GPS World

Author: Alan Cameron

  • Out in Front: State of the Industry

    It’s not been done before, so we’re going to do it now.

    In the September issue of this magazine will appear the very first State of the Industry report. On the GNSS industry, of course. It will cover such topics as:

    The Global Economy and how it affects business in your sector. Customers’ availability of capital to invest is top-of-mind for most industry professionals, whether designers, manufacturers, integrators, suppliers/dealers, or end users.

    Industry Confidence in the road ahead. Is the prolonged recession over and are we on the road to recovery, or is it best to remain cautious and conservative? Just reading the stock market reports and the latest from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis or the G8 Summit doesn’t give the level of specific detail to GNSS that sound business navigation requires.

    Investment for Return. How are savvy marketers implementing their business outlook? Are they ramping up advertising, web presence, search-engine optimization, exhibits and shows, deep cultivation of existing or past customer base — any or all of these? Something new?

    Issues of Concern. To what extent do industry leaders take into account the following as well as further factors, and has their respective weightings of these changed since this time last year?

    • Pricing and competitive issues;
    • GNSS jamming, spoofing, other RF interference;
    • (Lack of) compatibility or interoperability of GNSSs: GPS, GLONASS, Compass, Galileo;
    • (Lack of) sufficient government funding for satellite system development or modernization;
    • (Lack of) R&D funding, whether government or private, driving application development for downstream markets, to encourage GNSS adoption.

    Watch for It. On July 1, the State of the Industry survey form will go live at env-gpsworld-integration.kinsta.cloud. We’ll collect input for about three weeks, and send ample notifications during that period. These will prominently feature the incentives for participating in the survey: entry into drawings for fab gear, likely to include one or more of the latest electronic wizard gizmos, a pair of tickets to GPS World’s Leadership Dinner in Nashville during ION-GNSS, a let’s-make-a-deal surprise, and the odd coffee-shop gift card.

    Participation in the survey is naturally open to all who participate in the GNSS industry, whether as givers or takers, suppliers or end users. A subscription to this magazine is not required — though a free subscription to the Digital Edition, if you do not already have one, will be encouraged at the end of the survey.

    Read It and Profit. The survey, complete with helpful infographics, will appear in the September issue and receive wide distribution at ION-GNSS, InterGeo, and other outlets.

  • Out in Front: That’s Denial

    By Alan Cameron with Logan Scott

    ‘We have virtually no defense against the cyber attacks that are targeting us now, and will be in the future.”

    Richard Clarke served three U.S. presidents as counter-terrorism czar. He wrote a fascinating — and terrorizing — article in the April issue of Smithsonian magazine, from which comes that quote. I posted it on my LinkedIn page and asked for input for this editorial.

    RF and signal-processing consultant Logan Scott, also an occasional author in these pages, sent in the following. I love it when people do my work for me.
    Scott writes that “Richard Clarke says about cyber-defense: ‘I think we’re living in the world of non-response. Where you know that there’s a problem, but you don’t do anything about it . . . . That’s denial.’

    “This certainly looks to be the case for GNSS. Looking into the future, if we continue our current civil GPS security policies, I think ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda’ will someday nicely summarize our feelings. GPS-derived time plays key roles in high-speed trading (~70% of all market transactions). GPS timing already synchronizes power-generation facilities, albeit not in the U.S. GPS-derived location plays a foundational role in air traffic control worldwide. Shipping containers and their cargo are routinely secured using GPS-derived location monitoring and geofencing.

    “So how do we secure civil GPS? Mostly, we don’t. Simple situation awareness regarding jamming and spoofing is not present in most GPS receivers. Instead, we plan on having the cavalry ride to the rescue should some problem occur. This will work about as well as it did for Custer at Little Bighorn. The battle will be over before the response is mounted; our response will be mainly forensic in nature. Basic, test-based performance standards are needed so non-expert users can select adequate receivers.

    “Even more fundamentally, we do not have the capability to authenticate and prove location to second parties. This could play a huge role in improving cybersecurity where one of the central problems is attribution. Knowing where the attack came from, we can add a layer to our defenses. ICS/SCADA commands from unauthorized locations could be rejected. Techniques for creating authenticatable location signatures are available, but due to funding shortsightedness, we continue to launch generation after generation of GPS satellite without these features. Supply-chain integrity could also be improved: in the future, parts could be stamped with their location and time of manufacture.

    “We still have the opportunity to change ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda’ to a more favorable ‘Veni, vidi, vici’ — but the window of opportunity is closing.”

    Letter to the Editor

    In your March editorial, “The Fire Next Time,” you ask for suggestions to protect against another LightSquared encroachment. The solution is remarkably simple. Just let the same bandwidth be used for space downlink as it was originally intended. That would be both innocuous to GPS receivers and, more importantly, stake the ground against future challenges like LightSquared.

    — Alan Browne
    Lorraine, Quebec

  • Our Man in the Baltic: Report from the European Navigation Conference

    GDANSK, POLAND — Poland has emerged as a regional leader for Eastern Europe. Among all European countries, it ranks fourth in population and ninth in the size of its national economy. This year, the European Navigation Conference (ENC), which rotates each year to a different host country, has convened in Gdansk, Poland — its first time in Eastern Europe.

    Gard Ueland, president/CEO for Kongsberg Seatex and the chairman of Galileo Services, opened his keynote address at the 2012 European Navigation Conference with the statement “GNSS applications and services are the best growth opportunity for Europe.”

    Was anyone from the European Space Agency (ESA) or the European Union’s GNSS Supervisory Agency (GSA) listening? They were not, because neither body bothered to attend this ENC — the first time I can recall either organization absenting themselves from this important, top-level technical conference. ESA and GSA presented themselves in significant numbers and seniority at the Munich SatNav Summit in March, on the stage and in the audience. But then money, influence, and visibility (they may all amount to the same thing) are more in circulation at Munich. The ENC merely gathers the researchers and application developers who are doing the real work that will eventually field users and grow markets.

    Ueland of Galileo Services was careful to differentiate his topic as separate from satellite-system development per se. He focused on developing applications, the downstream segment that will lead, he said, to new business activities, jobs and wealth creation, and a bigger GNSS market share.

    According to a GSA study completed in 2011, the 2010 global GNSS market was 130 billion euros, and of that amount, the European market share in the GNSS sector was 20 percent.  “A little bit less than what Europe is used to,” Ueland remarked; that accustomed share is 1/3 of the market.  Naturally, Ueland called for further public-sector investment in satnav R&D, which has been the rallying cry of Galileo Services.

    In 2020, global GNSS market is estimated to reach 240 billion euros. “Europe will be challenged even to maintain its current share of 20 percent. If we were to succeed in reclaiming the 1/3 share, it would translate into 400,000 jobs in Europe. This is something that Europe needs.”

    A position paper, “Satellite Navigation Applications,” goes into further details and is available at www.Galileo-services.org.

    Ueland concluded that at the EU level there is a need for a dedicated budget line within Horizon 2020 for GNSS application R&D.

    In subsequent talks at the ENC plenary session, Prof. Janusz Zielinski of the Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences discussed Polish activity in EGNOS and the Galileo program.

    Dr. Heidi Kuusniemi of the Finnish Geodetic Institute gave a presentation on the effects of GNSS Jammers on consumer-grade satnav receivers, showing the initial results from research started this year.  Jammers, though illegal in most countries, are gaining popularity for financial reasons, to avoid road tolling and insurance billing, as well as personal privacy reasons, to avoid tracking and location-based monitoring.

    The Finnish Geodetic Institute analyzed the effects of a $130 L2 and L5 jammer and a $14 L1 jammer on two ublox and two Fastrax consumer-grade reciever, a receiver found inside a Nokia smartphone, and a high-precision professional-grade NovAtel OEM4 L1/L2 receiver.

    Horizontal errors up to 130 meters were observed on the consumer grade receivers, and availability decreased to 16 percent in 24 hours. Effects on the one combined GPS/GLONASS consyumer receiver, from Fastrax, were not as pronounced as on the other consumer-grade receivers. In the professional case, accuracy was degraded up to 80 meters, and availability decreased to around 26 percent over 24 hours.

    After outlining some jamming detection and mitigation solutions, Kuusniemi concluded that in-car jammers are a serious threat, and steps must be taken against the use of jammers.  Future GNSS will have improved resistance to interference, for several reasons.

    Davide Margaria of the Institute Superiore Mario Bella (NavSAS group) presented on research regarding “Acquisition and Tracking of Galileo IOV E5 signals,” which are important for the safety-of-life service planned by Galileo.

    The Galileo satellite system currently consists of GIOVE-A and  B, the two experimental satellites dating from 2005 and 2008, and the two in-orbit validation (IOV) satellites launched in November 2011, the Proto-Flight Model (PFM), and the Flight Model 2 (FM2).

    The FM2 satellite has started transmitting E5 navigation signals in recent weeks. E5 is an alternative binary offset carrier: AltBOC(15,10) modulated signal, multiplexing 4 channels in two adjacent sidebands, E5a and E5b: two data channels and two pilot channels. Each sideband can be separately demodulated as a QPSK-like signal.

    Using a flexible experimental E5a/E5b COTS front end, NavSAS researchers separately received each sideband, with IF samples transferred for real-time processing, and stored for post-processing.  Signals were acquired and tracked for multiple satellite passes of all four satellites.

    In an analysis of the E5b signals, both data and pilot channels, they found estimated C/N0 values to be consistent with the satellite elevation patterns and with expected values from the Galileo ICD specifications.

    The PFM and FM2 signals were received at approximately 3 dB stronger than the GIOVE-A and B signals. The team further found the presence of secondary code chips and successfully decoded the I/NAC navigation message on the data channels. Their future activities include checking the F/NAV data pages transmitted on the E5a band, and setup of a wideband experimental front-end for coherent E5 processing.

    In technical sessions on the first afternoon, I found the following presentations of  salient interest.

    Byung Hyun Lee from Konkuk University in Korea presented “Performance Analysis of Doppler-Aided GPS/QZSS Precise Positioning for Land Vehicles,” designed for which-lane positioning in urban environments.  Using Doppler measurements to compensate for restrictions of carrier-phase measurements, traditional RTK techniques, for precise positioning.  Needed for this application are reliable single-epoch measurements and velocity estimation. Double-differenced Doppler measurements yield this quality enhancement.

    Using NovAtel FlexPack 6 equipment for rover and reference station, the author and colleagues found sufficient accuracy results with GPS-only in a relatively benign environment, with an HDOP of 1.505 and 7 available satellites. In a difficult or “bad” environment, GPS –only had a HDOP of 6.84 and insufficient accuracy for the which-lane requirement.

    However, using GPS and QZSS in the same “bad” situation brought an HDOP of 1.564 and sufficient accuracy for lane-specific car navigation.

    Pawel Kicman of the Warsaw University of Technology presented the TALOS Navigation Research Electric Car using COTS components. The vehicle was developed for land-border surveillance using one autonomous robot to monitor industrial perimeters, and a second robot to intercept intruders. The adapted golf cart has a suite of installed sensors: satellite (NovAtel SPAN for GPS/GLONASS integrated with tactical grade IMU), inertial (low-grade IMUs), magnetic, visual (cameras and laser rangefinders), and odometric.

     

    The researchers, including a student team, obtained sufficient accuracy for the application, provided hands-on experience, and offers many prospective research projects, leading to development of autonomous driving on the vehicle, since all the sensors and control capabilities are there.

    Robert d’Aystetten from Sprint in Poland (the company is not the same nor is it a subsidiary of the U.W. wireless carrier Sprint) described an eco-driving algorithm for fleet applications to promote safe and efficient driving habits, using car-tracking data from a number of sensors to construct a driver’s profile and detect “overlimits.” The application assigns motivational points to every driver in the company (it has a fleet of nearly 500 vehicles) for eco-driving — efficient acceleration, braking, and cornering — speed, and generated alerts. In addition to maintaining and improving organizational driving standards, the data can be used by insurance companies to prepare better insurance offers based on actual profiles and driver performance.

    The VIZAN SOFIT tracking device employs real-time GPS tracking and positioning; GPRS location data transfer to the server; smart algorithm of data acquisition (time, distance and angle based); acceleration detection (e.g. in case of sudden braking); speed measurement; internal memory for location data storing in case of GSM signal loss; accurate distance counter (independent from track points settings); digital and analogue inputs and outputs (fuel level, door status etc.); 1-Wire iButton for driver identification; voice communication; multiple geofence zones; eco-driving algorithms; and driver’s profile data.

    Ciro Gioai of the Parthenope University of Naples discussed Aided GPS/GLONASS navigation in urban environments.  February 2012 tests of pedestrian subjects carrying a NovAtel FlexPak-G2 with an Antcomm antenna, using least-squared and Kalman-filter techniques, obtained accuracies in the range of 5 to 7 meters in difficult urban environments, and good vertical accuracy as well, with as few as three visible satellites from the combined systems. Future works will incorporate Galileo measurements in addition to GPS and GLONASS.

    Prof. Jacek Januszewski of Gdynia Maritime University rhetorically asked how many Galileo satellites will provide achieve sufficient accuracy and availability for the user? In particular light of the fact now that, according to ESA, 18 satellites on orbit will constitute initial operational capability (FOC) of the system, predicted for 2015.  He also presented results with 22 and 26 satellites.

    The results were disheartening, to say the least.

    He concluded that with 18 satellites, minimum satellite availability cannot be obtained in all geographic zones, in different latitudes, at 10 degree and 5 degree masking. In a 25-degree masking zone, 26 satellites yielded only 3 satellites, not sufficient for positioning; only a 27-satellite constellation proved satisfactory.

    In European latitudes (50 to 60 degrees latitude), distribution of satellite azimuths is practically the same for different numbers of satellites. The percentage of satellite visible above angle H is for all constellations is practically the same for different numbers.

    For 18 satellites, 3D positioning is only available in the zone 80-90 degrees latitude, with a masking of 0 degrees.

    For a 22-satellite constellation, positioning depends on zero masking, 3D position in all zones.  With 5 degree masking, 3D is avaialable in some zones only, 2 dimension positioning in all zones.

    With 26 satellites, if masking is less than or equal to 15 degrees, there is 3D positioning in all zones. If masking is 25 degrees, 3 D in zone 80-90 degrees only.

    With 27 satellites, 3D position is provided in all zones, for up to 25 degree masking.

    In one of the last presentations of the day, Ted Driver of AGI discussed Operational Considerations for Improved Accuracy with an IOC Galileo Constellation.  He told the audience that during Galileo’s IOC phase, the dilution of precision (DOP) will not be ideal and indeed may have severe spikes several times during the day, globally.

    His paper focused on two components of navigation accuracy that the Galileo Control Center can manipulate to improve overall accuracy for users: selectively timing uploads of the orbital ephemeris and clock state predictions.  That is, doing so with great regularity. Ideally, these orbit and clock predictions would be updated continuously, but that cannot be achieved operationally.

  • Navigating the Moon

    The European Space Agency has issued an intriguing Intended Invitation To Tender, “Weak GNSS Signal Navigation on the Moon.” The study will investigate use of weak-signal GPS/GNSS — and of course ESA is interested primarily in the use of Galileo — for real-time position, navigation and timing information to various future lunar assets such as automated landers, rovers, Earth-Moon transportation vehicle, in-situ navigation, and so on.

    Does ESA have a lunar exploration agenda? This I did not know, but with only my own ignorance to thank, I quickly found out that ESA has had a lunar orbiter, SMART-1 (Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology), since 2004, equipped with an Advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE) micro-camera and a mission, at least in part, to zero-in on suitable study sites for potential future lunar exploration missions.

    Since the conclusion of that project, ESA now plans to land a spacecraft in 2018 near the Moon’s south pole, a region full of dangerous boulders and high ridges. The aim is to probe the moonscape and test new technology — and now we know this includes GNSS — to prepare for future human landings. “The region may be a prime location for future human explorers because it offers almost continuous sunlight for power and potential access to vital resources such as water-ice.”

    “Although the visibility geometry is not always favorable,” the current ESA Invitation to Tender states, “it would result in 100-500m position accuracy as estimated in a NASA JPL/Ohio University paper. For lunar navigation applications, GPS/Galileo signals could be used if receivers complemented with advanced processing signal and filtering techniques, are capable of acquisition and tracking in the order of 15dBHz signal to noise ratios. Today latest developments show that these values are feasible. The PNT performance figures could also be improved with a GNSS-based system on a lunar relay satellite orbiting the moon as analyzed in [RD3]. The hardware required is equivalent to GPS space-based receivers and a high gain antenna.”

    The invitation to tender, to the tune of 200,000–500,000 euros, closes on April 23.

    GNSS use in space exploration, novel as it seems, has been outlined and partially explored in previously published articles in GPS World.

    In September 2008, Jim Miller and A.J. Oria brought us all up to date on the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) plans to use GPS in the great dark out-there.

    “NASA has engaged with the Department of Defense (DoD) to define the performance parameters to support navigation services in a Space Service Volume (SSV) designated from 3,000 kilometers to GEO altitude to approximately 36,000 kilometers,” they wrote in “NASA’s Vision for Space.”

    “This type of navigation requires specialized software to process the side-lobes of GPS signals coming over the earth’s limb, as well as the increased attenuation and tracking of a very few satellites at a time. Once tracking is initiated. however, one can begin to imagine a future where GPS-in-space may also include syncing GPS positioning and timing with spacecraft and beacons broadcasting other “GPS-like” signals near celestial bodies such as the moon and Mars.

    “Transition from terrestrial-based radar tracking of space vehicles to space-based radiometric data from GPS is well underway at NASA. Simulations demonstrate GPS Navigator receiver applications could be performed almost to the moon. An ongoing effort is developing the TDRSS Augmentation Service for Satellites (TASS) to disseminate differential corrections from the Global Differential GPS (GDGPS) network to users in LEO. The Communication, Navigation, Networking, reConfigurable Testbed (CoNNeCT) on the ISS will use software-defined radios to process GPS/GNSS signals and waveforms.’

    Also, in “GPS Goes Martian: Nav/Com for a Red Planet,” a 2004 article by Susan Skone, Kyle O’Keefe, and Gerard Lachapelle, the authors describe plans for a network of satellites to be placed in orbit around our eerie solar-system sibling for the purpose of GPS-like navigation.

    Finally, way back in 2002, a group of authors proposed “Formation Flight in Space.” Russell Carpenter, Michael Moreau, Jonathan How, Lesse Leitner, Frank Bauer and David Folta described how distributed spacecraft systems are developing new GPS capabilities, on the drawing boards, at least.

    “Scientists have just begun to understand the full potential of space vehicle formation flying. In the last few years, this technology has gone from a space oddity — and a high risk one at that — to a concept fully embraced by earth and space scientists around the world. Prior to the selection of the New Millennium Program Earth Orbiter-1 (EO-1) mission in 1996 (the first autonomous formation flying earth science mission), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had only one or two formation flying concepts under consideration. Now 35 mission sets fill that list.”

    If any young and adventurous engineers out there have been lamenting the dearth of new frontiers for them to explore GNSSively, cry no more.

     

  • Out in Front: The Fire Next Time

    By Alan Cameron

    We have turned back the LightSquared effort to establish a threatening beachhead adjacent to GPS spectrum bands. Having expended many millions, we can now return to our business, secure in having demonstrated both our rights and our rightness.

    No. We cannot afford to do that.

    Radio spectrum is today’s natural resource, vital to current ventures and even more essential to future business and national growth of all kinds. It is far too valuable to be taken for granted, and far too vulnerable to be left protected simply by the Plan A recently executed.

    We will see attempt upon attempt upon attempt to use closely neighboring frequencies in disturbing ways — and, I daresay, to dislodge GNSS from the bands it now holds, by redistributing, re-allocating, and/or redefining spectra.

    Digging in deeper will not answer. It is questionable even now whether the numbers of GPS installed user base or the dollars they represent were sufficient to turn back the LightSquared initiative. It may have been, purely and simply, the Pentagon and the FAA.

    At any rate, the millions of installed GPS users and billions of dollars in industry and infrastructure may soon be dwarfed by billions of potential users and gazillions in economic benefit that broadband or any other spectrum-driven enterprise may muster. The future is wide open, as they say. It moves fast.

    Two courses of action show promise; there may be more.

    • Participate actively, pro-actively, even aggressively — and certainly with no time to waste — in the effort to define receiver standards. The NTIA and PNT EXCOM will devise “standards for the development and procurement of GPS receivers to support their various mission requirements.” NTIA recognized “the importance that receiver standards could play as part of a forward-looking model for spectrum management even beyond the immediate issue of GPS.”

    Get on board, bring productive ideas, work them through the process as efficiently and cooperatively as possible. Then design new products accordingly. Regulatory agencies, national and international, will have little patience with broadened use of other bands, no matter how long high-precision receivers have been doing it. We have been put on notice.

    • Aid, encourage, design products for interoperable GNSS, not to mention modernized GPS, particularly L5. Seek touchpoints with Galileo, GLONASS, and Compass developers, operators, and manufacturers. The broader, more wide-laned the base, the more frequencies that users and equipment can draw on, the more stable will be their operations, and the less vulnerable to encroachment, interference, or downright exclusion.

    Perhaps you have thought of other ways to ensure GNSS viability in a future of increasing demands for spectrum. I would love to hear them, and share them with our readers.

  • Brave New World of Data via the Cloud

    The frightening thing about the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the bloody awful frightening thing is the sheer amount of data talked about, enthusiastically envisioned, planned for. Planned for in the sense of throwing up business cases and wheeling and dealing new products and services for millions and billions of users that will pump vast amounts of data, countless numbers of gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes, exabytes per second through the cloud.

    Not planned for in the sense of actually making provision for.  Seeing if there’s enough resource on hand. Calculating if the ecosystem will handle it.

    No, wireless carriers and everyone else involved in this industry make money on data. So let’s make, make, make, more, more, more.

    Did anyone happen to estimate the amount of bandwidth needed to upload and download all this data? Has anyone thought about what pressure it might bring on other spectrum users such as, perhaps, GNSS?

    My guess is no, and no, and we don’t care. Because we are creating the future, don’t you see?!!?

    From this brave new world sprang LightSquared, born of the ravenous need for more wireless data. It doesn’t take much time at the Mobile World Congress to see that venture as just the first very tentative probe. Armies are massed at our borders.

    I didn’t get to location as a blue-chip commodity, as promised yesterday. That will have to come tomorrow.

  • 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.

  • Never Again? Oh, Again and Again.

    When the last English inhabitant of Virginia’s Lost Colony succumbed to hunger or swamp fever or local assimilation in 1588, Chesapeake chief Powhatan may have turned to his council and said, “Well, that’s the last of that. No more will we be troubled by outsiders infringing on our territory. Let’s get back to doing what we do best.”

    That would have been a monumental mistake, of course. Wave upon wave upon wave of outsiders followed, building over course of time the entity we now know as the United States and leaving precious little for the land’s original inhabitants.

    Let us now contemplate ourselves as the original holders, by right, of spectrum bands at 1176.45 MHz (L5), 1227.60 MHz (L2), 1381.05 MHz (L3), and 1575.42 MHz (L1). We have repelled the LightSquared encroachers, who sought to appropriate, well, not exactly our bands, but bands close enough to cause trouble. Having expended many millions in the effort, we can now return to our various businesses, secure in having demonstrated both our rights and our rightness.

    No, we cannot afford to do that.

    Radio spectrum is today’s natural resource, vital to current ventures and even more essential to future business and national growth of all kinds. It is far too valuable to be taken for granted, and far too vulnerable to be left protected simply by the Plan A recently demonstrated.

    We will see attempt upon attempt upon attempt to use closely neighboring spectra in disturbing ways — and, I daresay, even to dislodge GNSS from the bands it now holds. Petitions to redistribute, reallocate, and/or redefine spectra. Treaties, if you will. Students of history know how that goes.

    Digging in deeper will not answer. It is questionable even now whether the numbers of GPS installed user base or the dollars they represent were sufficient to turn back the LightSquared initiative. It may have been, purely and simply, the Pentagon and the FAA.

    At any rate, the millions of installed GPS users and billions of dollars in industry and infrastructure may soon be dwarfed by billions of potential users and gazillions in economic benefit that broadband or any other spectrum-driven enterprise may muster. Just as the numbers of Native Americans were quickly and vastly overcome by Europe’s teeming masses.

    Two courses lie immediately open to the GPS community, and there may be more.

    1. Participate actively, pro-actively, even aggressively — and certainly with no time to waste — in the effort to define receiver standards. The NTIA and PNT EXCOM will devise “standards for the development and procurement of GPS receivers to support their various mission requirements.” NTIA recognized “the importance that receiver standards could play as part of a forward-looking model for spectrum management even beyond the immediate issue of GPS.”
      Get on board, bring productive ideas, work them through the process as efficiently and cooperatively as possible. Then design new products accordingly. Regulatory agencies, national and international, will have little patience with broadened use of other bands, no matter how long high-precision receivers have been doing it. We have been put on notice.
    2. Aid, encourage, design products for interoperable GNSS, not to mention modernized GPS, particularly L5. Seek touchpoints with Galileo, GLONASS, and Compass developers, operators, and manufacturers. The broader, more wide-laned the base, the more frequencies that users and equipment can draw on, the more stable will be their operations, and the less vulnerable to encroachment, interference, or downright exclusion.

    Perhaps you have thought of other ways to ensure GNSS viability in a future of increasing demands for spectrum. I would love to hear them, and share them with our readers.

  • 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?

  • Out in Front: When the Gavel Comes Down

    By Alan Cameron

    Perhaps you don’t track suspected criminals in your spare time, nor do you design or supply a GNSS product that does so. Still, the fresh Supreme Court ruling on GPS use for this purpose reverberates for you, in ways yet unknown. The most interesting part of the court’s ruling pops up in a somewhat open-ended “what if” comment concerning future issues that at least one justice thinks the court should address.

    GPS trackers are a form of search, and police must obtain a search warrant to use them, the court unanimously ruled. This comes as a setback to government and police agencies who increasingly rely on GPS surveillance. Justice Scalia said the government’s installation of a GPS device to monitor a vehicle’s movements constitutes a search and violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

    Justice Samuel Alito further said the court should address how expectations of privacy affect whether warrants are required for remote surveillance using electronic methods that do not require the police to install equipment, such as GPS tracking of mobile telephones. “If long-term monitoring can be accomplished without committing a technical trespass — suppose for example, that the federal government required or persuaded auto manufacturers to include a GPS tracking device in every car — the court’s theory would provide no protection,” Alito wrote.

    This, or its exact counterpart, has already occurred in cell phones: government-mandated location technology embedded in all devices, over a sliding timescale that comes to maturity, or full application, fairly soon.

    The words “no protection” in Justice Alito’s opinion appear to state that personal cell-phone records are open season to government investigators. Such has already been the case in a number of instances.

    Murkier than government use — if such a concept is conceivable — is commercial use of a consumer’s location data. In other words, privacy. This issue has been raised since GPS-enabled phones were first theorized, and since the very whisper of the first location-based service, but it has never been fully or adequately addressed by anyone in industry or government.The notion of “granting permission” to use one’s location data, in order to benefit from services thus provided, still seems unresolved to me.

    Presumably, we are all waiting around for a test case, such as that of the Jeep owner in the Supreme Court just now. With LBS poised — same as it ever was — on the brink of widespread acceptance, it might benefit everyone if such a case came sooner rather than later.

  • Let’s Hear It for the Supremes!

    GPS trackers are a form of search, and police must obtain a search warrant to use them, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled. This comes as a setback to government and police agencies who increasingly rely on GPS surveillance. Justice Scalia said the government’s installation of a GPS device to monitor a vehicle’s movements constitutes a search and violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

    The most interesting part of the Supreme Court decision pops up in a somewhat open-ended what-if comment concerning future issues that at least one justice thinks the court should address. Consumer privacy issues remain very much alive and potentially troublesome for location-based services in the United States

    Justice Samuel Alito said the court should examine how expectations of privacy affect whether warrants are required for remote surveillance using electronic methods that do not require the police to install equipment, such as GPS tracking of mobile telephones. “If long-term monitoring can be accomplished without committing a technical trespass — suppose for example, that the federal government required or persuaded auto manufacturers to include a GPS tracking device in every car — the court’s theory would provide no protection,” Alito wrote.

    This, or its exact counterpart, has already occurred in cell phones: government-mandated location technology embedded in all devices, over a sliding timescale that comes to maturity, or full application, fairly soon.

    The Register-Guard newspaper of Eugene, Oregon, published an editorial containing the quote reprinted in the introduction to this column. The writer went on to say that “The result was a ruling that sidestepped tough questions, such as how to treat information held by cell phone companies and how to treat information gathered from devices that are installed at the factory.”

    The Register-Guard went on to state “Advances in science and technology have produced GPS devices that have unlimited potential for abuse.”

    “In the face of the very real threat of ubiquitous surveillance, Congress should complete its revamping of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Lawmakers have begun work on this task, but the legislation is not ready for passage.”

    The words “no protection” in Justice Alito’s opinion imply that personal cell-phone records are open season to government investigators. Such has already been the case in a number of instances.

    Murkier than government use — if such a concept is conceivable — is commercial use of a consumer’s location data. In other words, privacy. This issue has been raised since GPS-enabled phones were first theorized, and since the very whisper of the first location-based service, but it has never been fully or adequately addressed by anyone in industry or government. The notion of “granting permission” to use one’s location data, in order to benefit from services thus provided, still seems unresolved to me.

    Most consumers and cell-phone users do not have a clear picture of just how far the ball goes if they check a box that says “agree to terms” or otherwise signify that they are releasing their location data in some undefined form. Sure, they think they’ll just get a coupon the next time they pass near an industrial-strength coffee shop. They have no idea just how much their location data and travel patterns could be exploited by companies seeking to sell them something based on their profile. If you think robotelemarketing – the automated sales calls, often extremely deceptive in their offer, that come as you’re sitting down to dinner – are the worst form of pest, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

    The Eugene Register-Guard made this recommendation: ““In the face of the very real threat of ubiquitous surveillance, Congress should complete its revamping of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Lawmakers have begun work on this task, but the legislation is not ready for passage.”

    I am not intimately familiar with the draft of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, but I have a feeling it does little more than scratch the surface on this issue; it probably focuses on government use of private citizens’ location data, and does not begin to consider commercial use.

    So far, we are just talking about the United States.

    Regarding GNSS use elsewhere around the world  for tracking criminals:

    In Russia and China, one can reasonably presume that the interests of the state will crush any notion of citizen rights, so that government and police use of GNSS tracking will be placed under no restriction. Europe under the European Union has fairly strong citizen protections in some areas, less so in others. Japan, Korea, Australia . . . I just don’t know.

    Regarding GNSS use elsewhere around the world for tracking ordinary citizens’ location and travel patterns for commercial — that is, sales and marketing — purposes, I must again claim ignorance regarding the established ground rules in these countries, if there are any.

    Anywhere in the world, if GNSS should be perceived as a tool of Big Brother (government) or Big Broker (industry selling and buying consumer location data), then all navigation systems acquire a big PR problem, which translates into big funding and modernization problems. That outcome, that uncertainty, would affect everyone in or associated with GNSS provision. So we all have an interest in seeing, or making, or shaping, some resolution.

    Presumably, we are all waiting around for a test case on privacy versus commercial interests. With the location-based services (LBS) market poised — same as it ever was — on the brink of widespread acceptance, it might benefit everyone if such a case came sooner rather than later. Or if the U.S. Congress tackled the issue before being required to do so by the courts.