the day, date and time as well as a geographical or spatial position, which is crucial data for automated scheduling of activities that is so prevalent in many of our critical infrastructures today.

I and several subject matter experts will discuss aspects of eLORAN and more during a GPS World-sponsored webinar in June 2012. Stay tuned for more information concerning that event.

Other Forays

Munich is a big modern city with all that brings with it and it has changed a great deal in the last 45 years, since I attended University there. I helped edit the university newspaper, worked as a disc jockey at Radio Free Europe to pay my way though university, and worked as a roving correspondent. See, I really have been in this business for a long time in one way or another. So, being the intrepid journalist I have always been, only much older and wiser and with much less hair to lose, I scheduled side trips to Astrium, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, VW-Porsche, and NATO AWACS. Do you see a trend developing?

The Astrium personnel and the factory tour were very special, and you will be hearing more about both at another time. Astrium is building several of the key components of the Galileo satellites as a subcontractor to OHB Technology AG in Bremen, Germany.

Bottom Line

There is so much to say about the Munich Satellite Summit and of course the extra curricular excursions; it is impossible to do so in just one or two columns, so I will be covering different aspects over the next several months. Bottom Line: the Munich Satellite Summit is a seminal event and a treat not to be missed. I want to thank our Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Alan Cameron for allowing me to attend this year, and I hope that Alan remains so busy that I will have the opportunity to personally greet you with Grüss Gott in München in February 2013. Tschüss!

Until then, happy navigating.

April 11, 2012