On Dec. 23, 2016, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2017. The act includes policy and funding guidance for the GPS program of $847.362 million.
This total excludes $13.171 million requested for the GPS IIF program, which requires FY 2017 funding for on-orbit support and contract closeout.
Procurement of GPS III satellites is budgeted at $34 million, development of GPS III satellites is at almost $142 million and the next-generation ground control system (known as OCX) is budgeted at $393 million, which comes with certification and congressional briefing requirements. The amount includes funding for the GPS Enterprise Integrator.
The GPS Enterprise Integrator project includes the efforts associated with the government’s prime contract tasks necessary to accomplish the critical integrating function with the entire GPS user community. The Enterprise Integrator maintains the GPS architecture and system definition, controls and validates interfaces, ensures compatibility of Generation II and III systems, and develops and manages plans for execution and fielding of the GPS enterprise.
The final defense budget item is $278 million for development of new military GPS user equipment (MGUE).
Besides the NDAA, other areas that include funding for GPS and related programs are Transportation (including WAAS), to support designated civil elements of the Air Force GPS program, along with civil GPS augmentations and related activities.
In a change from prior years, the Department of Transportation (DOT) requested civil funding for the GPS program through the Office of the Secretary instead of through the FAA. Also, the request does not include funds for the Nationwide Differential GPS (NDGPS) program in FY 2017.
Below are full details of the NDAA funding provided by GPS.gov, along with links to relevantPDFs.
PROGRAM
LINE ITEM
PRESIDENT’S
BUDGET
REQUEST
HOUSE
MARK
SENATE
MARK
FINAL
Procurement: GPS III Satellites Space Procurement, Air Force, Line Item 6, “GPSIII / GPS III Space Segment” VIEW JUSTIFICATION (3.5 MB PDF)
Development: GPS III Satellites RDT&E, Air Force, Line Item No. 214 / Program Element 0305265F, “GPSIII / GPS III Space Segment” VIEW JUSTIFICATION (8 MB PDF)
Development: Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX) and GPS Enterprise Integrator RDT&E, Air Force, Line Item No. 110 / Program Element 0603423F, “Global Positioning System III — Operational Control Segment” VIEW JUSTIFICATION (8 MB PDF)
Development: Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE) RDT&E, Air Force, Line Item No. 48 / Program Element 0305164F, “NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (User Equipment) (SPACE)” VIEW JUSTIFICATION (8.5 MB PDF)
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded HRL Laboratories LLC $4.3 million to develop vibration- and shock-tolerant inertial sensor technology that enables future system accuracy needs without using GPS.
Positioning, navigation and timing are key to ensuring the location accuracy critical to the success of modern military missions. Today’s military systems typically rely on GPS to ensure position accuracy. While GPS provides sub-meter accuracy in optimal conditions, the signal is often lost or degraded due to natural interference or malicious jamming.
“The ATLAS project will deliver a comprehensive approach to breaking performance and cost, size, weight and power barriers in inertial sensor technology that prevent robust, GPS-independent, military positioning, navigation and guidance,” said Logan Sorenson, principal investigator and research staff member in HRL’s Sensors and Materials Laboratory.
ATLAS will combine intimate locking of a micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) Coriolis Vibratory Gyroscope (CVG) sensor with an atomically stable frequency reference in order to exploit the intrinsic accuracy of the atomic hyperfine transition frequency.
“The engineering challenge lies in developing a system architecture to transfer the stability from the atomic reference to the CVG sensor without introducing unintended noise,” Sorenson said. “We are very excited to explore this novel approach to addressing long-standing precision navigation need faced by the U.S. military.”
HRL Laboratories is located in Malibu, California. It is a corporate research-and-development laboratory owned by The Boeing Company and General Motors specializing in research into sensors and materials, information and systems sciences, applied electromagnetics, and microelectronics. HRL provides custom research and development and performs additional R&D contract services for its LLC member companies, the U.S. government, and other commercial companies.
The European agency for global navigation satellite systems (GSA) has kicked off ESCAPE, a three-year, 5.4 million euro project to use Galileo services for automated driving.
ESCAPE (European Safety Critical Applications Positioning Engine) will coordinate relevant industrial and research institutions in Europe to create a positioning engine for safety-critical applications on the road — applications involving highly automated driving.
ESCAPE is led by the Spanish company FICOSA in collaboration with partners from across Europe: GMV from Spain, Renault and IFSSTAR from France, STMicroelectronics and Istituto Superiore Mario Boella from Italy. All partners are important stakeholders of the value chain in the domain of safety-critical applications for road transportation.
By 2019, the ESCAPE consortium will finish the development of an innovative positioning engine tailored to meet the safety requirements expressed by those road transport applications that will involve automation and have the potential to harm or damage people and goods.
ESCAPE core features.
GPS+Galileo Receiver
The first mass-market GPS+Galileo chipset receiver with multi-frequency capability tailored for the automotive sector is a key element of this innovative positioning device.
ESCAPE will enable a high-grade of data fusion with different vehicle sensors and the exploitation of key technological differentiators such as the precise point positioning service (PPP), the potential use of the Galileo ionospheric model and the provision of an integrity layer to assess the degree of trust one can associate to the position information provided by the device.
The use of the integrity layer is crucial: in safety-critical applications, it can be more important to know whether information is reliable than the precise information itself.
ESCAPE will set a new paradigm among and across the technologies enabling road vehicle automation, following the vision of the companies that joined the project, according to the ESCAPE team. The main keyword of this new paradigm is “safety-oriented,” while the pathway is the integration of multiple sources of positioning information (multiple satellite constellations, multiple signal frequencies, and multiple onboard sensors including maps) and high-accuracy services.
ESCAPE has been funded under the Fundamental Elements program of the GSA, a new European Union R&D funding mechanism supporting the development of EGNSS-enabled chipsets, receivers and antennas, with the major objectives of facilitating the adoption of the European GNSS Systems and improving the competitiveness of the EU industry, by addressing specific user needs in priority market segments.
The GNSS market landscape is expanding due to the rapid growth of GNSS-enabled wearables and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) coupled with new innovation opportunities around low-cost precision GNSS, according to ABI Research’s latest GNSS IC vendor report.
In its latest GNSS IC vendor competitive analysis, ABI Research determines Broadcom and Qualcomm remain the two top IC vendors for the fourth year in a row with a mere two points separating MediaTek in third from u-blox in fourth.
New threats emerge to shake up the landscape in the years ahead, though, with CEC Huada and Samsung now companies to watch, the report said.
“MediaTek and u-blox once again swapped places,” said Patrick Connolly, Principal Analyst at ABI Research. “U-blox had another stellar year financially and, along with Skytraq, led the way on low-cost precision GNSS with its NEO-M8P module. MediaTek, which showed significant success in wearables and smartphones, transitioned back to third place primarily due to growing market share.”
Broadcom and Qualcomm remain the two top GNSS IC vendors. Within the past year, Broadcom spurred more headlines with its wearables success and its initial work on L1/L5 dual-frequency receivers. Qualcomm continues to lead in total GNSS shipments, as well as innovative new technologies like LED/VLC and LTE Direct, according to the report. Its partnership with Baidu on its IZat platform is also notable and represents the beginning of the era of “always on, ubiquitous location technologies.”
But the incumbents are not the only players to watch in this evolving market. CEC Huada and Samsung sit poised to instill great change in the market landscape, as their innovation over the past 12 months serves to prove.
“CEC Huada developed single frequency RTK GPS, as well as BDS receivers and INS/MEMS receivers, which the company released to select customers in 2016,” Connolly said. “And it is now developing a dual frequency BDS receiver and a receiver for IRNSS. Samsung, meanwhile, launched its first embedded GNSS solution, the Exynos CPU chipset. Given its presence across so many GPS-enabled consumer electronic devices, the company looks set to be a major disruptor in the coming years.”
Farlin Halsey has been named president and chief executive officer of Hemisphere GNSS, effective Jan. 2, 2017. He replaces Xinping Guo, interim president and CEO. Halsey has also been appointed to the Hemisphere board of directors, where Guo will continue to be a member.
With more than 25 years of executive leadership experience in the high-technology electronics industry, Halsey brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to Hemisphere, according to a company statement. Serving in a range of executive officer and senior management capacities, he has extensive proven experience in GNSS OEM sales market segments including construction, agriculture, survey and mapping, GIS, automotive, personal (mobile) navigation, handheld devices, application software, and electronic components and modules.
Before joining Hemisphere, Halsey’s executive leadership positions included president and CEO of RF Monolithics, a designer and manufacturer of wireless connectivity products used in integrated circuits, certified modules and machine-to-machine applications. He facilitated the sale of the company to Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd., where he most recently served as vice president of strategic marketing for Murata Electronics Americas.
Previously, Halsey held executive positions at NovAtel, Inc., including vice president of corporate strategy and alliances and vice president of marketing — roles in which he was instrumental in the acquisition and integration of several companies, as well as developing the company’s successful OEM business strategy. He later played a key role in positioning the company prior to its successful sale to Hexagon AB. Among other roles preceding his executive leadership at NovAtel, Halsey held several marketing and sales management positions at Topcon Positioning Systems, Inc. for the North American market.
“Throughout his career, Farlin has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to develop key corporate strategies to increase a company’s scale and enable it to grow globally,” said Werner Gartner, chairman of Hemisphere’s board of directors. “His understanding of our business, significant international experience, and deep OEM and GNSS industry expertise make him ideally suited to lead Hemisphere as we look to enter the next phase of our growth and development.”
“Hemisphere has long been recognized for its pioneering and trend setting high-precision GNSS technology, and I look forward to leading the company’s talented team as we make the strategic decisions necessary to expand our market share and OEM presence globally,” Halsey said. “Leveraging our rich GNSS experience and strong, core GNSS technologies, along with UniStrong’s manufacturing resources, means that Hemisphere is poised for significant global growth.”
Gartner added, “In conjunction with Farlin joining our company, we thank Xinping Guo for his leadership and guidance as Hemisphere’s interim president and CEO for the past eight months while we conducted an extensive executive search.”
As chairman and general manager of Beijing UniStrong Science & Technology Co. Ltd., which owns 100 percent of Hemisphere GNSS Inc., Guo will continue to be a member of the Hemisphereboard of directors.
Artist’s rendering of an electrodynamic tether grabbing a piece of space junk. (from JAXA video)
Japanese space agency JAXA is testing a way to collect and destroy space junk. Space debris is becoming an increasingly large problem for space agencies and private companies.
A prototype system called the Kounotori Integrated Tether Experiments (KITE) arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Dec. 12 that will allow engineers to test the mechanisms that propel a tether-equipped spacecraft.
The spacecraft would deploy a 700-meter-long electrodynamic tether (EDT) and guide it towards a piece of space junk. Once the tether has identified its target, it will initially be directed towards the debris using GPS. As it gets closer, operators will use optical cameras to guide it.
The tether would latch onto the orbiting hunk of trash, which the spacecraft would then drag low enough to be incinerated in Earth’s atmosphere.
The EDT spacecraft will target large pieces of space junk, ranging in size from a few hundred kilograms to a few tons.
In 2013, more than 500,000 pieces of space debris were being tracked by various space agencies, according to NASA.
An illustration of the method is shown below in a JAXA video.
Esri has released Esri ArcGIS 10.5, its next-generation analytics technology for innovative organizations.
Organizations worldwide are challenged to make sense of real-time digital information. Esri ArcGIS 10.5 helps them glean insight from enterprise data, big data and the Internet of Things and share that insight in intuitive ways.
The heart of Esri ArcGIS 10.5 includes:
Improved capabilities for handling large-scale analytics and big data.
A drag-and-drop interface that streamlines the creation of spatial analysis through maps, charts, and graphs.
Collaboration features to connect and analyze information across the enterprise.
“If organizations are not looking at data spatially — as it exists in the world around them — they will overlook patterns and trends that impact their business and clients,” said Jack Dangermond, founder and president of Esri. “ArcGIS provides the tools to accelerate their digital transformation, helping them master the analysis of big data, real-time data, and information from the Internet of Things.”
Photo: Esri ArcGIS 10.5
Photo: Esri ArcGIS 10.5
The new release is powered by Esri ArcGIS Enterprise, a significant evolution of the technology formerly known as ArcGIS for Server. ArcGIS Enterprise has been updated to meet the needs of today’s information-dependent organization, with improved power to process and analyze large, disparate datasets. Data that once required hours of processing can now be analyzed in minutes, delivering quick insight from billions of data records.
Another feature of ArcGIS 10.5 is Esri Insights, a drag-and-drop interface that streamlines spatial analysis of geographic and enterprise data through intuitive maps, charts and graphs. In addition, enhanced collaboration tools allow users to break down silos and deliver insight across departments and agencies.
Organizations can deploy Esri ArcGIS in the manner that best fits their business needs — on premises, in the cloud or as software-as-a-service — with industry-standard security and scalability.
In addition, Esri ArcGIS helps users analyze big data with these new capabilities:
Improved integration of social media feeds, allowing users to integrate Facebook and Google accounts using their own logins.
Ready-to-build, sharable solutions for raster, vector and tabular data.
Streamlined deployment to cloud providers including Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and IBM Cloud.
Enhancements to Esri ArcGIS Pro and Esri ArcGIS Online — batch-analytic toolsets, vector tile basemaps and code-free app building — that bring 3D data from drones and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs) to mobile devices.
Esri ArcGIS 10.5 makes it easier for organizations to discover and deliver insight from important data. Through this platform, organizations can leverage the world’s most powerful spatial analysis technology anywhere, on any device, behind the firewall or in the cloud, and can easily discover the spatial insight that matters to them — more quickly, more efficiently, and with more confidence.
U.K.-startup Focal Point Positioning has unveiled two new positioning technologies. S-GPS and D-Tail represent step changes in consumer GPS processing and smartphone indoor positioning, the company said.
S-GPS is a new signal processing, sensor fusion and machine learning scheme that dramatically improves the accuracy and availability of satellite-based positioning signals, the company said. The patent-pending S-GPS technology provides increased sensitivity and multipath mitigation capabilities that allow modern smartphones to maintain accurate GPS fixes deep indoors and in complex urban environments.
The improvements have the capability to address challenging navigation problems such as locating emergency mobile phone calls, navigating autonomous vehicles through dense urban environments, and improving consumer interaction with location-based services (LBS).
D-Tail is a human motion modeling system that can accurately track users in three dimensions using the inertial sensors in their smartphone or wearable devices. The result is a precise trace of the user’s motion, better than the detail and accuracy provided by dead-reckoning and Wi-Fi fingerprinting techniques. D-Tail is designed to improve the performance and accuracy of activity tracking apps and LBS analytics.
The company is starting to engage with chipset manufacturers to deploy the technologies in smartphones, according to founder and CEO Ramsey Faragher.
Trimble has launched a patent-pending VerticalPoint RTK system for grade control in agriculture.
VerticalPoint RTK provides significantly enhanced vertical accuracy and stability of standard single-baseline RTK systems reducing the downtime and costly delays experienced by many agriculture land improvement contractors today.
VerticalPoint RTK is available in North America and Australia as an unlock on the Trimble FmX integrated and TMX-2050 displays and works in combination with the Trimble FieldLevel II system, which streamlines the surveying, designing and leveling steps required for land leveling projects.
The VerticalPoint RTK system also includes two stationary supplemental rovers for live, dynamic data collection.
When vertical accuracy inconsistencies occur, agriculture contractors must wait to restart leveling until the vertical signal is once again accurate, and in some instances even rework portions of the field that were incorrectly leveled before the vertical signal inconsistency was discovered.
VerticalPoint RTK significantly reduces vertical design errors in leveling and land forming projects, which occur from inconsistent vertical GPS signals resulting from atmospheric interference. With VerticalPoint RTK, contractors can experience an approximate 25 percent increase in overall uptime.
The industry experiences about 75 percent uptime; however, with VerticalPoint RTK uptime can increase to approximately 95 percent. In addition, this increase in uptime occurs even in the most challenging environments and at any time of year.
“Trimble is excited to launch a world-first technology that enhances vertical GPS accuracy, enabling agriculture contractors to better perform leveling or land forming operations,” said Josh Shuler, product manager for Trimble’s Agriculture Division. “Our new VerticalPoint RTK system can significantly reduce downtime leading to reduced expenses in labor and fuel while also increasing productivity.”
“On average during the summer months we may see 5-6 hours a day where we don’t have the level of vertical GPS accuracy that we need to complete finish passes,” said Jarrett Lawfield, owner of Lawfield Land Grading, a custom land leveling business. “At times all we lack is a finish pass and then we very well may have to stop and wait. I can’t get onto the next job since I’m waiting for the vertical accuracy to be where it needs to be.”
“The vertical accuracy capabilities of VerticalPoint RTK allows the whole project—from bulk hauling to finish passes—to be more efficient. The more accurate bulk hauling is, the less work to be done while finishing,” Lawfield said. “From first thing in the morning until the evening or even to the next day, VerticalPoint RTK is consistent and repeats elevation, so it has virtually eliminated the times when we are unsure of the vertical GPS accuracy. It has helped us to be more timely and efficient in our work.”
At a Dec. 15 ceremony in Brussels titled “Galileo Goes Live,” two high officials of the European Commission issued the Galileo Initial Services Declaration.
The Declaration of Initial Services means that the Galileo satellites and ground infrastructure are now operationally ready. These signals will be highly accurate but not available all the time, since the constellation is not yet complete and users cannot always count on four satellites being visible at one time at all points on the Earth.
Simultaneously, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) awarded the Galileo Service Operator (GSOp) contract, with a value of up to 1.5 billion euros, to Spaceopal, a joint venture between Telespazio and the German Space Agency (DLR).
At the moment, the Galileo constellation consists of 18 satellites in orbit. However, two of these are in an orbit not totally useful for positioning and navigation. Four more, launched in November, may or may not have completed their on-orbit testing (a series of notice advisory to Galileo users or NAGUs appeared today relating to the flag status of each satellite, see details at the end of this story) but have not yet been integrated to the operational constellation. This is foreseen to take place in spring 2017.
During the initial phase, the first Galileo signals will be used in combination with other satellite navigation systems, like GPS. In coming years, new satellites will be launched to enlarge the constellation, gradually improving Galileo availability worldwide. The constellation is expected to be complete by 2020 when Galileo will reach full operational capacity (FOC) of 30 satellites: 24 satellites plus six orbital spares, intended to prevent any interruption in service.
“The announcement of Initial Services is the recognition that the effort, time and money invested by ESA and the Commission has succeeded, that the work of our engineers and other staff has paid off, that European industry can be proud of having delivered this fantastic system,” stated ESA Director general Jan Woerner.
Paul Verhoef, ESA’s Director of the Galileo Programme and Navigation-related Activities, added, “Today’s announcement marks the transition from a test system to one that is operational. We are proud to be a partner in the Galileo programme.
“Still, much work remains to be done. The entire constellation needs to be deployed, the ground infrastructure needs to be completed and the overall system needs to be tested and verified.
“In addition, together with the Commission we have started work on the second generation, and this is likely to be a long but rewarding adventure.”
Galileo Initial Services are managed by the European GNSS Agency (GSA). The overall Galileo programme is run by the European Commission, which has handed over the responsibility for the deployment of the system and technical support to operational tasks to the European Space Agency (ESA).
Operator Contract
The GSOp contract runs for 10 years and covers operation and maintenance of the Galileo satellite system and its committed performance level: in particular, the operations and control of the system, the logistics and maintenance of the systems and infrastructure as well as the user support services.
“With its emphasis on service performance, this contract will shape the future of Galileo. We look forward to building a strong partnership with Spaceopal as Galileo moves towards full operational capability under the responsibility of the GSA from January 2017,” said GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides.
Specifically, under GSA management the contract awarded to Spaceopal includes:
Secure operations of Galileo from two mission control centres (GCC), located in Germany and Italy, and the European GNSS Service Centre (GSC) for user support services in Spain;
Management of the Galileo Data Distribution Network (GDDN);
Integrated logistics support and maintenance for the entire space and ground infrastructure;
Monitoring of the system performance;
Support the completion of the Galileo infrastructure and associated launches.
Spaceopal has served as the contractor for Galileo operations since 2010 under the Galileo Full Operational Capability (FOC) Operations Framework Contract.
Products and Services
The first Galileo smartphone by Spanish company BQ is now available on the market, and other manufacturers are expected to follow suit. Application developers can now test their ideas on the basis of a real signal.
With this Declaration, Galileo will start to deliver, in conjunction with GPS, the following three types services free of charge. Their availability will improve as more satellites are launched.
The Open Service is a free mass-market service for users with enabled chipsets in, for instance, smartphones and car navigation systems. Fully interoperable with GPS, combined coverage will deliver more accurate and reliable positioning for users.
Galileo’s Public Regulated Service is an encrypted, robust service for government-authorised users such as civil protection, fire brigades and the police.
The Search and Rescue Service is Europe’s contribution to the long-running Cospas–Sarsat international emergency beacon location. The time between someone locating a distress beacon when lost at sea or in the wilderness will be reduced from up to three hours to just 10 minutes, with its location determined to within 5 km, rather than the previous 10 km.
Maroš Šefčovič, à gauche, et Elżbieta Bieńkowska.
Accolades and Encouragements
At the “Galileo Goes Live” ceremony in Brussels, EC Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, responsible for the Energy Union, said: “Geo-localisation is at the heart of the ongoing digital revolution with new services that transform our daily lives. Galileo will increase geo-location precision ten-fold and enable the next generation of location-based technologies; such as autonomous cars, connected devices, or smart city services. Today I call on European entrepreneurs and say: imagine what you can do with Galileo — don’t wait, innovate!”
Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska, responsible for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, said: “Galileo offering initial services is a major achievement for Europe and a first delivery of our recent Space Strategy. This is the result of a concerted effort to design and build the most accurate satellite navigation system in the world. It demonstrates the technological excellence of Europe, its know-how and its commitment to delivering space-based services and applications. No single European country could have done it alone.”
Canadian GNSS manufacturer NovAtel, a long-time participant in Europe’s space navigation programs, sent its congratulations to ESA, the EC and GSA upon the launch of Galileo Initial Services. President and CEO Michael Ritter stated, “Today’s declaration validates the confidence of the program’s supporters that Europe would join the world’s operators of global navigation satellite systems.”
NovAtel‘s receivers, antennas and certified ground-reference station receivers have supported Galileo signals in anticipation of the complete constellation. NovAtel now broadcasts Galileo Precise Point Positioning (PPP) corrections through its TerraStar correction services, and states that its OEM customers are already benefiting from the enhanced reliability, availability and accuracy the Galileo constellation adds to the GNSS.
Graham Purves, president and CEO of Veripos, a provider of global precise point positioning (PPP) correction services to the marine oil and gas industry, stated, “As a European company, we are particularly proud and excited about the opportunities the Galileo services create for our customers. The reliability and safety enhancements made possible through these new services allow Veripos to continue to expand the capabilities of our cutting edge safety critical positioning solutions.”
Veripos’s worldwide network of 80 reference stations already supports Galileo, enabling Veripos to deliver Galileo PPP corrections over satellite through products such as its commercially available Apex5 correction service. Veripos also offers Galileo support on its LD5 and LD56 GNSS receivers and Quantum software for industry leading high precision marine positioning solutions.
Advisory Updates
USABINIT NAGUs were issued for 11 satellites: 0101, 0102, 0103, 0203, 0204, 0205, 0206, 0208, 0209, 0210, and 0211. USABINIT, or Initially Usable, notifies users that a satellite is set healthy for the first time. 0104 had a power problem and is operating on E1 only. 0201 and 0202 were launched into lower orbits. 0207 and 0212-0214 are still undergoing commissioning and drifting to their designated orbital slots.
A strategic alliance announced on Dec. 15 between Orolia and Satelles includes product development and go-to-market activities of positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) solutions provided by the Iridium satellite constellation, independent of GPS/GNSS signals. The companies intend to provide PNT solutions to military, defense, government and commercial customers worldwide.
Orolia, the parent of GNSS-active companies Spectracom and Spectratime, among others, announced that it has formed a strategic alliance, including an equity investment with Satelles Inc. to develop, market and sell PNT solutions based on Satelles’ satellite time and location (STL) signal technology. STL is a unique space-based PNT technology that provides location and timing data independent from traditional GPS and other GNSS satellite signals. By using STL, Orolia’s Spectracom and McMurdo solutions will, according to the company, be less susceptible to vulnerabilities such as spoofing, interference and jamming that are associated with GPS/GNSS.
Iridium satellite, courtesy Iridium.
Based on the low-Earth orbit (LEO) Iridium satellite constellation, STL signals are up to 1,000 times stronger than GPS/GNSS; this signal strength, due in part to the constellation’s closer proximity to users, helps to prevent jamming and enables signal reach into buildings and other difficult locations. STL’s additional cryptographic security also ensures performance, productivity and security.
Projected key applications and use cases include energy/utility grids, enterprise data networks including financial systems, maritime/aviation navigation, fleet/asset tracking management, search and rescue and data center management. Further details on planned projects and products of the Orolia-Satelles partnership will be posted to this site in a follow-up story in coming days.
Many highly sensitive military, defense, government and commercial applications and operations require accurate and reliable PNT data. Today, these applications rely on signals from GPS/GNSS satellites. There are instances, however, where GPS/GNSS signal strength and security are not sufficient and prone to signal disruption. For these cases, the companies jointly state, STL can be used as a secure signal of opportunity to complement GPS/GNSS, making the applications more accurate and secure and less prone to interference and attack.
“In today’s increasingly dynamic and mobile world, there is a growing need for precise and robust positioning, navigation and timing information especially in business-critical, high risk and life-saving operations,” said Jean-Yves Courtois, Orolia CEO. “By augmenting Orolia’s market-leading GPS/GNSS-based solutions with Satelles’ STL technology, we will have the industry’s first essentially fail-safe, resilient PNT solution. This breakthrough offering will be ideal for mission critical applications in which the smallest of discrepancies in PNT data accuracy, availability and stability can result in a network outage, a system crash or a loss of life.”
“Satelles’ pioneering role in STL technology is a perfect fit with Orolia’s proven Resilient PNT strategy,” said Michael O’Connor, Satelles CEO. “We look forward to working together to introduce new products and solutions that will provide our customers with the utmost confidence that their positioning, navigation and timing data is accurate, secure and accessible.”
U‑blox components are at the core of two new GNSS golf products. The golf rangefinder wearables were launched by Voice Caddie, an international brand of rangefinders and trackers based in South Korea.
The T3 Hybrid Golf GPS Watch uses the compact u‑blox UBX‑G7020‑KT professional‑grade GNSS chip, which links with GPS/QZSS or GLONASS satellite systems.
The B1 GPS Band uses the u‑blox UBX‑M8030‑KT professional‑grade GNSS chip, which provides navigation sensitivity and low current consumption. It is compatible with GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou satellite systems.
The u‑blox GNSS technology enables the T3 Watch and the B1 Band to automatically detect golf courses and holes, and shows the wearer the driving distance and remaining distance to the hole as well as the distance to the front, middle and back of the green. The T3 Watch also measures short distances.
“Miniaturization is key to our goal to make truly mobile golfing technology wearables,” said Ho‑Hyeong Lee, director of the Research Center at Voice Caddie parent company Ucomm Technology. “The u‑blox GNSS chips are the ideal solution for our products, because of a combination of their compact size, low power‑consumption and low cost. This has helped us to create advanced, comfortable products at the price points we were targeting.”
Both companies foresee further collaboration with high precision GNSS and short range solutions.
