GPS World

Tag: Wide Awake blog

  • Report from ION ITM: Faster, Smaller, Cheaper

    And more of them!

    That’s been one of the mantras — a controversial one, granted — of technological advance in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It has succeeded in penetrating the global positioning, navigation, and timing vanguard, as evidenced by a handful of key presentations on the first day of the Institute of Navigation (ION) International Technical Meeting in San Diego on Monday.

    Skybox Imaging, a company that is “passionate about bringing Moore’s Law to space via disruptive microsatellite technology, rapid development cycles, and a scalable web-based delivery platform,” spoke to the ION ITM plenary session in the person of Ronny Votel, an engineer leading the company’s guidance, navigation and control division. Skybox’s goal is to provide “easy access to reliable and frequent high-resolution images . . . through a “constellation of imaging microsatellites delivering high-resolution imagery of any spot on Earth multiple times per day.”

    To achieve that goal, Skybox is developing a low-cost imaging satellite system:

    • design life of the satellites, 3 years;
    • size of the satellites, a mini-fridge;
    • size of the constellation, in the tens.

    Skybox will pair that flying system with web-accessible big data processing platform to capture video or images of any location on Earth within a couple of days — an unheard of delivery turnaround in the current global imaging industry, unless you happen to be a government (as in central, high, federal, perhaps military) customer.

    The low-cost nature of the satellite opens the possibility of deploying tens of satellites which, when integrated together, have the potential to image any spot on Earth within an hour. Votel several times made the analogy in his talk of using an iPhone camera to capture desired imagery, and indeed that could be a next logical step in FBC development: just throw a bunch of camera phones up into orbit.

    Skybox expects to launch its first two satellites later this year.

    In April of last year, Wired published a fascinating history and analysis: “Smaller, Quicker, Secret, Robotic: Inside America’s New Space Force.” Between Between 1992 and 1999, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched 16 faster, smaller, cheaper missions, including Mars probes and space telescopes. Ten missions succeeded; six failed. Analysts declared the initiative a failure, and to a large extent it has been forsaken. Recent public writings, though, show second thinking. “I would like to respectfully suggest that success-per-dollar is a more meaningful measurement of achievement than success per-attempt,” stated one Air Force lieutenant colonel in a treatise on program management lessons from NASA.

    Could such an approach work for GNSS satellites, some of which are burdened with extraneous non-PNT payloads that make them far from FSC? Time will tell the wiser.

    Microtechnology

    In that FSC vein, at one of the afternoon’s technical sessions, Andrei Shkel of UC-Irvine had been scheduled to deliver a paper on “Precision Navigation and Timing Enabled by Microtechnology,” but apparently something came up and he was not able to appear. I had looked forward very much to what I anticipated would be an update to his September 2011 article in GPS World, “Microtechnology Comes of Age,” which was itself an update to a plenary talk he gave at ION ITM back in 2011. For now, that article will have satisfy us.

    Other presentations in the same MEMS, atomic clock, and MicroPNT session:

    Michael Bulatowicz of Northrop Grumman talked about a DARPA-backed project, the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) gyroscope. Northrop’s development and research has shown a viable solution to producing a small (size of a U.S. quarter coin) low-power navigation grade gyro using non-vibratory technology. The company has produced two prototypes and is at work on two more. Feed the NMR gyro into Shkel’s work and who knows what you’ll get in terms of FBC PNT? Well, maybe not cheaper in the immediate future. Bulatowicz said that as an assembled device he expected its cost, at least initially, to be substantially higher than MEMS technology.

    Richard Waters of Lumedyne Technologies spoke on next-generation MEMS inertial sensors with white-noise characteristics, a new paradigm based on time-domain switching for how MEMS sensors might work. TDS inertial sensors provide some key benefits: a purely digital approach, recalibration due to bias drift is not required, output is independent of oscillator conditions. Power is low, less than 1 millwatt. The device demonstrated switch stability under static conditions to –170 db. The same TDS concept can also be applied to a mechanical gyro.

    QZSS

    In other ION ITM first-day news, H. Tokura of the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology talked about “The Possibility of Precise Automobile Navigatin using GPS/QZS and Galileo E5 Pseudoranges.” Currently, research and prototype automobile high-precision PNT is done with real-time kinematic (RTK) networks, but this has some disadvantages, as discussed in an article by authors from the University of Nottingham, UK, in the February issue of GPS World.

    Japan’s QZSS now broadcasts L5 signals. Japan has essentially leapfrogged the United States, since the L5 signals with full CNAV message is already broadcast by satellite QZSS-1. Currently, three U.S. GPS satellites are L5 CNAV-capable, but none are broadcasting such a signal.

    Tokura showed results demonstrating that pseudorange observables from L5 are basically robust enough for this task. Further investigation for L5 is required because manufacturers are still developing the tracing technique for the new L5 signal. A software-defined receiver is indicated for usage.

    Hideki Yamada of Japan’s Electronic Navigation Research Institute spoke about the possibility of using only the QZSS constellation, “in case of GPS failure,” for RTK positioning in precision ag and machine control, with 4 to 7 QZSS satellites that could be launched in a future version of the constellation. QZSS has been shown to provide 10-meter accuracy in absence of GPS; now the research looks at an RTK method.

    With only one satellite in orbit, RTK-QZSS cannot be tested in the field. The researchers simulated a fuller constellation by using QZS-1, Multifunctional Transport Satellites (MTSAT), a set of geostationary weather and aviation control satellites, and GPS signals. Using a JAVAD Alpha receiver, Trimble and NovAtel antennas, they obtained results with low multipath error (about 30 centimeters) in a Tokyo environment. Multi-epoch processing is necessary for RTK-QZSS. This solution can work well as a minimum backup system of high-precision position under relatively moderate DOP condition.

    __________________

    Living may be easy, dying may be hard. But I’m wide awake, staying up late, sending my regards.

  • What Do You Know? What’s Your CEP?

    Here is the accuracy and estimation game played by 208 guests at GPS World’s Leadership Dinner in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday evening, September 20. Take a gander at the rules that follow, and then try your skill at the nine questions.

    To play fair, do not use Google or any other research, reference, or resource. Dinner guests were honor-bound not to employ their smartphones — just their smarts. You are, too.

    The first six questions had known answers (at least to the gamesmasters) at the time of the dinner. The final three peered into the future, as of that evening. Two of them have since been determined. Once the Galileo question is settled, the What Do You Know Grand Winners — 10 individuals who sat and gamed together among the 21 competing tables — will be announced, and suitable tchotchkes distributed.

    A special division for online contestants has been established; send your answers to [email protected]. Any entries that are too suspiciously close to the true answers will be disqualified for use of unauthorized resources.

    The accounting and awarding — and all the answers — will appear on the Wide Awake Blog in the very near future. Do not touch that dial.

    Game Rules

    1. What Do You Know? What’s Your CEP? consists of nine quantitative questions. Answer each question as best you can — without the aid of outside sources! Then give your error range: an upper bound and a lower bound.

    Answers will be graded on how close they are to the true answer, the size of the error range given, and whether that error range encompasses the true answer. The smaller your error range, the higher your potential score — but if the true answer falls outside your error range, you score zero for that question.

    2. The second and third rules pertained to “play by tables” at the dinner, and are irrelevant and thus omitted here.

    4. A final trifecta of three questions asks you to predict events in the future.  After turning in your answers to these questions, game play concludes for the evening. A final Grand Prize to the winning table will be awarded after the last event.

    A more detailed mathematical explanation of the scoring process is available at the scorer’s table, should you wish to see it.

    And now, are you ready to play . . . .

    What Do You Know??!!??!!  What’s Your CEP??!!??

    1.  Estimate the distance in kilometers from Shanghai, China, to Nashville, Tennessee, along a Great Circle global route, and from that derive the number of Delta II booster rockets (used to launch GPS satellites) laid end-to-end that would cover that distance.

    Upper bound  ______________

    Absolute answer _________ 

    Lower bound  ______________

    ­­­

    2. Give the total area, in either square inches or square centimeters (specify which you are giving) of a rather substantial hat worn by Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, to a friend’s wedding in July of this year.

    Kate Middleton

     

    That hat!

    Upper bound  ______________

    Absolute answer __________ 

    Lower bound  ______________

     

     

     

     

     

     

    3.  Peg the number of total orbiting and operating GNSS satellites, including SBAS, as of September 20, 2012.

    Upper bound  ______________

    Absolute answer _____________   

    Lower bound  ______________

     

    4.  Jack Daniel’s, a sour mash whiskey made in Lynchburg, Tennessee and the best-selling whiskey in the world, is known for its square bottles and black label. How many shots of whiskey does a white-oak barrel of Jack Daniel’s contain?

    Jack Daniel’s barrel in the Hermitage Hotel, Nashville

    Upper bound  ______________

    Absolute answer _____________   

    Lower bound  ______________

     

     

     

     

     

     

    5. How many of Richard Langley’s “Innovation” columns have appeared in GPS World magazine?

    Upper bound  ______________

    Absolute answer _____________  

    Lower bound  ______________

     

    6.  In his memoirs, Tony Blair mentions that, when he first met Queen Elizabeth II as Prime Minister of the UK, the Queen put him in his place by telling him,  “You are my tenth prime minister. The first was Winston. That was before you were born.”

    In a similar vein, how many individuals have served as Prime Minister (official, not acting or deputy) of Japan from the beginning of the Shōwa era under Emperor Hirohito in 1926 until today? (Note:  This is the count of individual persons. A single person serving as Prime Minister several times, such as the postwar Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, counts only once.)

    Upper bound  ______________

    Absolute answer _____________   

    Lower bound  ______________

     

    Final Trifecta

    7.  Predict the number of days that will elapse between the day of the combined launch of the Galileo IOV-3 and IOV-4 satellites and the day when the first satellite of that pair is declared operational. Dates are defined based on UTC. For example, if the launch should take place on the currently scheduled date of October 10, then October 11 would be 1 day, October 31 would be 21 days, and so on.  If the launch occurs on a different date, we start counting from there.

    Upper bound  ______________

    Absolute answer _____________

    Lower bound  ______________

     

    8. Predict the number of U.S. states, out of 50, that go blue in the Presidential election on November 6, 2012 — that is, their electoral votes go to President Obama’s Democratic Party ticket.

    Upper bound  ______________

    Absolute answer _____________

    Lower bound  ______________

     

    9.  Predict the total number of combined points scored in all three NFL football games to be played on Thanksgiving, November 22: Houston Texans vs. Detroit Lions, Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Redskins, New England Patriots vs. New York Jets.

    Upper bound  ______________

    Absolute answer _____________

    Lower bound  ______________

     

     

    _________________________________________________________________

    Sleep was what I wanted, you know what I got. Wide Awake, staying up late, wishing I was not.

     

     

     

     

  • Our Man in Barcelona

    Smartphones are taking over the world, and not just modern industrialized societies. A Broadcom executive predicted today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that, with costs going down for less expensive models, smartphones will not only be the first phone of any kind for many people in India and other developing nations, it will constitute their first Internet experience.

    There’s a whole lot of change coming for North America and European users, too, and much of that is being envisioned, enthusiastically promulgated, and occasionally even demonstrated at this global village of 60,000 modcom movers and shakers that congregate here every year.  Just a few examples:

    • granting access to one’s location data for only a set period, from 15 minutes to 4 hours, via Glympse.
    • location-based display advertising, not just coupons, but glossy little ads on your screen, called up by proximity to the advertiser, via Sofialys.
    • centimeter-accurate indoor navigation, to the product on the shelf and not to its competitor product next to it on the same shelf, via Wi-Fi and near-field communication (NFC), Broadcom again but others including LocAid are talking about it too.
    • An alarm clock function on your phone that will wake you (or let you sleep) at exactly the right time for that morning, based on real-time traffic and weather conditions on your commute route, from Airbiquity.

    All this with either a few deft touches of the smartphone screen, or automatically enabled.

    And this is just the location aspect of smartphones, which represents maybe 5 percent of what’s being talked about here.  Tons of other apps for health and entertainment and more.

    Tomorrow: location as a blue-chip commodity.

  • Inside the Head of the Body Politic

    In the exciting run-up to Election ’12, we conducted a straw poll of selected voters, giving everyone a chance to see what the electorate thinks about the state of things, and its outlook on the future. This is y’all talking, now: a barely scientific subset of the GPS/GNSS community, the audience at last week’s webinar, “The Challenges of Global Navigation.” The poll results are hardly surprising, but illuminating nonetheless.

    Question One. The greatest challenge to realizing new technical capabilities is:

    A.   staying ahead of the competition.  4.3% voted for this one.
    B.   funding.  34%
    C.   meeting expectations of the consumer (user).  34%
    D.   establishing standards.  8.5%
    E.   overcoming opposition (policy, privacy, regulations, etc..).   19.1%

    Few surprises here. The biggest problems are always getting hands on the money to make a product, and then getting someone to buy the product.  The latter, of course, by making the product enough of a value proposition for the discerning prospect to buy.

    Question Two. The predominate source of technical vision/innovation is:
    A.     Governments.   1.7%
    B.     Industry on its own.   53.3%
    C.     Industry responding to government requirements.   28.3%
    D.     Academia.   16.7%

    Most of you out there believe you know what you are doing and are best left to yourselves to do it. Good on ya.

    By the way, all the questions here were devised by Doug Taggart, president of Overlook Systems Technologies, Inc., and moderator of the plenary session at the Institute of Navigation’s (ION’s) International Technical Meeting. The ION ITM plenary took place three hours before our webinar, and audience members voted on these same questions. We then adjourned to a hotel room at the conference site and essentially re-presented a portion of the webinar content, interspersed with the polling questions.

    The full 60-minute webinar, with presentations by Jules McNeff, VP Strategy and Programs, Overlook Systems Technologies, Inc., and Chuck Schue, president and CEO of UrsaNav, is available for download and replay at env-gpsworld-integration.kinsta.cloud/webinar (scroll down).

    Question Three. Successful innovation is most dependent on:
    A.     technology revolution.   11.5%
    B.     technology evolution.   39.3%
    C.     market demand.   34.4%
    D.      project management.   6.6%
    E.      funding.   8.2%

    The free-market Keynesians out there are exceeded (in numbers) only by the techno visionaries, who believe that technology itself is a live organism, evolving and developing under its own impetus (perhaps aided or driven in part by market demand). Unless I’m putting words into someone’s mouth.

    Question Four. Should innovative military capabilities be made available for civil/commercial exploitation?
    A.      Yes, always.  The commercial spin-off value is far greater.  31.3%
    B.      Sometimes.  When military capability is not compromised.   68.7%
    C.      No.  Military capabilities are for military use only.  Every advantage must be protected.   0%

    “Sometimes” is always a safe answer. But a coalition of free-marketers and techno visionaries made a surprisingly strong showing, garnering nearly one-third of the votes on an unequivocal up-down issue. This pushback should not be ignored by those in power.

    Question Five. GPS will continue to be the world’s space-based PNT “Gold Standard”:
    A.    for the next 20 years.   50%
    B.    until Europe’s Galileo system is declared operational.   20.8%
    C.    until China’s Compass system is declared operational.   14.6%
    D.    until Glonass incorporates L1C.   8.3%
    E.    it is not the Gold Standard today.   6.2%

    At first glance, one might find few worries here for those who design new products with GPS uppermost or even solely in mind. On the other hand, if you combine the four non-GPS gold standard answers, you get a separate but equal body politic.

    Mind you, the other 50% are not saying that any other system will surpass GPS and become a new gold standard. The question does not ask that. But it does leave the door open for anyone to conclude that there may not be a gold standard at all at some point in the future — that all or at least a plurality of systems will be equally capable, or that an interoperable, interchangeable GNSS will surpass any single system component.

    Question Six. From a user perspective, what is the most concerning aspect of having access to PNT information derived from GNSS?
    A.    It is susceptible to interference.   58%
    B.    Without augmentation, it does not meet my needs.   26%
    C.    It is overshadowing the need for complementary systems that do not have similar shortcomings.   8%
    D.    No concerns.   8%

    Interference is on nearly everyone’s mind. In fact, those who voted the B or C ticket can also be inferred to be driven by interference concerns, they are just taking their concern a step further by envisioning a solution. Chuck Shue’s webinar presentation (see above link) on e-Loran should be of interest to everyone here except the bottom 8.

    Question Seven. Regarding GNSS systems, which is more important to design and field first?
    A.      The Space segment (satellites).   21.4%
    B.      The Ground Control Segment.   23.2%
    C.      The User Equipment.   1.8%
    D.      All are equally important, and should be fielded simultaneously.   53.6%

    I feel this result is of little use to anyone except the U.S. Air Force, the European Space Agency, Roscosmos, and the China National Space Administration. And I’m pretty sure they all knew it already.

    Question Eight. How does a country gain and maintain GNSS superiority?
    A.      Create technological advantage (better mouse trap).   25%
    B.      Create political/policy advantage (better playing field).   11.5%
    C.      Create fiscal advantage (better funding).   36.5%
    D.      Create public/private partnerships (better risk mitigation).   26.9%

    A majority, but not a thumping one, opts for money.  Another safe vote in almost any circumstance.

    David Last, another panel speaker at the morning’s plenary, made a cogent comment when this question was presented. He could understand, he said, how a country might want to gain and maintain military superiority. That’s a question of survival. But GNSS superiority? In this age of interoperability, surely that’s beside the point.

    Well, we’ve tossed our chaff into the wind to see which way it blows. Now we must all put our heads down and our shoulders to the wheel, pushing on to Election ’12, coming up  November 4.

    But there’s an earlier Election ’12 that takes place September 20: the return showdown between the Satellite Party and the Signal Party. The Reds and the Blues. They last contested, you may or may not remember, in the previous election year, 2008; Put to a Vote, GPS World’s Leadership Dinner — held during ION-GNSS 2008 in Savannah, Georgia — convoked a lively debate: Would the community gain more from new signals, or from more satellites? A made-up scenario that elicited important insights.

    The Satellite Party has been in power since its ’08 victory. Are you better off now than you were four years ago? We will return to the hustings in Nashville during ION-GNSS, as again GPS World hosts GNSS Election ’12.

    Given the current tenor of debates around the country and around the world, I have a feeling we’ll be hearing from the Occupy GPS movement as well as the two frontrunners.

  • Da Capo: Pardon Me, Boy, Is That the Galileo Choo Choo?

    Our Paris correspondent, Ms. Axelle Pomies, writes that “The Galileo Train is about to depart, but European GNSS applications incentives are still at the station.”

    “Despite a vast potential for industry growth and new jobs in Europe,” she continues, “European government bodies are not taking up the challenge. The budget dedicated to GNSS application research in European Commission FP7 was dramatically cut in 2007, and no specific budget line for GNSS application R&D is foreseen for the period post-2013. In times of much-needed jobs, decision-makers seem to plan to leave out the GNSS application R&D. This short-term strategy, depriving European citizens of the opportunity to take full advantage of a booming market, is going to cost European GNSS downstream industry and Europe dear.”

    See the full Galileo Services press release.

    Hear melodic accompaniment and see very flashy footwork for the following doggerel.

    And now, with apologies to Mack Gordon, Harry Warren, and Glenn Miller,

    Pardon me, boy
    Is that the Galileo choo choo?
    Track twenty-nine
    Boy, you can give me a shine.
    Can you afford
    To miss that Galileo choo choo
    And miss the ride
    That R & D would provide?

    You leave the Gare du Nord ’bout a quarter to four
    Read a magazine and then you’re in Dusseldor(f)
    Dinner in the diner
    Nothing could be finer
    Than to have your ham an’ eggs in Thurin-gai-ya

    When you hear the whistle blowin’ eight to the bar
    Then you know Oberpfaffenhoffen’s not very far
    Shovel all the coal in
    Gotta keep it rollin’
    Woo, woo, Galileo, there you are

    There’s gonna be
    A certain party at the station
    But if EU won’t show support
    Our downstream market will fall short
    We’re all gonna cry
    Without a Framework Programme loan
    So Galileo choo choo
    Won’t you choo-choo me home?
    Galileo choo choo
    Won’t you choo-choo me home?

  • Facts, Law, Table, Pound, Hand

    So it has come to this. LightSquared officers want the FCC to investigate Brad Parkinson.

    Senator Joe McCarthy is not a good look for them.

    A young attorney of my acquaintance, who also happens to be a contributing editor to this magazine, wrote me in this regard:

    “Lawyers have an old saying — when you don’t have the law on your side, pound on the facts; when you don’t have the facts on your side,  pound on the law; and when you don’t have either, pound on the table.”

    It appears that LightSquared has run out of technical solutions that it has variably proposed, without coming up with any to solve interference with the full range of GPS uses and users, and is now reduced to complaints about process. Engineering was never its strong suit, and there are many cautionary lessons to be learned from its near-run at GPS demolition. Financiers and lawyers can bring a whole heap of spectrum danger with just a little knowledge.

    In coverage of this issue over the past year, I have tried to keep the magazine and its various newsletters away from the posturing and saber-rattling on both sides, the stock-market speculations and the wireless industry tea-leaves reading, and stick instead to the facts: test results, official statements by government agencies, and so on. You gentle readers have plenty of other outlets for hyperbole and flights of imagination that you can go to for that sort of thing, and it’s never in short supply. I hope we have served you well.

  • Kick It in and Push!

    By Alan Cameron

    The Elephant Charge (“Dust, Sweat, and Gears”), an annual off-road motorsport charity event, brings together competitors, their families, and supporters for a wilderness weekend of GPS-driven fun and frenzy in the Zambian bush. I’m for fun, but I always wince when I see folks tearing up habitat in the name of saving it.

    Elephant Charge 2010 seeks to raise funds and awareness for local conservation in Zambia, specifically for two hides, or wildlife observation posts, in Lusaka National Park along with funding for the South Luangwa, Lower Zambezi and Kafue National Parks private-sector conservation efforts. Organizers hope to attract more than 300 campers over the weekend of October 23–25 and as many day observers and participants, en route to a fundraising goal of $35,000.

    Focus of the weekend is an event for car and motorbike teams that requires stamina, sweat, driving, and navigation skills through the Zambian bush. Maps showing the location and GPS coordinates of nine checkpoints are issued to teams on the evening before the race. To win, a team must complete the nine-checkpoint course in the shortest distance among competitors. Each team finds it own route between the checkpoints, in any order, through valleys, over ridges, and up (or down) escarpments. The goal of short distance explicitly encourages teams to go off-road in their vehicles. Bush roads are cut to each checkpoint and marked on the issued maps, however they never give the shortest distance.

    The blog piece you are reading is armchair bushwhacking at best, and it’s hard for me to preach at a distance to Zambians on how to use, exploit, preserve, or tear up their own turf. Of course it’s heartening to see GPS enlisted in conservation and education efforts. I just wish they weren’t harming habitat — by cutting bush roads and further encouraging racers to rip off through the vegetation — in order to help preserve it.

    Visit www.elephantcharge.org for more information.

    Alternatively, for a terrific vicarious experience of the Africa savannahs and bush without leaving home, read either Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller, set in Rhodesia, Zambia, and Malawi, or Sand Rivers by Peter Mathiessen, set in Tanzania. “The crack of the dry grass, the intense heat, the startling beauty of the birds, the fleeting glimpse of wary wildlife . . .”

  • World Domination: The Sequel

    Perhaps we should call this The Interquel rather than The Sequel, as the latter will take place September 23 in Portland, Oregon, during the ION GNSS 2010 Conference.

    In January, 12 brave individuals joined me in San Diego to see if this thing would work at all.  It did!  The exercise revealed many adjustments needed to the game, but overall, a successful role-playing, negotiation game grounded in the workings of GNSS.

    The rules are briefly recounted in an earlier blog, and to large extent, they will remain unchanged for the full-on game, to be played by 12 teams of 9 people each in Portland. It’s mostly the metrics that need some tinkering, a few of the quantities that govern exchange, and renewal of each team’s resources at the end of each quarter.

    Here are each team’s goals over three quarters of play, and the points that they actually racked up. User communities could purchase receivers for as many signals as were “on the air,” from any national satellite system.  Interoperability rules!

    GPS System Operator     Goals: 40 satellites, 3 global signals     Achieved: 45 satellites, 3 global (civil) signals
    U.S. GPS/GNSS Industry     Goals:$750 million     Achieved:$1.55 billion
    U.S. User Community     Goals 100 million 3-frequency receivers, 100 million 4-frequency receivers      Achieved: 50 million 3-frequency receivers, 100 million 4-frequency receivers

    Galileo System Operator     Goals:30 satellites, 2 global signals     Achieved:35 satellites, 2 global civil signals
    European GNSS Industry    Goals: $750 million     Achieved: $1.25 billion
    European User Community    Goals:100 million 3-frequency receivers, 100 million 4-frequency receivers     Achieved:100 million 3-frequency receivers, 200 million 4-frequency receivers

    GLONASS System Operator     Goals:35 satellites, 2 global signals      Achieved: 25 satellites, 1 global sigal
    Russian GLONASS/GNSS Industry      Goals: $500 million     Achieved: $1.325 billion
    Russian User Community     Goals: 50 million 3-frequency receivers, 50 million 4-frequency receivers    Achieved: 300 million 3-frequency receivers

    Compass System Operator      Goals: 30 satellites, 2 global signals     Achieved: 45 satellites, 3 global civil signals
    Chinese GNSS Industry     Goals: $1 billion      Achieved: $1.3 billion
    Chinese User Community     Goals: 50 million 4-frequency receivers, 200 million 3-frequency receivers      Achieved: 150 million 3-frequency receivers

    As you can see, those performing strongest relative to their goals, or outperforming their goals (in other words, the gamemaster’s expectations) were all industries, across nations (making out like bandits), and the Compass system operator.

    Auguries for the future?

    Those performing less well, relative to goals, were the Russian system operator, and the Chinese user community.

    Again, auguries anyone?

    Those playing the respective parts above were: Frank van Diggelen, John Betz, Chris Hegarty, Dorotoa Grejner-Brzezinska with Kathleen Bosely, Sam Pullen, Ron Hatch, Matt Harris, Sasha Mitelman, Maarten Ujit de Haag, Tim Murphy, Thomas Pany, and Jade Morton.

    Here is some of the feedback gathered at the scene:

    have smaller-denomination bills in the mix;
    at the same time, multiply all cost amounts by factor 5 to make them more realistic;
    have a banker available on the side during play;
    all deals/transactions must complete in the quarter when negotiated; no carryover;
    increase the number of receivers;
    create moment(s) of randomness with a wheel of fortune or change cards;
    use a laptop to quickly compute each quarter’s new payouts for each team;
    satellites that reach end-of-life should do so during a quarter, rather than once it ends.

    All will be fine-tuned and trotted out again in Portland. Thanks to all players for participating.

    Sleep was what I wanted, you know what I got.  Wide awake, staying up late, wishing I was not.

  • Research and Other Hard Things

    Once again, I reach into the mail bag to pull out this gem, from someone both high up and deep down in administrative matters relating to GPS and other technologies. Herewith:

     

    Two quotes — with Some Accompanying Thoughts

    “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?”
    —Albert Einstein
    Too often these days we seem driven to produce, forgetting the purpose and value of research and development.  R&D allows us to assess alternatives, identify and mitigate risks, and develop practicable plans to achieve results.  It promotes an iterative process that moves us steadily towards our goals.  It understands both of the 80/20 rules: First, that achieving 80% of the solution usually takes only  20% of allocated resources, and second, that for  any normal program, things will go wrong 20% of the time, so plan accordingly.

    The fact is that we simply do not do enough real research and development.  We have forgotten that the development of products or systems or solutions does not proceed on a single path point-to-point.  It is a continuum that has many ideas going in, a reasonable number that survive intermediate vetting processes, and a manageable field of candidate solutions coming out, from which to pick “the best” alternative.

    We are not comfortable planning for sufficient small failures to ensure that we will not end up with one big one.  We limit the potential value of our successes by not supporting  wild and crazy ideas — even though such ideas may hold the key to real and sustained improvements.  We are too risk adverse.  We are too “results – NOW!” oriented.  We are afraid of failures – even small ones.  We are scared to dream.

    “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”
    —John F. Kennedy

    Sadly, we have lost what made us great in the past: our willingness to take risks, fight for ideals, vigorously debate technical and operational alternatives, and move forward as one — either towards a celebration of a successful conclusion or, if nothing else, a celebration of a significant learning experience from which we can dust ourselves off and do better next time.   We have abandoned our can-do attitude for lists of excuses of why we cannot.  We over-think and over analyze and over-control everything — at every level.  Most seriously of all, we have given up seeing ourselves as one team with one goal.  Everyone’s looking out for themselves — with more time spent looking back in fear than forging new pathways forward.

    The question is not “Where have all the leaders gone?” but rather “As leaders, what can each of us do to re-build and re-energize our risk taking leadership structure, our can-do team culture, our engineering inquisitiveness, our research and development mentality?

    As with all things, the solution starts with the true recognition of the problem.

    Therapy, anyone?

    Sleep was what I wanted, you know what I got.  Wide awake, staying up late, wishing I was not.

  • Wide Awake Bridging the Gap

    I gave this talk at the Munich Satellite Navigation Summit, in a concluding session titled “Bridging the Gap: A Journalistic View on Progress and Problems of GNSS.”

    __________
    Before telling you what I came here to say today, I should really attempt to answer the question posed by our moderator:Is the world ready for new GNSS applications and services?

    If by that we mean system modernization and newly envisioned applications, the  cutting edge, I say: No. What the world has a crying need for are older GNSS applications and services, ones that we in this room may take for granted, perhaps even view as somewhat passé.  But the vast majority of the world knows nothing of them, and has yet to experience their benefits.

    Giving a journalist’s perspective could be difficult because journalists aren’t supposed to have perspective. Our task is to report the news, just the facts.

    In satellite navigation, governed by physics and radio frequency, one might expect facts to prevail.

    Not always.

    Of course in the technical articles at the core of the magazine, facts rule.

    But in the news that I write, The System, in effect GNSS Quo Vadis — in the news, facts may be in short supply.

    This news is filled with projections, timelines, trends, expectations, a triumph or two, some disappointments, budgets, negotiations, market readiness. Facts come in a distant second.

    Because I cover new developments in constellations on orbit, in ground control and monitoring, in plans and policies and rivalries. All these are created by people.

    By you, in fact. You and your colleagues.  The global navigation community — living and working within the global community.

    These maps, courtesy of Todd Walter and his colleagues at Stanford, show aircraft landing capability and its development over time. You saw them twice yesterday, maybe three times, if you read the magazine in your bag.

    But I use them here to illustrate availability and benefits of high-precision PNT of all kinds.

    Global positioning is available globally, everywhere. Pull out a receiver in the middle of the Sahara, you’ll get a position. What good does that do you, you and your nomad band, if you live in the Sahara?  Not much good, if you don’t have a map, or a frame of reference of some kind.

    If you are a small industry, a local government, a market economy, any manifestation of a society, you need a reference network to get an advantage from your position, no matter how precise.

    And in this white expanse, by and large, no such networks exist. The people living in these white areas are beyond the pale, outside the realm of the marvelous benefits of global positioning.

    Patricia Doherty writes in this magazine, “The leading problems that continue to cripple much of Africa include hunger, extreme poverty, erosion of natural resources, and natural disasters. GNSS can help address these problems.  GNSS applications can increase food security, manage natural resources, provide efficient emergency location services, improve surveying and mapping, and provide greater precision and safety in land, water, and air navigation.”

    This holds true not just for Africa, but across the Southern Hemisphere and swathes of the northern: often known as the Second and Third Worlds – coincidentally, all the white space on this map.

    Why should we, the GNSS community living happily in our First World, the color on the map, care about this? I put it to you that it is in our own best self-interest to do so.

    We’re very busy using GNSS to solve our problems of dense air traffic, and road congestion, hazardous material transport, extracting more from agriculture, finding our way in urban canyons, finding our friends, finding coffee, rescuing people.

    Yes, we have problems.  They may be a higher quality of problem than the rest of the world experiences.

    The rest of the world has poverty, hunger, disease, disaster.  When I hear “Bridging the Gap,” the title of our session – this is the gap that jumps immediately to mind.

    From these problems global conflict arises: terrorism and persistent war in troubling regions.  Violent ideologies are born and nurtured in impoverished circumstances. Our prosperous societies will not know lasting peace until all the world shares some kind of equity in terms of quality of life. There will always be differences. But as long as abject poverty and hunger and unaided disaster exist, as long as a wide, deep gap persists, there will never be peace, lasting peace, or tranquility.

    GNSS can help solve these problems.  But it’s moving awfully slow. These charts don’t have dates, but they imply that by 2018 or 2025 or perhaps later, an aircraft can land with precision in central Africa. The charts don’t offer anything for the people living there at that time.

    How can we ensure that the spread of this marvelous capability applies not only to pilots and passengers, but to all people?

    One way, one suggestion, is to inform our governments and legislators, to insist that every foreign aid program, every school-building project, every hospital or roadbuilding project, shipment of foodstuffs and medical aid, must be accompanied by the hardware for a reference frame, for a regional or portable RTK network, and by the training to install it and maintain it.

    We know that GNSS leverages other technologies. It is a multiplier.

    These regions lack infrastructure. GNSS can provide the infra inside that infrastructure.  A road network, regional development plan, transportation plan to foster local markets and economic development, exploration and extraction of natural resources — these things go better with GNSS.

    For more background on what I’ve discussed, see env-gpsworld-integration.kinsta.cloud/Africa, env-gpsworld-integration.kinsta.cloud/afref, and env-gpsworld-integration.kinsta.cloud/chile.

    Put the power of GNSS where it can do the most good – for everyone.  Let’s remember — and honor — Ivan Getting, the visionary who launched the very first GNSS. His vision: “lighthouses in the sky, for the benefit of all mankind.”

    I’m a journalist. That’s my perspective.
    Thank you.

     

    Sleep was what I wanted, you know what I got.  Wide awake, staying up late, wishing I was not.

  • The Spy Who Loved Me

    With apologies to James Bond, Ian Fleming, and, well, just about everybody else. Here is a grab from my mail bag.  The message was subject-lined: GPS Spy Applications.

    “I recently suspected my wife of cheating, having been involved with gps as a land surveyor since 1995, I used and application called mobile-spy.

    “In order to install the application onto an iPhone you have to “jailbreak” the phone. Once its installed it will forward all text, url’s, and a gps location every 30 minutes if it has satellite availability. To make a long story short, I caught my wife in a pretty precarious spot, or spots. It’s my opinion that she was sneaking out and meeting someone at various spots on our normal routes, little hidden offroad trails if you know what I mean. Well I tested and retested the phones gps and the data from the mobile-spy website where I purchased the software, which is actually sold under the name “retina-x” and they make there money by giving you access to these logs through mobile-spy.com.

    “However, my wife contests that all this data is wrong, of course, and she’s never been anywhere near these places. On the other hand, I have a ton of evidence saying she WAS at these locations. She says she’s read an article on AT&T that shows evidence that the gps in the iPhone is faulty and gives out bogus locations. As I said, I tested this a couple of times and it seemed to work perfectly.

    “In good faith we’ve agreed to let me take the iPhone and perform more in depth tracking over a span of a few weeks. I am not really a writer but I’ll definitely keep detailed logs of my observations. Have you guys already had this particular issue come up before? If so, I’d love to know anything you can tell me because the way it stands I am getting a divorce unless this application can be proven wrong! My email is [email protected]
    Cell phone is XXX.XXX-XXXX, I don’t check voicemails, so if I don’t answer just send me a text with your name and number. I look forward to hearing from you soon.”

     

    Sleep was what I wanted, you know what I got.  Wide awake, staying up late, wishing I was not.