Septentrio has released Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA) functionality on its mosaic GNSS receiver modules. OSNMA offers end-to-end authentication on Galileo’s civilian signals, protecting receivers from OSNMA attacks.
Spoofing is a malicious form of radio interference, where faulty positioning information is sent to a receiver. For the last two years Septentrio has been working closely with the European Space Agency (ESA) during the test phases of OSNMA deployment. The know-how gained during this period is what allowed Septentrio to be one of the first to market with this advanced security feature.
OSNMA’s anti-spoofing capability complements Septentrio’s Advanced Interference Mitigation technology, AIM+, and further strengthens the overall security of Septentrio GNSS receivers, making them suitable for assured PNT solutions as well as critical infrastructure, such as 5G network synchronization.
“We are excited to start offering the OSNMA anti-spoofing technology in our industrial GNSS receivers. Our close collaboration with ESA enabled us to get the expertise needed to implement and validate this functionality in a timely manner,” said François Freulon, head of Product Management at Septentrio. “The addition of OSNMA to Septentrio’s already strong anti-jamming and anti-spoofing technology takes our receivers to a new level as the market leader of resilient positioning and timing solutions for industrial applications and critical infrastructure.”
OSNMA is now supported by the complete mosaic receiver family including GNSS RTK positioning modules, timing modules and heading receiver modules. It will also be rolled out on Septentrio’s latest generation of OEM receiver boards, AsteRx-m3, and subsequently on the ruggedized boxed receivers. Read more here.
Spirent Federal Systems is hosting its annual training seminar in person for the first time in two years. The event will take place July 12-13 in Huntsville, Alabama.
At the seminar, experts in positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) will share the latest GNSS and alternative radiofrequency navigation developments and provide advanced training on Spirent’s test equipment.
The two days of rigorous training includes hands-on workshops and a half-day for official use only (FOUO) session (restricted to U.S. citizens only).
The seminar is free, with breakfast and lunch included. Hotel rooms are additional.
Training topics will include:
Fundamentals of GPS/GNSS Testing
GNSS updates
Basic set-up and use of GNSS simulator
Fundamentals of GPS/GNSS testing
Calibration
Creating Realistic Scenarios
Recreating realistic environments in the lab
Multipath and obscuration modeling
Utilizing remote control and motion
Advanced simulation techniques
GPS/GNSS Vulnerabilities
Interference
Spoofing and other threats
Vulnerability Mitigation
CRPA test systems & anechoic chamber applications
MNSA M-code and Y-code
Alternative PNT navigation
Inertial navigation systems
Flex power
Multi-GNSS constellations
LEO constellation testing
A full agenda will be released soon. The FOUO Session, for U.S. citizens only, will be held on the afternoon of Wednesday, July 13.
Venue. The event will take place 8 a.m. t0 5 p.m. July 12-13 in the Huntsville Marriott at the Space & Rocket Center, 5 Tranquility Base, Huntsville, Alabama.
The Huntsville Marriott is offering a discount for registrants and a limited number of rooms at the government rate. A link to reserve hotel rooms will be provided upon registration.
Both lightweight, compact airborne laser scanners are easily installed on various UAV platforms or small survey aircraft and helicopters. They are adapted to high-density point corridor mapping applications, day or night, under leaf-on and leaf-off conditions or with dense vegetation to provide reliable results.
“Nowadays, it is critical to obtain the highest data quality for the majority of aerial survey projects,” said Andrei Gorb, product manager of CHC Navigation’s Mapping and Geospatial Division.
Combining with industrial-grade GNSS receivers and high-precision inertial measurement units (IMUs), the AA1400 and AA2400 provide 2 to 5 cm survey-grade accuracy. They also integrate Riegl’s VUX lidars with waveform-lidar technology, allowing echo digitization and online waveform processing.
“Multi-target resolution is the basis for penetrating even dense foliage,” Gorb said. “The continuously rotating polygonal mirror wheel enables scanning speed of up to 400 lines per second, allowing for effective coverage of large areas when used from fast drones or aircraft.”
The BB4 UAV equipped with the AA2400 scanner for the city mapping task. (Photo: CHCNAV)
Their built-in premium Riegl VUX-120 and VUX-240 lidar sensors feature a high-speed data acquisition rate of up to 1.8 MHz and a scan speed up to 400 lines per second. This provides a linear accuracy of 1cm to 2 cm on long-range scanning, suitable for fixed-wing UAV corridor mapping.
CHCNAV offers several external cameras for add-ons to the AlphaAir. Setups can include nadir or nadir and oblique cameras from Sony or PhaseOne. By obtaining high-resolution geo-referenced and oblique imagery, more applications can be supported, increasing the return on investment for the client.
The scanning results of the AA1400 and 2400 lidar series. (Photo: CHCNAV)
The one-click connection of the AlphaPort to the power source and camera makes the installation of the AA1400 and AA2400 quick and easy, eliminating the need for additional accessories and time for camera calibration. The AA1400 and AA2400 reduce the risk of cable damage caused by aircraft vibration and acceleration during takeoff and landing.
CHCNAV provides a full range of solutions that allows a complete lidar solution to be added to the users’ geomatic services. The software suite includes CoCapture UAV field application for fully automated reality capture and real-time mission tracking, and the CoPre desktop software for semi-automated point cloud processing.
The AA1400 and AA2400 lidar series solutions are available worldwide today through the CHCNAV distribution network.
Hackers in China managed to gain entry into satellite operators, defense contractors and telecommunications companies in the United States and southeast Asia, reports Reuters.
Reuters spoke with security researchers at Symantec Corp. ahead of public release of a security report. The hackers have been removed from infected systems.
The hackers breached computers that controlled the satellites, including access to orbital systems, Symantec said. GNSS, communication and other data transmissions rely on specifically situated satellites.
Symantec said it has already shared technical information about the hack with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security.
LIFT Aircraft Co. has been awarded a U.S. Air Force contract to continue experimentation and flight test efforts around its HEXA copter.
LIFT Aircraft Co. has been awarded a Phase 3 contract through the U.S. Air Force’s Agility Prime Program to continue experimentation and flight test efforts around HEXA, LIFT’s all-electric, single-seat vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) aircraft.
Since 2020, LIFT Aircraft has conducted flight testing with the support of the U.S. Air Force under a Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract.
Working with Air Force subject-matter experts, LIFT achieved initial military airworthiness approval (military flight release) and proven transportability by moving the aircraft inside a C-130 military cargo plane. The company also explored a multitude of potential use-cases alongside the Agility Prime Test Team.
The Phase 3 contract will continue experimentation and use-case development through a fast-paced, rigorous flight testing program. The program will begin at Eglin AFB and may expand to other locations. It includes efforts such as flight envelope expansion, acoustics testing and developmental testing of a modular cargo adaptation for the airframe.
The aim is to accelerate and further develop HEXA for public and military applications such as emergency first response, personnel transport, base logistics and search-and-rescue missions. The development effort will also help accelerate the testing required for LIFT’s planned rollout of commercial flight locations.
“This partnership provides continued access to the unmatched expertise of the U.S. Air Force,” said LIFT Director of Business Development, Kevin Rustagi. “We’re excited about continuing to explore and develop a unique capability to the military: an aircraft that offers air mobility at a cost point comparable with ground transportation that, in the future, with mere hours of training, allows any service member to become a pilot.”
Testing will initially be performed at Eglin Air Force Base near Destin, Florida, alongside the 96th Test Wing and with the support of Air Force eVTOL initiative, Agility Prime.
LIFT has already begun coordinating with Col. Doug Creviston of the 96th Operations Group, which has tested systems for the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Falcon and A-10 Thunderbolt.
Photo: Lift
“LIFT is a great example of why Agility Prime exists — to further applications of eVTOL technology for both military and civilian use,” said Lt. Col. John Tekell, Air Force Agility Prime Lead at AFWERX.
Agility Prime has taken a flexible approach to contracting with the Phase 3 SBIR for LIFT. The contract is designed to be as agile as possible — it allows not only the Air Force, but any governmental entity to contract for flight-test activities with LIFT’s HEXA aircraft on an as-needed basis.
“This contract was designed to enable flexible flight test as a service of multiple HEXA aircraft for any government stakeholder, location and desired experiment,” said Sterling Alley, technology transition lead and LIFT program manager at Agility Prime. “We want it to be able to serve as a contract vehicle that accelerates HEXA towards fielding not just for the USAF, but the DOD and USG in general. We have a large number of interested stakeholders looking at use-cases for the aircraft and welcome growing the community even further in the future.”
“LIFT’s Phase III SBIR contract award is a meaningful vote of confidence from the U.S. Air Force,” said Eric Horan, former U.S. Navy government contracting officer and founding partner of Decisive Point, a venture capital firm that invests in dual-use technology startups and has invested in LIFT. “It means the Air Force has determined LIFT’s previous development and testing contracts were successful. This is an important step towards scaling access to LIFT’s HEXA eVTOL aircraft throughout the Department of Defense and federal government at large.”
More than 100 experiments will be conducted with the Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3), set to launch next year, according to a U.S. Air Force official and reported by FedScoop.
“We’re really excited to push the state of the art with more than 100 experiments on this little [NTS-3] spacecraft and we’re looking at ways that we can solve warfighters’ problems in the contested environment,” Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle, commander of AFRL, told reporters April 6 at the 37th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.
Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle
Set to launch in 2023, NTS-3 is designed to push the boundary of today’s position, navigation and timing (PNT) technology to pave the way for a more flexible, robust, and resilient architecture for satellite navigation technology.
NTS-3 is a product of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and industry, designed to test advanced techniques and technologies to detect and mitigate interference to PNT capabilities and increase system resiliency for military, civil, and commercial users.
Unlike the GPS medium-Earth-orbit satellites, NTS-3 will operate for one year in geosynchronous Earth orbit. Ultimately, NTS-3 will identify key aspects for new GPS receivers that incorporate multiple signals and readily adapt to warfighter needs.
The NTS-3 experiments will also involve ground equipment and terminals such as command and control stations and software-defined radios. Specific improvements to the ground segment will enable experimentation with automated “lights-out” operations, control station failover, and near-real time environment sensing and generation of error correction and tailored waveforms. Onboard systems will monitor clock accuracy and orbit parameters to mitigate errors and notify the user.
NTS-3 will test a new digital signal generator that can be reprogrammed on-orbit, enabling it to broadcast new signals, improve performance by avoiding and defeating interference, and adding signatures to counter spoofing.
AFRL also will explore antenna configurations to provide Earth coverage and steerable regional beams in multiple frequencies and signal codes. The NTS-3 satellite will be equipped with 110 antennas to help counter attempted GPS jamming.
Ultimately, NTS-3 is expected to provide users with enhanced signal stability, availability, integrity and accuracy.
L3Harris plans to deliver NTS-3 later this year. The company is assembling the satellite at its Palm Bay facility near Cape Canaveral, Florida. The plant was expanded in 2021 to accommodate the NTS-3 program.
Fixposition, a Swiss technology company providing high-precision positioning solutions, has released a centimeter-level positioning sensor, the Vision-RTK 2.
The low power and compact, industrial-grade device is suitable for autonomous delivery and logistics vehicles, agriculture, mowing and landscaping machines, as well as any other application where precise, uninterrupted positioning must always be available everywhere.
“As vehicles and machines become increasingly autonomous, they must safely and precisely negotiate complex routes, even where GNSS visibility is degraded or blocked,” said Zhenzhong Su, CEO and co-founder of Fixposition. “With Vision-RTK 2, these applications are becoming possible. Our deep sensor-fusion technology combines GNSS technology with advanced computer vision and machine learning.”
“We are using a global optimization-based sensor fusion technique that is much more robust and powerful than traditional Kalman filters,” said Lukas Meier, CTO and co-founder of Fixposition. “Our computer vision-based dead-reckoning technology has clear advantages over purely IMU-based products.”
CHC Navigation (CHCNAV) has announced the availability of the i83 GNSS receiver, an addition to its premium GNSS receiver series for surveying, mapping and construction professionals. The i83 GNSS is powered by a 1408-channel multi-band GNSS receiver, the latest iStar technology, and a calibration-free, high-end inertial measurement unit (IMU) for faster and reliable field GNSS surveying.
“The i83 receiver combines GNSS and IMU into one single receiver to provide optimal automatic pole-tilt compensation that requires no calibration and is fully immune to magnetic interference. Operators just need to focus on their tasks and no longer need to level their pole vertically,” said Rachel Wang, product manager of CHC Navigation’s Surveying and Engineering Division. “In addition, we designed a high-resolution color display where users can clearly and intuitively get the GNSS receiver status to take full control of their survey operation.”
The third-generation high-gain antenna with the latest advanced CHCNAV iStar algorithm improves GNSS satellite signal tracking efficiency by more than 30%. The i83 GNSS receiver features 1,408 GNSS channels for high performance across GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo and QZSS constellations. Its onboard GNSS technology delivers centimeter-level positioning, maintains reliable fixed real-time kinematic (RTK) accuracy, and collects points faster than previous models, even in demanding conditions.
Automatic compensation for pole tilt
The i83 receiver’s built-in IMU automatically compensates for pole tilt, increasing surveying, engineering and mapping efficiency by 30% over conventional GNSS RTK surveying methods. In less than 5 seconds, the 200-Hz inertial module is initialized to ensure survey-grade accuracy over a pole tilt range of up to 30 degrees. Productivity is dramatically increased, RTK usability greatly improved, and potential human error reduced, whether you are an engineer, site foreman or surveyor.
Integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and near-field communication (NFC) modules provide seamless connection to field data controllers or tablets. Integrated 4G and UHF modems enable any GNSS survey mode, from RTK network NTRIP connections to UHF base-rover configurations. GNSS RTK corrections can be accessed or broadcast continuously for accurate positioning in all circumstances.
Users do not need to carry backup or external batteries in the field because of the i83 GNSS’ ultra-low-power system-on-chip (SoC) electronic design and smart power management. The i83 GNSS can operate for up to 18 hours as a GNSS RTK network rover or more than 8 hours as an RTK base station.
The i83 GNSS receiver is available worldwide through the CHCNAV distribution network.
YellowScan will host its fourth conference for drone users June 13-14, 2022, at Domaine de Verchant, Montpellier, in the south of France. Attendees at Lidar for Drone 2022 will be able to meet and link up with YellowScan customers, partners and distributors.
Attendees will gain insight into the lidar industry and hear from interesting and innovative lidar users, thanks to an extensive program of technical sessions, workshops, live demonstrations and training.
There will also be networking opportunities — the user conference is a great chance for attendees to showcase their involvement in the lidar market.
This year’s conference will include a celebration of YellowScan’s 10th anniversary.
eSurvey is a specialized manufacturer of GNSS receivers and rugged handheld collectors founded in 2018 and part of the UniStrong Group. Based in Shanghai, eSurvey is serving OEM and survey companies throughout North America, as well as many other countries.
“We deliver our products to more than 50 countries, but we are relatively unknown in North America, where we are looking to develop long-term partnerships,” said Jorge Visoso, International Sales Manager. He said the company is prepared to furnish demonstrations to any interested party.
The name “eSurvey” was inspired by the philosophy of making the surveying job easier by using the best technologies, according to Visoso. eSurvey also aspires to be the confluence between high value and affordable cost.
The E800 high-precision receiver. (Photo: eSurvey)
As the international brand of the UniStrong products, eSurvey leverages the resources and the expertise of a family of companies with many years of accumulated experience. One strength of the company lies in its significant research and development advantages.
In contrast to many competitors that only supply receivers, eSurvey has a footprint in the entire value chain and is one of the few manufacturers with its own boards and chips, which translate to a more stable supply and reliable quality, Visoso said.
The company’s portfolio of GNSS receivers is highly diversified. Several models have been highly successful in South Korea and Poland, where the brand has become well known over the past years.
The most advanced and comprehensive eSurvey receiver is the E800 model, a multi-constellation and multi-frequency receiver with a micro-electromechanical (MEMS) dynamic tilt system and a 5-watt internal radio. Various engines available for this and other receiver models.
SurPad4.2 software for surveyors. (Photo: eSurvey)
eSurvey also offers its own surveying and mapping software, SurPad4.2. SurPad4.2 provides multiple operation and communication systems, has MAP and CAD functions, and has a coordinate system. It also includes a survey mode encompassing TOPO, Control, Quick Point and COGO.
Besides GNSS receivers, the company supplies precision agriculture and machine control systems as well as USV and UAV systems, which are now selling in markets such as Turkey and Spain.
GNSS jamming and possible spoofing has intensified in areas surrounding Ukraine, according to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
The agency issued a bulletin on March 17 warning of a GNSS outage leading to navigation and surveillance degradation. According to the bulletin, which was directed at national aviation authorities and airlines, reports analyzed by EASA indicate that, since Feb. 24, GNSS spoofing and jamming has intensified in four key geographical areas:
the Kaliningrad region, surrounding Baltic Sea and neighboring states
Eastern Finland
the Black Sea
the Eastern Mediterranean area near Cyprus, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and Israel, as well as Northern Iraq.
“The effects of GNSS jamming and/ or possible spoofing were observed by aircraft in various phases of their flights,” the bulletin stated, “in certain cases leading to rerouting or even to change the destination due to the inability to perform a safe landing procedure.”
Potential issues include:
loss of ability to use GNSS for waypoint navigation
loss of area navigation (RNAV) approach capability
triggering of terrain warnings
inconsistent aircraft position on the navigation display
loss of ADS-B, wind shear, terrain and surface functionalities
failure or degradation of ATM/ANS/ CNS and aircraft systems that use GNSS as a time reference
airspace infringements and/or route deviations due to GNSS degradation.
Septentrio has released Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA) functionality on its mosaic GNSS receiver modules. OSNMA offers end-to-end authentication on Galileo’s civilian signals, protecting receivers from OSNMA attacks.
