Aerial imagery company Nearmap is partnering with Geographic Technologies Group (GTG), which helps local government agencies throughout the United States and Canada with geographic information systems (GIS).
GTG offers local governments with GIS services including strategic planning, consulting, comprehensive data services, mapping services, software development, training and on-call support. GTG also provides ongoing GIS maintenance for villages, towns, cities, counties, multi-regional agencies, public works and public utilities, water districts, and Native American and Alaskan Tribes.
“Our range of high-resolution aerial content — from vertical to oblique, 3D and AI [artificial intelligence] — integrates easily with GTG’s applications and acts as a valuable component to the strategic planning services offered by GTG,” said Karl Terrey, director, Global Alliances at Nearmap. “Our imagery is refreshed multiple times per year and, when combined with GTG’s technology, allows cities, towns, counties and state governments to make decisions based on conditions in their communities in near real time, at a fraction of the cost.”
Nearmap’s 3D imagery provides local governments with the ability to quickly export custom areas for use in platforms such as Esri, Bentley Systems and Autodesk. Nearmap AI enables governments to instantly identify attributes about properties required for the appraisal process. Nearmap AI Packs enable users to determine the type of access made visible in MapBrowser for items such as impervious surfaces, vegetation and solar panels at citywide scale.
Nearmap’s library of aerial imagery provides some of the most accurate imagery available with updates occurring up to three times a year throughout more than 430 markets in North America, including 700 urban and regional areas accounting for more than 70 percent of the United States population.
“Our goal has always been to break through boundaries, solve problems, and introduce a new kind of decision support for our clients,” said James Kelt, vice president of corporate software at GTG. “We began using Nearmap’s aerial imagery a few years ago because we recognized it as a way to differentiate ourselves and push the envelope. Our clients love the imagery and the more we worked with Nearmap, the more it made sense to find a way to partner so we could provide this added value to all of our customers.”
Central Italy — already home to an ambitious national autonomous driving research initiative — will be the site of the P-CARS laboratory, intended to certify positioning devices for use within driverless cars.
The new P-CARS laboratory is financed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) through the Navigation Innovation and Support Programme (NAVISP) of the European Space Agency. The lab will support the goals of EMERGE, a public-private partnership for innovation established in 2018 between Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development, the University of L’Aquila and the mountainous Abruzzo region. Also in the partnership are the RadioLabs research consortium and the Leonardo, Telespazio and Elital companies.
RadioLabs laboratory at the University of L’Aquila, part of Italy’s EMERGE initiative developing autonomous and connected driving solutions. (Photo: RadioLabs)
EMERGE will develop satellite navigation and 5G solutions for connected, cybersecure and autonomous vehicles. The new P-CARS laboratory will be an independent venue for testing devices supporting autonomous and connected driving.
“The idea behind it is to create a research ecosystem, focused on developing, testing, validating and promoting the use of Galileo and other GNSS — along with 5G communications — for connected and autonomous driving,” said Francesco Rispoli, chief satellite operations at Hitachi Rail STS and director general of RadioLabs.
Abruzzo already hosts a manufacturing site for Stellantis’ Fiat Ducato light truck, the Galileo control center at Fucino, and the connected-car center of the University of L’Aquila. P-CARS will be integrated into the university’s Center of Excellence for Geo-localized, Connected and Cyber-secure vehicles.
Italy’s EMERGE initiative is developing GNSS and 5G technology for autonomous and connected driving. (Image: RadioLabs)
“The P-CARS lab will have a 150-square-meter testbed area, beside an existing driving circuit, with the right to use the surrounding open space as well,” Rispoli said. “We’ll be addressing connected autonomous driving functions with GNSS technologies that are safety critical, the key point being that safety must be ensured through standardized test procedures, serving as a trusted third-party to validate specific solutions from companies.”
“This is a valuable response to our national strategy, promoting the adoption of positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) solutions in the fast growing automotive sector by leveraging the latest technologies brought by Galileo and 5G,” said Alberto Tuozzi, head of ASI’s Navigation and Telecommunication Department. “Cross fertilization, cooperation and interaction among the stakeholders will be pursued in the unique ecosystem of the Abruzzo region, bringing together space and non-space stakeholders: ASI, ESA, satellite and automotive industries, universities and research centers.”
Autonomous vehicles will have two distinct sets of inputs: sensors such as cameras, lidar and radar to know the context around the car; and GNSS and inertial measurement systems to know its position. The two sets work independently but come together to ensure safety. (Photo: RadioLabs)
Leveraging its expertise on Galileo and safety applications, ESA will support this initiative in two ways: with technical support and through cooperation and exchanges with other institutions and laboratories at the international level. ESA said P-CARS could become part of a network of centers of excellence in the PNT domain applied to autonomous cars and beyond.
P-CARS will exploit the synergies between the rail and automotive sectors to provide benefits to both. “Car manufacturers produce millions of vehicles and are investing heavily in autonomy and safety systems, but had little experience in this field before they began investing a few years ago,” Rispoli said. “Meanwhile, the rail community has almost 20 years’ experience managing train driving functions with a high degree of autonomy, through the common European Rail Traffic Management System, ERTMS.”
Hitachi Rail and Rio Tinto collaborated to build the world’s first driverless heavy freight train – an automated heavy haul freight transportation system delivering freight from mines to ports in Australia across thousands of kilometers every day. (Photo: Hitachi Rail)
“It is well recognized that ERTMS guarantees the highest safety levels as a connected and autonomous driving system, where the human driver is largely bypassed, but not the volume for mass producing such systems for reducing their cost. By leveraging these two peculiarities it will be possible to get low cost but safety-proven GNSS-based devices,” Rispoli said.
The emphasis will be on connectivity, with the vehicles linked to the infrastructure, including a centralized system of intelligent roads as well as other cars. 5G will enable low-latency communications and be a source of positioning data to extend the performance of GNSS.
P-CARS is being supported through Element 3 of NAVISP, focused on supporting ESA member states’ navigation priorities.
Precision-mapping company ProStar Holdings Inc. has integrated its PointMan software into the Vivax Metrotech vLoc3 with a GNSS real-time kinematic (RTK) receiver to create a utility-locate device.
Using the RTK-Pro internal cellular module with 4G LTE capabilities, the operator can connect to the NTRIP RTK caster that provides RTCM 3 corrections.
With the integration of PointMan with the vLoc3 RTK-Pro, critical buried infrastructure can be captured, recorded and displayed at survey-grade without additional external equipment or post-processing. The integration provides centimeter accuracy of the precise location of buried utilities in real time.
Data collected includes the type of utility, the depth of cover and the utility’s precise location.
Javad GNSS announces that, after a short retirement, Tom Hunter has rejoined the company as chief sales officer. Hunter will draw on more than three decades of GNSS industry experience, most recently with Javad GNSS and previously with Ashtech/Magellan as vice president.
“Tom is key to our operations,” said Nedda Ashjaee, CEO. “I am looking forward to reigniting this group of companies and continuing our four-decade tradition of bold innovation. Who better to do this with than the person who helped my father build the original company in the first place?”
Hunter will oversee sales channel development in support of a new market-driven roadmap developed by the executive team at Javad GNSS, also known as J-CORE.
Hunter’s association with Javad began in 1987 as one of the original seven people at Ashtech, Ashjaee’s namesake firm created shortly after his departure from Trimble Navigation. The firm brought numerous surveying industry firsts and other legendary products to market.
Company founder Javad Ashjaee passed unexpectedly in May 2020, leaving behind 200 loyal employees in offices around the globe. A strategic thinker, Ashjaee was known for operating “several steps ahead,” said one employee, having groomed his executive office and other support staff for a swift takeover in the event he were unavailable. Javad’s daughter Nedda, familiar to all who had conducted business with the firm, has spent the last 12 months carefully restructuring the business plan.
On March 31, Nedda Ashjaee, Tom Hunter and the rest of the J-CORE team hosted a two-day virtual gathering of global Javad GNSS dealers, technicians and other personnel, taking time to unveil the firm’s new strategic vision. The information and overall strategy was met with an overwhelmingly positive response.
Javad GNSS retains significant patent holdings relating to survey and mapping and offers what many of its customers believe to be one-of-a-kind system(s).
Hunter explained, “If you’re a surveyor or other positioning professional working with GNSS, you owe a debt of gratitude to Javad — the man dedicated his life to developing GNSS for the high-precision marketplace. You can see his hand in nearly every major GNSS survey system on the market today.”
“As we continue to develop and introduce new products in support of the surveying and reference station markets, we will use our exceptional technology and our U.S.-based world-class manufacturing facility to focus on new OEM applications and opportunities including strategic partnerships and private labeling,” Hunter said.
In letters sent today to the White House and U.S. Congress, more than 90 organizations representing a broad range of industries urged President Biden and members of Congress to set aside the Ligado Order approved during the previous administration.
The industries urged the president and lawmakers to work with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to “stay and ultimately set aside the Ligado Order,” saying that it “poses significant threats to the reliability of GPS for millions of Americans.”
“The risk to American lives and to the American economy are simply too great,” the group wrote in the letters.
“A year ago today, the FCC made the dangerous and misguided decision to allow Ligado Networks to operate a terrestrial network on frequencies adjacent to GPS despite threats to GPS reliability and the concerns of Congress and virtually all federal agencies that rely on GPS to protect our national and economic security,” said Dale Leibach, spokesman for the Keep GPS Working Coalition.
“We are hopeful that under the new administration, something can be done to stop Ligado from proceeding with its plan and we are extremely thankful to the many members of Congress and government officials who have rightly pointed to the very harmful impact this decision will have on countless consumers, farmers, ranchers, pilots, boat owners, surveyors, engineers and construction companies if it is not reversed,” Leibach said.
GPS III Space Vehicle (SV) 05 was transported from the Lockheed Martin facility in Waterton, Colorado, to the Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville, Florida, by a C-17 Globemaster III crew from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. Lockheed Martin is the contractor for construction of the GPS III satellites.
Now that the satellite has arrived at the Astrotech Space Operations facility, the latest addition to the GPS constellation modernization effort will begin final testing and checkout before the launch. While at Astrotech, it will undergo final post-ship functional testing, be fueled with onboard propellant, and then be encapsulated for launch.
Once these tasks are accomplished, SV05 will be horizontally integrated with the first-ever SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle to be reflown for a National Security Space Launch (NSSL) mission.
“SV05 is the third GPS III satellite shipped to the Cape in the last 14 months and marks a key step to our larger goal of GPS constellation modernization,” said Col. Edward Byrne, SMC’s Space Production Corps Medium Earth Orbit Space Systems Division chief. “As the fourth GPS III launch campaign with SpaceX, this NSSL mission is historic both for the first reflight of a Falcon 9 rocket and for being the 24th military-code (M-code) satellite introduced to our constellation, the last needed to bring M-code to full operational capability.”
Slated to launch in June, GPS III SV05 will join the operational constellation of 31 GPS satellites, delivering enhanced performance and accuracy through a variety of improvements.
Improvements include increased signal protection, L1C signal interoperability, and the newest civilian signal, L5. As a crucial technological foundation for internet, financial, transportation and agricultural operations, GPS delivers the gold standard in positioning, navigation and timing services supporting U.S. and allied operations worldwide.
The U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, located at the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, California, is the center of excellence for acquiring and developing military space systems. SMC’s portfolio includes space launch, global positioning systems, military satellite communications, a meteorological satellite control network, range systems, space-based infrared systems, and space situational awareness capabilities.
Topcon Agriculture is offering new manual guidance and autosteering receivers — the AGM-1 and AGS-2.
Topcon also launched Topnet Live, a real-time GNSS correction service. Under Topnet Live, the Realpoint service provides greater accuracy and a quick start-up time. Starpoint and Starpoint Pro provide service anywhere on the planet, independent of local networks. Skybridge allows subscribers to combine RTK and PPP correction services.
Accurate positioning is the cornerstone of site-specific management. It is not only required for accurate operations, but expansive data collection, enabling farm professionals to compare different types of information, such as yield, soil type and fertility, for better decision making.
The technology is used for machine operations and all associated tasks where tracking location data is relevant to crop optimization, including soil preparation, seeding, crop care and harvesting.
Photo: Topcon
Topnet Live. To support the range of agricultural applications, the receiver and steering controller uses the new Topnet Live correction services. Plus, with the option of Skybridge, users can maintain network connection during any RTK interruption.
“Topcon receivers are designed to suit virtually any agricultural machine type, make and model,” said Brian Sorbe, vice president of global product solutions. “Equipped with progressive reception and tracking capabilities, with the option of manual guidance or complete autosteering, the receivers are suitable for any size or type of operation. With access to the full range of correction services through the AGS-2, Topcon provides farmers with the right fit for their operation with accuracy on demand. Each unique farming operation may have differing accuracy requirements and this approach will benefit their operation.
“Calibrated to accuracies of within two centimeters, the new correction services provide reliable pass-to-pass precision,” Sorbe said. “Through a constantly improving network and variety of cost-effective subscription models, the service delivers reliable connection stability across the globe. With these new offerings, Topcon continues to offer powerful solutions to suit the variable demands of agriculture.”
As illustrated here, the new HG1125 IMU is about the size of a water-bottle cap. (Photo: Honeywell)
Honeywell has launched a new series of miniature inertial measurement units (IMUs) ruggedized to offer high accuracy along with the durability to survive high-shock environments.
Roughly the size of a water-bottle cap, the new HG1125 and HG1126 IMUs are low cost and serve both commercial and military applications.
The new family of IMUs can survive shocks up to 40,000 G-force, making it one of Honeywell’s toughest IMU products to date. The HG1125 and HG1126 can be used for a variety of defense and commercial applications such as tactical military needs, drilling, unmanned aerial vehicles or navigation systems for general aviation aircraft.
“Low-cost, ultra-rugged IMUs are in high demand across a variety of market segments where customers need high-performance navigation, but they’re limited by size or cost constraints,” said Matt Picchetti, vice president and general manager, Navigation & Sensors, Honeywell Aerospace. “Our new HG1125 and HG1126 products meet all of these requirements, making them an ideal solution for customers operating in a wide variety of high-shock environments, including everything from military tactical operations to industrial applications such as drilling.”
An IMU uses gyroscopes, accelerometers and electronics to give precise rotation and acceleration data. This enables a vehicle system to calculate where it is, in what direction it is going, and at what speed, even when GPS signals are not available.
The HG1125 and HG1126 use sensors based on micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technology to precisely measure motion. They are the newest IMUs from Honeywell’s tactical IMU production facility, which delivers nearly 100,000 IMUs each year to customers across a wide range of segments.
The first deliveries of these new products are set to begin in June.
Honeywell’s lineage in navigation dates to the 1920s, and it has long been a pioneer in MEMS-based IMUs. Honeywell has developed and manufactured high-performance navigation solutions found on many aircraft and other vehicles worldwide.
SkyTraq is offering a new multi-band, multi-GNSS receiver module for real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning and heading applications, suitable for autonomous vehicles. The PX1172RH surface-mount receiver measures 17 x 22 mm, about the size of a postage stamp.
With dual-antenna input, the PX1172RH receiver delivers sub-degree heading and pitch or heading and roll angles on top of centimeter-level positioning under both dynamic and static conditions. This removes the dependency on vehicle movement to initialize an inertial measurement unit (IMU) for attitude determination.
The PX1172RH is unaffected by magnetic surroundings and does not require calibration. It offers higher heading reliability and performance than magnetic heading sensors or single-antenna GPS sensors.
Photo: Skytraq
The PX1172RH works with dual-frequency GPS/QZSS L1/L2, GLONASS L1/L2, Galileo E1/E5 and BDS B1/B2 GNSS signals concurrently to enable robust positioning and heading performance under challenging partial-sky environments and to provide RTK convergence in seconds. The PX1172RH is suitable for autonomous precision-guidance applications.
A PX1172RH sample, datasheet and evaluation boards will be available in May, with mass production scheduled for June.
Trimble and Amberg Technologies are collaborating to provide a tunnel survey solution. The combined hardware and software solution will enable construction, mining professionals and surveying service providers in underground environments to make use of a complete field-to-office workflow.
The Trimble and Amberg solution enables tunnel surveyors to perform a variety of underground tasks such as excavation guidance, control, automated survey and stakeout of different tunnel elements using design information. In addition, it delivers a comprehensive module for digitalization of tunnel construction and further optimization of related processes.
The tunneling solution combines the robustness and the speed of the Trimble S series robotic total stations with the user-friendly workflows of Amberg Navigator field software running on a ruggedized Trimble TSC7 data collector or T100 tablet. The streamlined workflows are optimized for non-geospatial professionals, helping to keep tunneling and underground projects on time.
In the office, the designs from the Amberg Tunnel office software can be transferred to Amberg Navigator, either directly or using the cloud. Following the data collection and stakeout operations, the information is sent back to the office for detailed analysis, where inspection maps and reports can be produced as final deliverables inside Amberg Tunnel office software. This streamlined process can bring significant time and resource savings due to a more efficient workflow and easy-to-use interface.
The solution provides a full-featured workflow for tunnel construction surveys including:
project definition and design data preparation
graphical interface supporting instruments setup and georeferencing
automated data collection and real-time results
accurate stakeout of various tunnel elements (drill and blast holes, rock bolts)
efficient and comprehensive as-built analysis, reporting and archiving.
“Partnering with Amberg Technologies will provide our customers with an industry-leading tunneling solution to increase productivity when working in underground tunneling and mining environments,” said Ron Bisio, senior vice president of Trimble Geospatial. ”The domain-rich and easy-to-use Amberg solution in combination with our Trimble S series can increase confidence in the field and streamline deliverable creation.”
“Together with Trimble high-end surveying sensors, we can enrich our comprehensive tunnel solution with a more versatile offering and even better, address specific needs in ever more demanding construction environments,” said Svein G. Vatslid, CEO, Amberg Technologies AG.
The solution is expected to be available through Trimble’s Geospatial distribution channel in North, Central and South America this month.
Two recent reports from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have described a recent increase in GPS jamming, presumably by Russian or pro-Russian forces in Ukraine. This comes as Russia has increased its troop numbers and activity along its border with Ukraine.
OSCE is charged with a Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine which observes and reports on how well both sides are adhering to the Minsk Protocol agreement. The agreement was signed in September 2014 by participants in the conflict in an effort to end open hostilities.
One of the ways the OSCE mission monitors activity and compliance in the region is with long range UAVs. As early as November 2014, the organization reported UAV operations being thwarted by interference with GPS signals.
Two recent OSCE spot reports have highlighted a resurgence in jamming.
An April 7 report described interference that prevented a UAV takeoff the previous day. While the organization’s UAVs had been experiencing increased interference since March, this was the first time since October 2014 that it had thwarted a mission before takeoff.
The report also documented an increasing level of jamming activity.
“Over the last two months, 62.5 percent of SMM long-range UAV flights encountered GPS signal interference and on 75 percent of the affected flights it occurred more than once.”
A second report on April 9 outlined continuing problems that caused missions to be aborted. It emphasized that this was a violation of the agreement signed by all parties and greatly hampered OSCE’s mission.
“Any GPS signal interference hinders the Mission’s ability to conduct effective monitoring and reporting of the security situation in line with its mandate. Long-range UAVs are an essential part of SMM operations, especially at night and in areas where the Mission’s monitoring and freedom of movement are restricted.”
GPS jamming and spoofing are important parts of Russia’s arsenal to counter any technological advantage the west may have over their forces. A 2015 Sputnik article bragged their electronic warfare kept U.S. cruise missiles from hitting their targets at the start of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Also, that this advanced capability “renders aircraft carriers useless.”
Interference with GPS signals is a regular feature of Russian military and internal security operations.
The United States has formally expressed concerns about the recent increase in the number of Russian troops and their activity at the Ukrainian border. It has been reported that two U.S. Navy ships are on their way to the Black Sea to help monitor the situation.
Dana A. Goward is president of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation.
Study by U.S. government agency responsible for maintaining national time scale shows that Satelles provides a signal that is independent of GNSS and delivers exceptional timing stability
Following a detailed performance study in 2020, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) determined that Satellite Time and Location (STL) is a reliable source of timing highly consistent with Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The secure STL services are provided by Satelles Inc.
STL is based on a signal independent from GPS and other GNSS. The STL service was able to deliver this consistent performance in a deep indoor environment where GNSS signals did not reach.
The results of the study were shared by Elizabeth Donley, chief of the Time and Frequency Division at NIST, in a keynote speech at the Workshop on Synchronization and Timing Systems (WSTS) conference on April 1.
Donley articulated the details of the NIST study, in which a GPS-disciplined clock and a Satelles EVK-2 evaluation unit with a quartz oscillator were compared to UTC for 50 days. In this evaluation, the GPS device received its signal from an outdoor antenna, whereas the Satelles device was connected to an indoor antenna in a deep indoor environment where GNSS signals were not able to reach.
Time deviation calculations estimated the stability of the two signals with respect to the UTC time scale. Based on one day of averaging, the GPS instability was less than two nanoseconds, and the STL instability was only slightly higher at under three nanoseconds (see chart). These measurements demonstrated that STL delivers stability comparable to GNSS and does so in an indoor location where GPS signals usually cannot penetrate.
Image: NIST
STL delivers a positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) service from satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) to back up or augment GPS and other GNSS. The evaluation by NIST confirms that users of PNT-reliant applications can obtain accurate and reliable timing without using GNSS.
“We are thrilled that NIST has performed these independent tests that confirm what we have long known, which is that STL delivers an independent timing source that is reliable and highly consistent with UTC,” said Gregory Gutt, president and CTO of Satelles. “This report complements and reinforces the findings of the U.S. Department of Transportation, which identified STL as a top-ranked PNT system in its technology demonstration report released earlier this year, and showed STL to be the only solution that demonstrated a wide-area timing capability that works indoors and out.”
