Esri and the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) are working with a number of member states to utilize a data hub that will allow countries to measure, monitor and report on sustainable development goals (SDGs) in a geographic context.
This new hub, called the Federated System for the SDGs, is based on Esri’s ArcGIS platform and will use location intelligence to make it easier for countries to collect, analyze, and share the data required to monitor progress toward the SDGs.
The SDGs are a set of global goals that include such objectives as poverty eradication, access to safe water, clean oceans, eliminating hunger, gender equality, climate action, peace and justice, education and other important areas on the U.N. agenda.
The Federated System explores new pathways for facilitating dataflows and action through data hubs. It then supports and informs data-driven decision-making by making the data open, usable, interoperable and visual.
Based on the early success, UNSD and Esri are working to advance the initial research exercise to support broader adoption by other member states and organizations in 2018.
“The Federated System for the SDGs leverages enabling technologies and capabilities to strengthen the ability of the national and global statistical systems to manage and share data and good practices for the SDGs,” said Gregg Scott, inter-regional advisor, UNSD Global Geospatial Information Management. “This has already provided the opportunity for National Statistical Offices to condition and structure data so that it can be portrayed in a geographic context and provide more insights and enable us to look at dependencies and interdependencies across SDG indicators.”
First introduced as a research project, participation was by invitation only and consisted of six countries: Ireland, Mexico, the Philippines, Qatar, South Africa and Senegal. These countries helped define the requirements and deployment of a web mapping and data management platform that would eventually become the hub.
The Federated System was announced in Mexico City, Mexico, by Esri founder and president Jack Dangermond.
“The key challenge to collaboration between nations is a common digital context,” said Dangermond. “Data hubs provide this context with location intelligence and use organizations’ core data to engage stakeholders, communicate policy, inform the public, and measure progress.”
Participants of the UN forum in Mexico City issued a declaration on the importance of geospatial technology’s role in implementing the SDGs. Using Esri’s capabilities to enable access, collaboration, analyticsand powerful maps provides visualization and awareness that supplies the critical information needed to ensure each country meets its commitment to these goals.
Most importantly, the Federated System allows collaboration across countries and makes it possible to measure the success of global SDG initiatives for the first time.
For more information on how Esri supports the UN and SDG requirements, visit go.esri.com/Sustain_Dev.
Google has publicly released GNSS Analysis app v2.5.0.0 with advanced processing and analysis tools for raw GNSS measurements retrieved from Android devices. The primary intent of these tools is to enable device manufacturers to see in detail how well the GNSS receivers are working in each particular device design, and thus improve the design and GNSS performance in their devices. However, with the tools publicly available, there is also significant value to the research and app developer community.
The v2.5 release builds further on capabilities first announced and made available in 2016 in Android Nougat, when the application programming interfaces (APIs) were introduced, and then updated in May 2017. The latest iteration, announced December 1, now includes the following updates:
Smoothed pseudoranges.
Plots of positions from raw and smoothed pseudorange.
Plots of measurement errors for raw and smoothed pseudorange.
Saves raw and smoothed pseudoranges to derived data file.
Calculates and saves intersystem time biases to derived data file.
Full details, download links, user manual, and more are available at an Android developers’ blog post: GNSS Analysis Tools. The article also lists Android devices that support raw GNSS measurements. Android powers more than 2 billion devices, and Android phones are made by many different manufacturers.
In its basic and original form, the GNSS Analysis Tool is a desktop application that takes in raw the GNSS Measurements logged from the user’s Android device as input. The desktop application provides interactive plots, organized into three columns showing the behavior of the RF, clock, and measurements. The user can see the behavior of the GNSS receiver in great detail, including receiver clock offset and drift to the order of 1 nanosecond and 1 ppb and measurement errors on a satellite-by-satellite basis. This enables sophisticated analysis at a level that was previously almost inaccessible to anyone but the chip manufacturers themselves.
The tools support multi-constellation (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou and QZSS) and multi-frequency. The image below shows the satellite locations for L1, L5, E1 and E5 signals tracked by a dual-frequency chip.
The tools provide an interactive control screen for manipulating the plots. The tools also provide automatic test reports of receivers, evaluating the API implementation, received signal, clock behavior, and measurement accuracy. In each case it will report PASS or FAIL based on the performance against known good benchmarks. This test report is primarily meant for the device manufacturers to use as they iterate on the design and implementation of a new device.
Frank van Diggelen, Android Location Lead at Google, gave a recent workshop presentation at the Royal Institute of Navigation’s International Navigation Conference (RIN INC) in Brighton, UK. Reportedly the topic of most interest to the conference audience was carrier phase from phones, which is available through the Accumulated Delta Range (ADR) field in the raw measurements. The table at the GNSS Tools page shows which phones support ADR. Apps are appearing on the apps store to take advantage of the raw measurements, and give enhanced accuracy through PPP and RTK.
In particular, the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the French space agency, has released two apps built on GNSS Raw Measurements: PPP WizLite, and RTCM Converter. The German company Geo++ Gmbh has a RINEX Logger.
Frank van Diggelen conducts Android location workshop at RININC.
The RIN INC workshop/demo showed how data collected earlier in the day on Brighton’s sea front could then be analyzed using the new release. Van Diggelen gave an example of how combined ionosphere and troposphere delays could be calculated using the GNSS Analysis tools release based on the raw data logged that day. A reference satellite was chosen and the tools enabled relative delays between that satellite, which was near zenith, and all other satellites in the constellation to be measured. Understanding this has real potential in improving the accuracy of single-frequency GNSS devices. The potential applications include jammer detection via AGC analysis, carrier-phase analysis and many others.
Opening remarks by Alan Cameron, editor and publisher of GPS World
Everyone at this great conference is actively engaged in innovation: new approaches, new combinations, new integrations, new methodologies.
Our sponsors are not only innovators, they are active in building those innovations in the field, installing the cornerstones of GPS and GNSS technology. Harris Corporation has been building the GPS satellite payloads since the beginning of time, Rockwell Collins has built so much user equipment, historically and currently, and Spirent Federal Systems has been enabling the development and testing of much user equipment by many companies in this room.
Just to give you an idea of who else is seated among you at the tables, we have NovAtel, Spectracom, IFEN, Septentrio, Satelles, Syntony, Unicore, u-blox, ComNav, RaceLogic, Rohde & Schwarz, ublox, Locata, GMV, Leica, Thales, Boeing, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Google, Apple, Intel, MITRE and Aerospace Corporation; the U.S. Air Force GPS Directorate, the U.S. State Department, the European Space Agency, the European GNSS Agency and the European Commission, NASA, the French and German aerospace agencies; the Institute of Navigation and the Royal Institute of Navigation; and universities and research institutes almost too many to number.
This is a great industry to be part of, and I feel lucky to be kind of a spectator, a commentator in it without the benefit of the scientific upbringing that everybody else in this room has had. I still get to participate in the excitement and the developments and for that I am truly grateful.
Satellites Leadership Award
Galileo Builder
Wolfgang Paetsch
Director of Navigation and Member of the Executive Board, OHB
For his leadership in setting up the routine production of the Galileo satellites leading to Galileo constellation deployment, including thequadruple Ariane 5 launch in November 2016.
Paul Verhoef (right), director of the Galileo Programme and Navigation-related Activities, European Space Agency, accepted the award and delivered remarks on behalf of Wolfgang Paetsch. (Right photo: Melanie Beus)
Introduction by Rob Scott, Rockwell Collins
“Forty years ago, Rockwell Collins celebrated the first receipt of a GPS signal,using a six-foot tall, two-person receiver. Now we have something something 1 by 1-1/4 inches that is far more capable. It’s amazing to see how technology has advanced.”
Remarks by Wolfgang Paetsch
I must admit I am rather at fault for Wolfgang not being here, because I keep him rather busy producing satellites, as OHB is completing the last of 22 satellites under contract from ESA. We are going to launch again in December, as you know we have had a few problems, which I’m glad to say we have solved. The issues are behind us, and the Swiss clocks are working fine now, which is great.
On Dec. 12 we are going to launch. The first two satellites are in Kourou already, the next ones are going in two weeks [as of Sept. 28; all satellites are now in Kourou. — Ed.] We’re going to go up on an Ariane 5 again, with these four satellites. Next summer we are doing another four, so it brings the whole Galileo constellation from 18 to 26, and then we are fully operational.
In this business it is quite a challenge to keep up the pace. I think OHB, with Wolfgang in the lead, has done very well in the past years to set up indeed a very impressive production line and keep all the machinery ticking over. It has been a big challenge for them, as they had been a relatively small player in the space business, while at the same time they have been able to win other competitions in the space business in other areas. OHB has been doing very well and we are glad of course that they are doing well because it was important to get Galileo up and running.
OHB has managed to win recently another contract, good for them, we are about ready to give them the first options on that contract, so we will have a total of 14 satellites under contract with them, in addition to the 22 they are completing. These satellites will further complete the constellation and they will already start replacing the first IOV satellites which we have put up. So you see the cycle is rather quick. Of course we are waiting a bit to see what the real lifetime of the satellites is going to be. We don’t know that yet but we will find out in the next couple of years.
Looking Ahead. So what are the challenges for us in the next years? We are currently working with colleagues from the European Commission and the European GNSS Agency on what the next constellations are going to do. Obviously there is a lot of pressure for further innovation, for further improvements. The user community over the last couple of years has become more outspoken about what they want and what they expect, which is nice. Obviously we need to take care of the legacy users, and we are having to see what new technology would allow us to do. At the end of the day there is then also a small thing called budget, which needs to have its play in these things.
In any case, the plan is by the end of the year we will start the procurement of the next batch of satellites. This will take a while to do, this procurement, as it concerns new developments, but then we are going to go for the next constellation.
So let me finish by paying a tribute to Wolfgang and his team. It has been a real challenge for them. I know that he was pretty amazed, and after that pretty proud, of this prize he has gotten, and I will carefully carry this back to him in Europe.
Alan, thank you very much.
Services Leadership Award
Global Educator
Patricia Doherty
Director and Senior Scientist, Institute for Scientific Research, Boston College
For initiating and leading the African GNSS Outreach program since 2009, to help developing countries derive social and economic benefits from satellite-based PNT.
Frank van Diggelen (left, above), an African Outreach faculty member and principal software engineer, Google, introduced and conferred the award to Pat Doherty. (Photo: Melanie Beus)
Introduction by Frank van Diggelen
“I had the great honor and privilege of teaching in the African GNSS Outreach program. If you are approached to participate in this, seize the opportunity! It’s a fabulous thing, with people from all over Africa, and you’ll learn far more than you think.”
Remarks by Patricia Doherty
I would like to thank GPS World for this Leadership Services Award. I am sincerely honored and humbled by this recognition. Serving the GNSS community with the African Outreach Program has been a joy and a privilege that I am personally grateful for every day.
This program began in 2009. The idea was conceived at a G8-UNESCO World Forum that I was fortunate to attend in 2007. At that forum, leaders from developing nations of Africa described the need for assistance in developing science and technology in their countries, technologies that would lead the way to socio-economic transformation and integration into the world economy. As all of us here know, GNSS is a space technology that can change the world with applications that can increase food security, monitor natural resources, manage wildlife conservation, improve emergency location services, and provide greater precision and safety in land, sea and air navigation — just to name a few of the possibilities.
Thus the goal of the African Outreach Program was to encourage the use of GNSS for societal and economic development and for scientific exploration in Africa. The way to do that was to help build a knowledgeable African GNSS workforce. I am glad to report that the program has been quite successful. To date, we have hosted 9 workshops. In those workshops, we have introduced the art and science of GNSS navigation to over 450 professors and students from at least 23 of the 54 countries in Africa. Many of the African participants have gone on to do great things: hosting local workshops, developing GNSS programs in their universities, gaining government confidence and interest in GNSS technology and building infrastructure that enabled the use of GNSS.
One of the prime reasons for this success are the sponsors who support us and the lecturers who generously share their time, their knowledge and their zeal for GNSS to teach at the workshops. Many of these lecturers are here tonight. So thank you all. Many of these lecturers have expressed that their lives were enriched by this program. Others have told me that they have never seen a more attentive audience and that just having the opportunity to meet and work with people from the developing world in Africa is a gratifying experience. Several of our lecturers, including myself, are now involved in collaborations with scientists in the developing world.
More to come. Although this sounds like we have done our job, there is still so much to do. Change is slow in Africa. Our plans for the future include building on our success by hosting additional workshops where we will try to reach additional countries in Africa and strengthen current programs and infrastructure in countries where that has been slow to develop. We are also opening the program to other developing countries around the world, as there has been much interest from Central America, South America and Asia. Finally, we are working to bring more workshops to the African continent, where we can reach more students, have an effect on local universities and speak to the local government about the benefits of using GNSS as an enabling technology for societal betterment and economic growth.
In closing, I am honored to receive this award and I look forward to continuing our work to support the use of GNSS in developing nations. Thank you, GPS World, and thank you to our sponsors, lecturers and our African participants for making this program a success.
Signals Leadership Award
Spectrum Advisor
Chris Hegarty
Director for Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Engineering and Spectrum, The MITRE Corporation
For contributions to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s GPS Adjacent Band Compatibility Assessment.
Chris Hegarty (Photo: Melanie Beus)
Introduction by Joe Rolli, Harris Corporation
“On behalf of the Harris Corporation and the team I work with in the Precision Navigation and Timing Business Area, providing the world with GPS signals from space for over forty years, I am pleased to present this year’s Leadership Signals Award.”
Remarks by Chris Hegarty
Thank you very much. I really appreciate this. The truth be told, of course, the Adjacent Band Compatibility (ABC) study has had many contributors. I’m honored to receive this award, but equally deserving are many others including Karen Van Dyke at DOT, Steve Mackey and Hadi Wassaf at DOT’s Volpe Center, Karl Shallberg at Zeta, and too many others to list at DOT, the Air Force, NASA, other federal partners and their contractors.
Looking forward, for those of you who have not been following this issue, the GPS spectrum is being challenged. The spectrum is highly valued and of course there are companies that would like to use that spectrum.
I think that it’s safe to say that no one would really want to stop them from using that spectrum if it didn’t have an impact on GPS, but the unfortunate reality is that it appears the deployment of a 4G network or other potential use of the bands adjacent to GPS with similar transmitter power levels would disrupt the operations of many hundreds of thousands of receivers. To ignore the issue would really be a mistake for our industry.
This issue unfortunately isn’t going to go away. The pressure on spectrum is going to continue to grow — until someone figures out how to communicate without using electromagnetic waves. So this is going to be a persistent problem.
I think we can build receivers, in the future, that can deal with some new systems in adjacent bands, but it’s going to be imperative for a long transition period to protect the investments made by many people in the room here and the folks that we support.
That’s all I wanted to say, thank you again very much.
Products Leadership Award
Advanced Capability Developers
Charles Abraham, Andreas Warloe and Javier de Salas
Vice President of Engineering, Senior Director of Engineering, and Director of Software Engineering, respectively, Broadcom
For developing the first dual-frequency L1/L5 E1/E5 GNSS chip for smartphones, ushering in a new era of high-precision GNSS in mass-market products.
Charles Abraham and Andreas Warloe, with Javier de Salas (not shown); Ellen Hall (left), CEO of Spirent Federal Systems, introduced and conferred the award. (Photo: Melanie Beus)
Introduction by Ellen Hall, Spirent Federal
“As pioneers in GNSS satellite simulation, beginning in 1985, we’re really proud of our heritage. We’re also really proud of Broadcom.They are a user of Spirent equipment as well, so that makes us doubly happy to award this to them.”
Remarks by Andreas Warloe
Thank you to GPS World and the sponsors and supporters of this event, from Charlie Abraham, Javier de Salas, myself and the Broadcom marketing and engineering teams, for this award. We are very honored that our efforts to provide the best possible GNSS to as many people as possible have been recognized in this way.
A few years back, we had completed receiver support for a fifth GNSS L1 system and asked ourselves “What’s next?” At that time, technology nodes were getting to a point where a single chip L1/L5/E1/E5 receiver could be contemplated, and the Galileo launch schedule was picking up speed. An old outlandish idea suddenly didn’t seem as outlandish any more.
Many or most of you in this room are experts in the business of perfection; the business of perfecting and pushing performance boundaries for GNSS. As designers of mass-market devices, we have instead become experts in the art of compromise: If we can achieve good performance at 10mA, then how about 5mA? If we can implement a 16-bit data path with 0.1dB losses, how few bits can we get away with for 0.2dB losses? How can we add support for new GNSS systems without growing RF, digital hardware or software? It is this extreme frugality that now has enabled us to put a complete single chip L1/L5 system in the hands of phone and wearables manufacturers, with smaller size and lower power consumption than the previous L1-only generations.
Competition in our market is fierce, but we are excited about this opportunity to work together with our competitors to promote this new level of precision to our common customers. We have taken initiative in this area by forming the Dual Frequency Alliance. There is an investment that has to be made in phones, with antenna and filtering support for the new band. Only when these investments are made will we be able to bring this new performance level to hundreds of millions of people. Only then will we start seeing new applications built on high-precision — applications that haven’t even been envisioned yet. Once those applications are available, there will be pressure to expand L1/L5 technology from flagship phones to truly mass-market phones.
L5 support enables high-accuracy GNSS, but it does not guarantee it. To go from multi-meter precision to sub-meter precision requires advanced software. GNSS chip manufacturers can provide a good starting point, but once GNSS measurements are made available, GNSS students and experts alike can supply clever applications, professional software tools and infrastructure to further advance GNSS technology. Our job is to work together to push the L1/L5 technology into phones, to provide a new platform for GNSS development.
In summary, we would like to work as an industry to make L1/L5/E1/E5 the new standard for GNSS performance, and to make these measurements available in phones for as many engineers as possible to either monetize their existing IP or develop entirely new IP.
NovAtel’s GPS Anti-Jam Technology (GAJT) has been selected for the United Kingdom’s Type 26 frigates to meet a requirement as part of a protected navigation system.
The frigates are 21st-century warships that will replace the Type 23 frigate as the workhorse of the British Fleet, undertaking the Royal Navy’s three core roles — warfighting, maritime security and international engagement — on the world stage.
GAJT-710MS
GAJT protects GPS-based navigation and precise timing receivers from intentional jamming and accidental interference, ensuring that the satellite signals necessary to compute position and time are always available. It is a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) product, and comes in versions suitable for land, sea, fixed installations and smaller platforms such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Warships, military vehicles and platforms, networks and timing infrastructure can all benefit from the protection that GAJT provides. There is no need to replace GPS receivers already installed, because GAJT works with civil and military receivers including SAASM and M-code.
The Type 26 frigates of the British Fleet will use NovAtel anti-jam technology. (Photo: BAE Systems)
“The selection of GAJT for the Type 26 frigates is the result of cooperation between Drumgrange, with its proven track record for rapid realisation of demanding defence design tasks, and Forsberg Services, an established navigation systems company and NovAtel dealer whose high quality manufacturing was instrumental to the project,” said Peter Soar, business development manager for military and defence at NovAtel. “GAJT is in use operationally and has been shipped to 16 allied nations around the globe. We are grateful for the rigorous technology selection process conducted which led to this choice.”
NovAtel’s commitment to precise, assured positioning and timing is central to the design of the GAJT antenna. The company’s lean manufacturing techniques and quality processes mean that it can ramp up quickly to meet volume requirements. Reliability is assured by NovAtel’s industry-best low return rate.
Enabling the future of autonomous transportation by significantly reducing product development time is the shared goal of three presentations to be made on Thursday, Nov. 30 in a free webinar, “High Accuracy for Autonomous Driving.”
The speakers will show how they employ post-processing software to generate accurate and reliable ground reference solutions in vehicle testing. The software enables evaluating potential sensor suites, benchmarking solutions, and generating high-definition maps.
Post-processing the data from autonomous vehicle tests under varying environmental conditions that mirror real-world situations can mitigate GNSS error sources (satellite clock & orbital error, and ionospheric & tropospheric delay); establish an ultra-precise ground truth reference for testing; compare and contrast different sensor packages tested onboard the vehicle; produce customized data formats for exporting information; compare real-time and post-processed quality; transform and translate data between different locations and reference frames; and revisit tests through export to Google Earth. The speakers will show how post-processing forward and back can lead to as much as 40 percent data accuracy improvement.
The software package, Inertial Explorer, offers this capability, whether lower-grade or high-end inertial sensors are employed.
Steven Waslander, associate professor at the University of Waterloo, heads a project collecting 1,000 km of data in all-weather conditions for a new public road driving dataset focused on autonomous driving challenges. He directs the Waterloo Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory (WAVELab), extending the state of the art in autonomous drones and autonomous driving through advances in localization and mapping, object detection and tracking, integrated planning and control methods and multi-robot coordination.
Terry Lamprecht, director of products at AutonomouStuff, a supplier of components, services and software that enable autonomy, will discuss verifying proper installation, and creating a baseline data set to benchmark against data collected on autonomous vehicles in real-time.
Natasha Wong Ken, product manager at Waypoint, will give a high-level technical overview of post-processing techniques and settings, including forward and reverse processing, tightly vs. loosely coupled, PPP vs. differential, and more.
Registration for the November 30 webinar is free. For those not able to attend the live broadcast, all audio and presentation slide components can be downloaded after air date for viewing at convenience.
Assessing the performance of autonomous systems under real-world conditions requires an ultra-precise ground truth reference against which to benchmark vehicle performance. A GNSS-plus-inertial post-processing software can provide this capability, taking real-time GNSS data — which are subject to outages, obstructions, weather-induced errors and more — from the vehicle and correcting the solution. This can improve meter-level data to centimeter-level, a critical standard for safe autonomous performance. A free webinar on Nov. 30 gives both a high-level overview and close-in details of this process.
Many sub-systems must function flawlessly and interact seamlessly for safe autonomous vehicle performance. Fielding such a vehicle requires rigorous testing, repeated many times; this in turn requires close comparison of the vehicle’s real-time GNSS data to a ground truth of its performance. Post-processing software that combines GNSS with inertial navigation system (INS) data, to bridge GNSS outages common in real-world driving, can provide this capability. Whether the tests are evaluating potential sensor suites, benchmarking their own solutions, or generating high-definition maps, post processing maximizes the accuracy of the solution by processing previously stored GNSS and INS data forward and reverse in time, and combining the results.
Novatel’s Waypoint software package, Inertial Explorer, offers this capability, whether lower-grade or high-end inertial sensors are employed. An examination of the process is afforded in the free webinar, from the converging viewpoints of three speakers:
Steven Waslander, associate professor at the University of Waterloo, heads a project collecting 1,000 km of data in all-weather conditions for a new public road driving dataset focused on autonomous driving challenges. He directs the Waterloo Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory (WAVELab), extending the state of the art in autonomous drones and autonomous driving through advances in localization and mapping, object detection and tracking, integrated planning and control methods and multi-robot coordination.
Terry Lamprecht, director of products at AutonomouStuff, a supplier of components, services and software that enable autonomy, will discuss verifying proper installation, and creating a baseline data set to benchmark against data collected on autonomous vehicles in real-time.
Natasha Wong Ken, product manager at Waypoint, will give a high-level technical overview of post-processing techniques and settings, including forward and reverse processing, tightly vs. loosely coupled, PPP vs. differential, and more.
Registration for the November 30 webinar is free. For those not able to attend the live broadcast, all audio and presentation slide components can be downloaded after air date for viewing at convenience.
Some of the new capabilities explored jointly by NovAtel and AutonomouStuff are covered in the August cover story, Autonomous Assembled.
The Railway High-Integrity Navigation Overlay System (RHINOS) work program explores candidate concepts for provision of the high integrity required for train positioning within a train-control system. GPS and Galileo plus satellite-based augmentation systems constitute the global reference infrastructure. In addition, local augmentation elements, advanced receiver autonomous integrity monitoring, and other trainboard sensors on can mitigate hazards due to environmental effects governing rail applications. RHINOS will be developed in cooperation with Stanford University researchers experienced in high-integrity aviation applications. The goal is moving beyond regional applications towards a global solution in the fast-growing train signalling market. RHINOS is financed by the European GNSS Agency and led by the Italian consortium RadioLabs, with partners Stanford University, Sogei, German Aerospace Center, University of Nottingham and University of Pardubice.
A link to the live event will be sent to you two hours before the event. Your personalized event URL will be automatically generated by the ON24 system. To ensure receipt of the email, please whitelist this email address by adding it to your contacts: [email protected].
This presentation will begin on at 1 p.m. EST / 10 a.m. PST on Thursday, Nov. 30, 2017.
Audience members may arrive 15 minutes prior to live time. If you have any questions, please contact event producer Kelly Limpert at [email protected].
A: During development of dual-frequency GLONASS RTK support for the Piksi Multi GNSS receiver, GNSS signal simulation was used to test corner cases that are infrequent but catastrophic, such as whole constellation failures. We combined this with our custom-built hardware-in-the-loop infrastructure to test nightly on relevant GNSS scenarios, gaining statistical significance through thousands of runs of the receiver. This iterative approach allowed us to develop GLONASS RTK support in a mere five months.
Andreas Warloe, Senior Director, Systems Engineering, Broadcom Limited
A: GNSS signal simulation was used in all stages of our GNSS chip design and development. Simplified single- or multi-satellite simulations were used to verify search and track channel designs, and carefully calibrated simulations were used to characterize receiver losses. Later, full system simulations were used in large-scale regression testing, interference testing and corner case tests. Simulator testing has been critical for supporting new signals that weren’t widely available in the early chip design phases.
A: We use GNSS simulators throughout the design cycle, from prototyping to mass production. The benefits of testing in a reliable, repeatable lab environment became very clear when we needed to exercise co-location of Bluetooth and GNSS in a module. Testing in a controlled signal environment allowed us to keep the GNSS signals constant while adjusting the Bluetooth signal levels, allowing us to verify the robustness of our design over the full temperature and voltage range.
Most of us know about serious games that teach real-world applications.
Flight simulators are the most well-known example. Learning to fly multi-million dollar aircraft is simply too costly and too dangerous to train in the real world. Pilots spend hundreds and thousands of hours in flight simulators going over basics and learning to deal with emergency situations.
Doctors are another profession that spends many hours doing simulated procedures.
The military is another.
So are police and emergency responders.
The risks are too great in those professions for real-world training. Immersive training in virtual, simulated environments is the only way to become fully proficient.
The term serious games describes a type of game-based learning, but serious games don’t have to be associated only with jobs that are high cost and high risk. Other examples of fields using serious games include fleet logistics operations, air traffic control, shipping port operations, unmanned aerial systems and driver training.
In all of those games, GIS is a crucial component because it allows game-based learning to transition from the virtual world to the real world.
Back to the Classroom
What was became what is because someone asked what if.
“What if,” two words the dogmatists abhor and the idealists herald. The idealists (aka visionaries and dreamers) drive change at an ever-increasing pace. There is never a respite.
I am admittedly a dreamer, but only in my waking hours. From midnight to sunrise I am very much a conservative (aka dogmatist and traditionalist), lest in my sleep I am overtaken by a swifter, stronger, more technically savvy idealist and awaken a dinosaur: Tewelowsaurus Rexus.
So it is in this age of disruption, an economic stalwart in one quarter and a bearish pariah in the next. The archeological rubble of traditional industries piles up.
The education system is such a behemoth, sluggish and dying, unable to compete with emerging technologies and immersive learning. Education RIP — another victim of the internet. But it is more than the battle of brick and mortar versus e-commerce. This extinction is happening because of style over substance.
Traditional schools simply are not attracting the generations of students who grew up in an increasingly connected digital age. What’s in it for me? Is now, what’s here, relates to me? We screamed when we were young and going through the system, but the alternatives were not there. Now, the alternatives are fascinating, engaging and wondrous. Students and the curious line up, wanting to participate.
To understand the difference between the two schools of thought, let’s consider a traditional subject: algebra — a favorite of millions of students year after year. Perhaps you too recall the joys of X over Y and the endless hours enraptured in sheer delight solving for “why,” as in why in tarnation does anyone need to know this?
If you were like me, then you too believed the title mathematician was synonymous with masochist, except that these instruments of mental torture were leaked to the government and, through public schools, were inflicted on innocent children posing as students.
But I digress. Probably due to latent psychosis: Post Algebraic Stress Disorder (PASD). It doesn’t have to be that way, except dogma dictates that our successors suffer the same.
A GIS Classroom Tale
The following example illustrates what a typical game-based learning environment might look like.
Professor Hamill, wearing a sports blazer over a dark blue T-shirt that reads “Data, the new bacon” and a comfortable pair of jeans, stands in front of the class. The Earth slowly rotates behind him on a large, multi-panel screen. It is the students’ second year of their Geospatial Science curriculum.
The professor addresses the students warmly and asks if anyone knows Xnite21? He explains it is his online gamertag and his GitHub user name. Most of the students, being coders and gamers with a background or an interest in GIS, immediately identify and begin calling out their own callsigns.
After a brief open discussion about favorite games and name familiarity, Professor Hamill explains their first assignment. They will be mapping all the trees in the campus commons — a typical task for an Applied GIS class, but this time is different.
The class is going to be using game-based learning. Each student is issued augmented reality (AR) glasses and a GPS-enabled tablet loaded with geospatial software. The students form into five six-person teams, each assigned a color. Each team has to geospatially tag unmarked trees by collecting attributes about the types and estimating height and diameter.
Looking through the AR glasses, if a tree has been tagged a translucent, colored column, the height and diameter taken from the attribute table will appear around the tree in the color of the team that captured it. When a total of all the tagged trees reaches 120, the assignment (game) is over.
Back in the classroom — converted to a command center — the students focused on a large, multi-panel screen showing the color-coded players as they moved around the campus and color-coded trees as they’re added. The overall score of each team is in the upper right corner. Individual stats on players are in the left.
The green team was ahead by a sizable lead. The red team and white team were fighting for second place, while the purple team trailed behind and the yellow team struggled to get started. The professor knew that he would have to spend some time with the students on the purple and yellow teams. The goal wasn’t to win, but to learn and have fun while doing it. By looking at the individual student’s metrics, the professor could see where the students were having challenges and then teach to improve those areas.
In the above example, the assignment usually takes five to six hours, but the gamification of the task cut the time in half. The students were more engaged, more motivated and had more fun; additionally, they learned leadership and teamwork and how to use the technology more creatively.
Students also develop camaraderie faster, usually beginning with the first assignment. Another added benefit is reduced absences. Students look forward to their assignments, and because they are usually part of a team, they feel a sense of interdependence that helps to motivate them to make it to class.
Because the students were able to finish the assignment faster than their traditional learning counterparts, they were given another assignment. Usually, that would be met with angst. But in game-based learning, as long as the assignment is fun, won’t take an inordinate amount of time, and has a relevant purpose, the students are more than often happy to do it.
After meeting with the class and going over the areas that the professor saw the students having the most difficulty, he sent out the same teams as before. This time they were tasked with sectioning off the student parking lot into five equal areas. Each of the teams were then to collect information on the each of the cars in their area: GPS location, make and model, and estimated value. After collecting the information, the students were then able to calculate the average value of all the vehicles, and thus, an average net worth. They were also able to run geospatial analytics to visually look for patterns and anomalies.
The students did not see the assignment as work so much as a game of discovery about themselves and their school, and appropriately enough how to apply GIS to everyday life.
The knowledge and experience acquired through game-based learning happens at a deeper level. The students are actively engaged in the learning process rather than passively engaged and emotionally charged with higher levels of energy.
Speaking with Giants
Phaedra Boinodiris
Writing this article gave me a great opportunity to interview Phaedra Boinodiris, a 20+ year leader in the game-based learning industry. She led IBM’s first serious gaming venture into a multi-million-dollar business unit. She is an expert in how to use game theory to promote user engagement and motivate students and employees to modify behavior toward more positive outcomes.
Phaedra is the author of the book Serious Games for Business: Using Gamification to Fully Engage Customers, Employees and Partners. Phaedra explained that elements of gaming are typically thought of as points, badges and leaderboards; but in reality, what motivates most people for long-term engagement is autonomy over their own lives, mastery of their craft and having a sense of purpose greater than themselves.
Phaedra also said that gaming is entering the workforce. It is beyond just training and education. Companies are already using game-based systems to engage employees. The return on investment (ROI) to the company is greater employee engagement, better moral, a more appealing workplace and higher retention rates, especially for Millennials and Gen-Xers.
Phaedra went on to say other advantages of game-based systems are the ability to curate user data to learn what motivates them. Knowing what drives a person means the system can hone the user’s experience.
Phaedra explained that game-based systems make data science actionable. She said what fascinates her the most is the intersection of artificial intelligence and play, and the advancements in human-computer interface. There is so much happening right now; it is an exciting time to be in the field.
See Phaedra Boinodiris at the 2014 gSummit in San Francisco speaking on gaming the workforce.
Nathan Elequin
In addition to interviewing Phaedra, I also had the opportunity to interview gamification specialist Nathan Elequin, a graduate research assistant at Syracuse University. Nathan’s primary interest is moving the education system toward a more robust learning experience using game-based design. He authors an online column, EduGames.
According to Nathan, training is most effective when game theory is applied to learning. Gaming is the synthesis of science, skill, behavioral psychology and art, and when done right allows a student to figure out problems on his or her own, ensuring the learning is experienced internally, and thus, to a much deeper level than rote and recall.
GIS in gaming is important because rich gaming environments deal with massive amounts of information, and GIS has already overcome that challenge by creating spatially aware interactions of different types of complex variables to visualize patterns.
In regard to GIS and gaming, Nathan shared that one of the most popular games of the past several years was Pokémon GO, which made national news several times. It is an augmented reality game built on a geospatial platform.
A far better game is Ingress, where players are in one of two teams battling for world domination. The whole world‚ the real world, is the gameboard.
Ingress is a geospatially augmented reality game. It is described as bringing a video game into real life. Seeing the world through the lens of Ingress is to see magical things in the world around us that otherwise would go unseen. It is a fascinating game; you can see the trailer here.
Nathan spoke about a fascinating future using a geospatial-like system described as an objective-based navigation system similar in design to a GPS-based navigation system that takes a person from point A to point B along a course the computer determines based upon available data.
The objective-based system helps steer a person towards their chosen objectives, or goals. The person selects their own objectives. Using an artificial intelligence-based information system similar in design to a GIS allows complicated and massive amounts of data to interact and plot a course of action, helping navigate the person towards their objective.
Let sleeping dogma lie. Awaken the lucid dreamers of tomorrow. We exist on the precipice of potential, and it only takes a few of us to turn what if into what is. Find ways to teach that are more active, more immersive, and more engaging.
If it’s worth learning, then it’s worth spending the extra time to gamify the experience. It’s a win-win for students and teachers. This is a future we need only open our hands and grasp, for it is within our reach.
So, let the games begin.
Encore: The Cutting-Room Floor
Games in School
Returning from her first day back to school her phone rang as she opened the door. The familiar voice of her friend Conner asked in a hopeful voice, “Hi Jill. Want to come over?”
Sadly, after a moment’s pause she had to decline. “I can’t, Conner. I’ve got so much math homework. I can’t believe how much they gave us.”
“I do too, Jill,” said Conner explaining he was in a game-based learning curriculum. “My homework is to finish level 1 called Euclidian Dreams. Some of my friends are over and we are all playing, plus we’re going online later to compete against the rest of the class to see who’ll be the champion tomorrow. I was hoping you could come over, too.”
Jill sighed. In her voice was a tinge of disappointment. “It sounds fun, Conner, but I don’t know how well you’re going to be able to learn algebra playing games.” Jill’s answer sounded more like what his mother or father might’ve replied. Or the more harsh, disgruntled criticism of his grandfather who would’ve added how the world is going to pot playing games instead of studying.
Dejected, Conner hung up with Jill. He knew there was more than just a “no” in Jill’s refusal to come over. It was accusatory, as if she were judging him to be a miscreant because he was in the test program.
Conner went on that evening to have a great time with friends playing the games that were teaching algebra without actually doing math. The game taught algebraic concepts using a storyline, puzzles and challenges. There were characters, of which Euclid was the main one, guiding the journey and revealing insights and clues to find and reach the Elements, Euclid’s treasure.
As Conner progressed through the course, the games incorporated races, battles, adventures, stories, philosophies and mysteries of the ancient mathematicians whom he had to come to know through the games. The great mathematicians became friendly figures as they guided him through games with names such as The Riddle of Archimedes, The Mystery of Cheops, Code of Pythagoras, Plane of Descartes, Newtonian Revelations and the Visions of Einstein.
By the time each level was completed, the formulas didn’t seem like math so much as they appeared to be keys to unlock the secrets of the world around us.
NOTE: The characters in the story are fictitious. The games mentioned in the story are not real, but are based on DragonBox’s educational games.
Please provide your feedback. Specifically, are you interested in more on this subject? Did you enjoy the article? What topics would you like to see covered? All feedback is appreciated. Thank you.
Virtually all defense and security applications of GPS/GNSS require additional technology to protect assets and missions against signal interference, whether jamming or spoofing. The upcoming free webinar, Resilient PNT for Military Applications, gives a primer on several of these technology options. Mitigation in this context means that after isolating the unwanted signal, quickly rejecting and replacing it, causing minimal system degradation. In essence, this involves the use of augmentation technologies and diversification strategies to supplement GPS/GNSS, thus reducing the dependence on it.
Applications relevant to this approach include: Airborne: Observation payload (radar, optronics, electronic warfare), flying test bench, flight analysis, tactical UAV navigation;
Ground: Blue Force tracking, vehicle navigation, satcom on the move (SOTM), Anti IED jamming systems, mobile radios and C4ISR, robotics;
Marine/Naval: Sensor support (radars, sonars, optronics, electronic warfare), communication networks, offshore/DSO platform.
Possible sources of such additional technology include those shown in the accompanying figure:
Click to enlarge.
The webinar is targeted upon the needs of systems engineers, system integrators, communication engineers, information system security engineers, validation engineers, test engineers, defense engineers, contractors and consultants, application engineers, systems and requirements analysts and system administrators who wish to firm up their understanding of resilient PNT and expand upon the alternatives available to them. Speakers on the webinar will cover the topic from a range of perspectives.
Mike Jones has worked on a variety of UK and US military airborne platforms around the world. He specializes in the simulation, modeling and hardware implementation of advanced signal processing algorithms, and has led a number of FPGA and ASIC designs for radar, GPS and communications systems.
Mikel Miller began his career as a satellite systems engineer with the U.S. Air Force, holding numerous test, research and development, and program management positions. He retired with a Ph.D. and rank of lieutenant colonel. He worked until recently as chief scientist for PNT Technologies for the Air Force Research Lab Sensors Directorate, and is now a vice president at Integrated Solutions for Systems (IS4S).
Miller will broaden the discussion to encompass all three technologies that evolved military applications and platforms now require for synchronized, precision operations: resilient PNT, resilient communications, and resilient cyber. A system-of-systems architecture that integrates and optimizes these three technologies is required to provide trusted and resilient PNT information in GNSS denied/degraded environments.
Randy Villahermosa, executive director, iLAB, The Aerospace Corporation, will speak on research concepts in complementary PNT, including open-source frameworks and the potential role of signals-of-opportunity navigation. The iLab is a venue for “exploring, prototyping, and collaborating.”
Lisa Perdue, an expert in testing critical GPS and GNSS systems, has trained hundreds of engineers and technicians who are responsible for high-reliability positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) applications. Perdue is Spectracom product manager at Orolia, where she directs the organization’s GNSS simulation activities and contributes to its entire portfolio of resilient PNT solutions. She has more than 15 years of navigation and RF systems experience, including 10 years of service with the U.S. Navy, where she was a certified master training specialist.
Spectracom’s perspective on secure military systems is concisely set out in a whitepaper, “Making Military PNT Systems Resilient Against Threats: Recent Advances.” After an overview of the field in which many terms and concepts are carefully and helpfully defined, the whitepaper explains the advantages of the new Satellite Time and Location (STL) service. This is a paid option available on the company’s VersaPNT hardware unit, combining a GNSS receiver, inertial measurement technology and high-performance timing oscillators to provide assured PNT in GNSS-degraded and denied environments.
STL is a new technology available today to harden GNSS-based timing and frequency systems, and in some cases even to replace the GNSS reference; the adaptation of this technology to positioning and navigation applications on slow-moving mobile platforms is currently under development. The STL signal is broadcast by the Iridium constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit.
VersaPNT reduces size, weight and power (SWaP) by combining the the PNT functions of multiple independent subsystems in one portable unit with a modular architecture. For improved resiliency, optional interference detection and mitigation (IDM) software can be added, as well as other services such as STL and BroadShield.
Mower-maker Husqvarna has installed a wireless sensor device co-developed by Telit and Wireless System Integration (WSI) in its city robotic mower pilot program. Cities are using the Husqvarna mowers to collect data about the environment, the quality of air, water, and levels of light and sound, while maintaining the cities’ green spaces, saving time and money, reducing emission and noise pollution.
A Husqvarna robotic mower patrols a lawn along Prince’s Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. Equipped with a GPS-enabled Telit module, it gathers real-time sensor data on the city’s green space environmental conditions.
In parks in seven cities — Edinburgh and London in the United Kingdom, Gothenburg and Stockholm in Sweden, Almere and Leeuwarden in the Netherlands and San Francisco in the United States — mowers autonomously cut the grass daily and collect real-time data on UV radiation, air quality, ambient noise, luminosity and vibration.
The sensor box, designed by Telit, is mounted on top of the mower, uses the robot’s main battery for power supply, and recharges whenever the robot returns to its base. The sensor box transmits the data using Telit’s HE910-G cellular module which includes a GPS L1 receiver with reported 3-meter accuracy to acquire mower position.
Telit HE910 cellular module has GPS option.
Geofencing is enabled for the mower as well as location-based alarms to disable it should it be moved without authorization. To ensure public safety, sensors detect any nearby objects, including people and animals, causing machines to turn away.
Telit’s global Internet-of-Things (IoT) connectivity data plans and platform seamlessly connect, manage and deliver the environmental data in a ready-to-use format.
Environmental Gains. One of the biggest roadblocks to reach the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is the lack of data. Cities need better environmental data to improve health and create cities people want to live in. The project measures the environmental gains and potential time savings of mowing public lawns with robotic mowers. The test will measure the reduction of noise pollution as well as direct emissions when replacing petrol-powered products with battery driven robotics.
In cooperation with Husqvarna, Quantified Planet, an organization that links innovation to science, receives the data and publishes it for citizens to review. The cities can then analyze the environmental data sent by the robots and implement programs to improve the health of its citizens, based on these insights.
“This new data can provide insights and innovation on how to develop and improve sustainable open green spaces which impact the citizens living nearby,” said Maja Brisvall, CEO, Quantified Planet.
“The need for green spaces is growing more and more in urban areas. The pilot program affords the possibility to increase sustainability and productivity in professional landscaping for urban areas,” said Pavel Hajman, president of the Husqvarna division.
“Cities are using IoT to become more sustainable and efficient,” added Yosi Fait, Interim CEO, Telit. “Through this collaboration we have been demonstrating again our sensor-to-cloud capabilities, cutting our customers’ time to market through our integrated lines of products and services as well through our professional services team’s significant IoT knowhow.”
The SDGs are a set of global goals that include such objectives as poverty eradication, access to safe water, clean oceans, eliminating hunger, gender equality, climate action, peace and justice, education and other important areas on the U.N. agenda.
