The 62nd meeting of the U.S. government’s Civil GPS Service Interface Committee (CGSIC) will be held Sept. 19–20 in the Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center, before the annual ION GNSS+ conference.
It will be hosted by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center (NAVCEN). DOT serves as the civil lead for GPS and chairs the CGSIC in this capacity. NAVCEN is assigned duties as Deputy Chair and Executive Secretariat for the CGSIC.
On Sept. 19, the CGSIC subcommittees for Timing, International Information, and Survey, Mapping, and Geosciences will meet. A summary of these meetings will be presented to the CGSIC Plenary Session on Sept. 20.
Cordell DeLaPena, Program Executive Officer for Military Communications and PNT Space Systems Command
Keynote speaker for the plenary session is Cordell DeLaPena, program executive officer for Military Communications and Positioning, Navigation, and Timing, Space Systems Command, Los Angeles Air Force Base.
The agendas for the CGSIC subcommittee and plenary sessions will include presentations on the operational status and modernization of the GPS constellation of satellites, U.S. space-based positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) policy, GPS augmentation systems, and information related to U.S. engagement with other international GNSS as well as a variety of interesting applications of the use of GPS.
Several new briefings are part of the plenary session this year, including a presentation from NASA on the role of GPS in support of the next lunar mission. Also, the Department of Homeland Security will provide an update on the activities of the Office of Infrastructure Protection, Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Program Management Office.
This year’s meeting will be live-streamed over the internet. For those who are unable to travel, the meetings can be accessed with the links below.
The agenda for the meeting is available; all CGSIC presentations will be available there for viewing online shortly after the meeting ends. As a reminder, all CGSIC meetings are free and open to the public.
“Nothing can remain immense if it can be measured,” Hannah Arendt wrote in 1958 in The Human Condition. This could be the guiding inspiration for any geodesist or surveyor throughout history. In about 240 B.C., Eratosthenes became the father of geodesy by ingeniously measuring Earth’s circumference using the Sun, a well, a vertical column, the distance a camel caravan traveled from Syene to Alexandria and some basic mathematics. His estimate of 46,000 kilometers was 16% too large but remarkably close considering that he lacked any modern measuring tool. (For a great account of this epic feat, see John Noble Wilford’s The Mapmakers.)
Geodesy, a branch of applied mathematics, is concerned with accurately measuring and understanding three of Earth’s fundamental properties: its geometric shape, its orientation in space, and its gravity field. Earth’s true shape varies from the mathematically smooth surface of an ellipsoid due to local differences in its density that cause variations in the strength of the gravitational pull, in turn causing regions to dip below or bulge above a reference ellipsoid.
This undulating shape is the geoid, which geodesists have defined as the three-dimensional surface along which the pull of gravity is a specific constant. It serves as the zero-level surface for height measurements globally, and all GNSS are pegged to it. It is a hypothetical surface that essentially represents an extension of the idealized mean sea level over (actually, mostly under) Earth’s land surface. Unlike the surface of the oceans, however, it is unaffected by wind, waves, the Moon, or forces other than Earth’s gravity.
Surveyors are content with measuring much smaller portions of Earth’s surface, from single lots to national boundaries. Unlike Eratosthenes, they work with the latest fruit of modern science and technology — including GNSS receivers, robotic total stations, inertial measurement units, lidar, other sensors and unmanned aerial vehicles — and can measure distances with millimeter precision.
When I started in this business a little more than 20 years ago, we used to group GPS receivers by accuracy into three buckets: consumer grade, resource/mapping grade and survey grade. As accuracy has increased for all GNSS receivers, the boundaries between those categories, especially between mapping and surveying, have blurred. Additionally, we now have way more GNSS satellites — in some parts of the world, as many as 70 are in view at one time — and a panoply of public and private, ground-based and satellite-based corrections services.
So, surveyors have a growing set of tools, and they are constantly getting more accurate and more user-friendly.
Now, let me throw another number in the mix: 66. That is the average age of surveyors in the United States. In the short run, employment for surveyors hinges in part on the vagaries of the economy. In the long run, however, population growth and climate change will force large investments in infrastructure. On most construction sites, the first to arrive and the last to leave are the surveyors. We know what their tools are, but who will they be?
The company tested Driver 2.0, a Level 4 production-ready autonomous driving solution
New video highlights navigating heavy traffic safely and efficiently
Photo: DeepRoute.ai
DeepRoute.ai, an international autonomous driving technology company, has announced the results of its latest fully driverless test of its Driver 2.0 Level 4 production-ready autonomous driving solution.
DeepRoute.ai released a video exhibiting a driverless vehicle retrofitted with the solution on Central Business District roads in Shenzhen, demonstrating its advanced capacity in complex and challenging traffic environments. It was the first legal driverless test in China — Shenzhen unveiled China’s first regulation on intelligent connected vehicles on July 6.
The fully driverless vehicle drove just under 14 miles in one hour, navigating through significant traffic and narrow lanes safely and efficiently. The vehicle:
intelligently maneuvered around double-parked cars and counterflow e-scooters and pedestrians
negotiated with oncoming vehicles to calculate the right timing and trajectory to pass busy intersections
conducted multiple lane changes and unprotected left turns.
“The recent legislation permitting driverless robotaxis in Shenzhen is the first of its kind, a major milestone in advancing autonomous driving technology to wider and faster adoption,” said Maxwell Zhou, CEO of DeepRoute.ai. “As we advance our mission for commercial deployment of autonomous driving vehicles, we will collaborate with automakers to refine our L4 solution to make it as safe and efficient as possible.”
DeepRoute.ai has made significant improvements to achieve driverless capability, with both software and hardware meeting auto-grade standards. The safety mechanism was also upgraded to guarantee driverless safety on the road. In the case of long tail scenarios, the system will alert the remote monitoring center to intervene or take other safety measures.
The Driver 2.0 System
Driver 2.0 includes five solid-state lidar units, eight cameras and other sensors, and a computing platform integrated with its proprietary inference engine. The perception algorithm with sensor fusion can achieve precise object detection up to nearly 220 yards. The planning and control algorithm based on game theory can choose optimal routes and make decisions based on real-time situations when negotiating with oncoming vehicles and other road agents.
With its deep learning approach, the inference engine optimizes compute resources, allowing the algorithm to run on its low-cost and power-efficient computing platform effectively and stably. As a result, Driver 2.0 can be priced at $3,000 for automakers in mass production and the algorithm can work with 2 to 5 solid-state lidars for automakers’ customization needs.
The latest legal and regulatory framework is aligned with autonomous-driving industry developments and is considered the prelude to mass production and commercialization of autonomous-driving vehicles. DeepRoute.ai is working with automakers to mass produce consumer vehicles integrated with Driver 2.0, expected to be available for consumer purchase in 2025. It is also being integrated into robotaxi operations.
DroneShield’s RfPatrol MKII body-worn system antennas. (Photo: DroneShield)
DroneShield has received and delivered upon a follow-on order by a U.S. government agency for the company’s portable and handheld counter-UAS (C-UAS) solutions.
DroneShield is the maker of the counter-drone or anti-drone systems including RfPatrol and DroneGun MkIII. It has received contracts from the U.S. departments of Defense and Homeland Security, as well as other federal and state law enforcement agencies.
“We’re grateful for the continued trust that this organization has placed in us to help address a unique set of operational challenges. Our customer relationships are what fuel our commitment to push the boundaries of what’s possible in the counter unmanned space,” said Tom Branstetter, director of business development, DroneShield. “Every teammate at DroneShield understands the significance of the problems we’re solving for our end-users and it’s something we’re proud to support.”
DroneShield also recently announced deployments of its solutions for high-profile events including the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, and IRONMAN Texas 2022.
Teren, a climate resilience analytics company, has expanded its Premium 4D Content program for regions across the United States, including the Gulf Coast, Midwest, Rocky Mountains and West Coast.
Teren acquires and quickly processes high-fidelity lidar data, making it available via its content library, and delivers analytics with actionable insights to energy and engineering firms.
“Climate change is causing drought, flooding, landslides and wildfires across the country – significantly impacting asset owners and project developers. As a result, the market demand for high-fidelity, temporal data to identify, prioritize, and monitor climate-related risk is higher than ever,” said Toby Kraft, Teren CEO.
Teren is amassing a content library of remotely-sensed 3D (spatial) data across the United States. That data is updated on regular intervals to monitor changes over time providing a unique 4D (temporal) view. This 4D data library feeds analytics that identify risk, inform mitigation, and strengthen asset resilience. While remotely-sensed data has traditionally been sourced on a project-by-project basis, Teren offers its data and analytics as a subscription service. This model drives down the costs for clients and stakeholders, helping to maximize the speed of delivery, return on investment, and data value.
“In our flagship content region, Appalachia, our customers tap into our 4D content library to identify and monitor the terrain and surface conditions surrounding their assets — primarily aiming to identify and mitigate landslides before they become catastrophic incidents,” Kraft said. “We’re expanding the program nationwide to meet the growing demand for terrain monitoring and climate resilience analytics around events such as erosion, flooding, wildfires and more.”
Teren’s solution saved clients in Appalachia an estimated $152 million annually, preventing 24 failures per year due to landslides. While landslides are not as pervasive across the United States, companies can apply the data and analytics suite for the following:
Gulf Coast: inundation, subsidence, land movement
Midwest: erosion, flooding, subsidence
Rock Mountains: landslides, flooding, wildfire
West Coast: wildfires, land movement, flooding.
Traditionally used by the energy sector, Teren’s data has also proven to be highly valuable to state and federal agencies, insurers and civil engineers. Teren expects to see increased variability across clients and use cases as the content region expands.
To learn more about Teren or to request a demo, visit www.teren4d.com.
Amazon has put out a video to show how the company is building its drone delivery service. The fully electric drones are designed to deliver packages under 5 pounds to customers in less than 60 minutes.
Later this year, customers living in Lockeford, California and College Station, Texas will be among the first to receive Prime Air drone deliveries.
Three components are integral to the system:
The drone itself, which Amazon said is as robust and reliable as its ground transportation trucks.
A sense-and-avoid system for obstacles such as other aircraft, people and pets in backyards.
An automated drone-management system to plan flight paths and ensure safe distances between the drones and other aircraft in the area, and ensure compliance with aviation regulations.
Amazon has been developing its drone delivery system for almost a decade, employing experts in safety, aerospace, science, robotics, software, hardware, testing and manufacturing.
Below is an inside look at an Amazon flight-testing facility in Oregon.
Trimble has introduced data integrity monitoring for CenterPoint RTX Fast, its precise point positioning (PPP) correction service.
The Trimble RTX Integrity monitoring system is an innovative, patented solution, built in direct response to client requirements for production-ready applications. It continuously validates the reliability of correction data processed by the network, which is broadcast to users in the agriculture, geospatial, construction and automotive industries, ensuring positioning data is right the first time.
Through a two-step process, the Trimble RTX Integrity system verifies the integrity of GNSS data and filters faulty information in the network server before the data is broadcast. A secondary post-broadcast check is conducted on the entire data transmission process where additional errors may be detected and removed.
The integrity monitoring system is fully automated and reacts in seconds to detect, isolate and block faulty data to provide even more highly accurate and reliable positioning.
Trimble RTX Integrity is comprised of independent monitoring stations strategically positioned across RTX Fast networks in the United States, southern Canada and across Europe. These stations continuously monitor data output during multiple stages of the Trimble RTX positioning process. Any suspicious satellite data is removed during the integrity protection process and positioning is calculated using only validated data.
Trimble Alloy GNSS reference receivers power the independent monitoring stations using redundant internet connectivity for added reliability. To date, no other positioning network offers the same level of data integrity validation across such expansive, contiguous geographies.
Trimble RTX Integrity monitoring system was developed in accordance with Automotive Software Performance Improvement and Capability dEtermination (ASPICE) and ISO 26262 automotive safety standards, making it easy to integrate into major automotive manufacturers’ autonomous driving systems.
Trimble RTX Integrity can also be used by Trimble’s customers in the agriculture, geospatial and construction industries to ensure correction stream integrity and reliability for applications such as machine control and high-accuracy surveying applications.
“Trimble remains committed to exceeding expectations by providing accurate corrections to our customers to support safety-critical and other day-to-day applications,” said Patricia Boothe, SVP of autonomy, Trimble. “Implementing additional checks and balances to ensure our data is authenticated, trustworthy and accurate is of paramount importance to maintaining the integrity of our RTX network and instilling confidence with our users that the data is correct.”
A roundup of recent products in the GNSS and inertial positioning industry from the August 2022 issue of GPS World magazine.
OEM
Receiver Module
Designed for autonomous applications
Photo: Trimble
The Trimble BD9250 dual-frequency receiver module supports Trimble RTX correction services and is designed to deliver high-accuracy positioning for high-volume, autonomous-ready applications in agriculture, construction, robotics and logistics. The compact receiver has an industry-standard form factor and pinout, allowing for easy system integration and configuration. Equipped with Trimble’s advanced ProPoint positioning engine, the BD9250 delivers robust and accurate positioning. It is compatible with Trimble RTX correction services or real-time kinematic (RTK) and supports GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou as well as QZSS and NavIC. Support for the Indian NavIC S-Band signal is also available.
The AsteRx-U3 ruggedized GNSS receiver is the successor to the AsteRx-U for construction, mining and other machine control applications. It combines a triple-band precise positioning GNSS core with extended wireless communication features including Wi-Fi, UHF and 4G LTE, making it easy to fit it into any control system. The AsteRx-U3 offers low latency of under 10 msec with a high data rate, which allows machines to work rapidly and accurately. An IP68-rated housing, with fixing brackets and robust M12 connectors, enables quick installation.
The M20071 integrated GNSS receiver module, measuring 9 x 9 x 1.8 mm, incorporates the MediaTek AG3335MN flash chip. The receiver tracks four GNSS constellations concurrently (GPS + Galileo + GLONASS + BeiDou). The 1.8-volt system power supply provides outstanding low power consumption. Its multipath algorithms improve position accuracy in inner-city environments. The onboard low noise amplifier provides good performance in weak signal environments such as wearable devices.
The Strategic Anti-jam Beamforming Receiver – M-Code (SABR-M) enables precise geolocation and strike capabilities in highly contested battlespaces. It integrates receiver technology with advanced antenna electronics in a small, hardened package designed to meet challenging performance requirements. It delivers accurate position, velocity, altitude and timing data, as well as strong protection against GPS signal jamming and spoofing. At 4.5 x 6 x 1 inches, the SABR-M meets size, weight, power, cost (SWaP-C) and thermal requirements for space-constrained military applications. It uses advanced beamforming technology to improve GPS signal reception and counter threat signals.
The GPS Resilient Kit (GRK) is a cybersecurity device that comes with two antennas for monitoring and protecting time-critical infrastructures. It can be integrated with any GNSS receiver, either as a retrofit or in greenfield deployment. The GRK features a proprietary interference filtering algorithm for maximum protection, up to 40-dB attenuation of jamming signals with the premium option. It requires minimal power consumption while providing cloud-based monitoring with real-time reporting of jamming attacks. It protects GPS L1 (C/A code) with a latency of 100 ns ±15 ns (fixed).
GBaaS enables providers to combat PNT cyberattacks
Photo: ADVA
GNSS-backup-as-a-service (GBaaS) enables service providers to help operators safeguard services that rely on positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). In-network timing based on network time protocols (NTP) and precision time protocols (PTP) are also increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats. GBaas is based on ADVA’s aPNT+ platform, which leverages a suite of technologies, including multi-band GNSS receivers and management software based on artificial intelligence and machine-learning. Service providers can offer ADVA’s aPNT+ protection as a subscription-based service as part of their service-level agreements.
The i73+ pocket-sized receiver is a powerful and versatile receiver with an integrated UHF modem that delivers survey-grade accuracy in all jobsite configurations. It has 624 GNSS channels and the latest iStar technology and can be operated as either a base station or a rover. The i73+ is a highly productive NTRIP rover when used with a handheld controller or tablet and connected to a GNSS RTK network via CHCNAV LandStar field software. The receiver takes advantage of GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and BeiDou, in particular the latest BeiDou 3 signal, to provide robust data quality at all times.
The Geode GNS3 GNSS receiver allows users to collect real-time GNSS data with sub-meter, sub-foot and decimeter accuracy options. With a scalable accuracy platform, users can purchase what they need now, while having the option to increase accuracy in the future. It offers sub-meter accuracy with a single-frequency antenna, while its multi-frequency antenna supports all constellations on L1, L2 and L5. Atlas L-band corrections allow the Geode to be used in water utility locating, agriculture and irrigation mapping, as well as mapping projects in remote locations where other correction services are not available. The Geode GNS3 can be used with Windows, Android, iPhone and iPad devices.
Improved colorization to contextualize point clouds
Photo: GeoSLAM
The ZEB Vision is a camera accessory for the ZEB Horizon system that can be used to capture 360° panoramic photography in 4K definition for point cloud colorization. Data is captured as the user walks through the area of interest. The ZEB Vision uses GeoSLAM’s SLAM algorithm to automatically and accurately position panoramic photos on a point cloud for an interactive viewing experience. The ZEB Vision attaches easily to the ZEB Horizon. The 4K resolution increases feature definition of objects within the point cloud, allowing for a new perspective on data by navigating within a virtual representation of an environment. This means industries such as architecture, construction and facilities can add real-world context to point clouds for the creation of CAD/BIM models.
The Leica Chiroptera-5 is a high-performance airborne bathymetric lidar sensor for coastal and inland water surveys. It combines airborne bathymetric and topographic lidar sensors with a four-band camera to collect seamless data from the seabed to land. Compared to previous models, the Chiroptera-5 provides 40% higher point density, a 20% increase in water-depth penetration, and improved topographic sensitivity for generating more detailed hydrographic maps. Its high-resolution lidar data supports nautical charting, coastal infrastructure planning, environmental monitoring and landslide and erosion risk assessments.
The Clirio application combines mobile lidar 3D scanning with smart remote collaboration tools to offer teams an end-to-end 3D solution to capture, organize, share and problem-solve. This is all based on real-time field observations and data, whether team members are on site or a continent away. Clirio is a set of mobile, web and VR/AR apps for instantly capturing, sharing, reviewing and resolving worksite field observations. At a field site, Clirio users collect notes, photos and 3D scans (using the laser scanner built into a new iPad Pro or iPhone Pro). These field observations are automatically geo-referenced within the map-based workspace and synced to a secure cloud workspace. An intuitive interface allows colleagues, managers, partners, or stakeholders to sort, review, compare, and act on field observations.
The Visual Parking System (VPS) by Bird is designed to keep track of scooter parking in a scalable, efficient and vandalism-immune way that requires zero infrastructure within a community. Powered by Google’s ARCore Geospatial API, VPS enables scooter parking with pinpoint accuracy. When parking a scooter, riders will be prompted to take a quick scan of their surroundings. The system seamlessly compares a rider’s images against Google’s data and Street View images in real time to produce the best available parking solution. Stationary objects such as buildings and signs are used as reference points, while more dynamic objects such as people and vehicles are disregarded. The near-instantaneous process results in a precise, centimeter-level geolocation that enables Bird VPS to detect and prevent improper parking with extreme accuracy, helping ensure Bird vehicles are only left in approved areas.
Supports Industry 4.0 with real-time visibility of assets
Photo: Pozyx
The Pozyx Platform is an asset tracking and identification solution for seamless indoor and outdoor tracking, following packages or other assets from trucks to their destination. It is based on the omlox hub, an open standard for real-time location systems that combines GPS data with data from ultra-wideband, 5G, radio-frequency identification, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The Pozyx Platform offers a seamless indoor/outdoor transition with zoom-in from a worldwide map to a detailed indoor map, showing highly accurate locations up to 10 cm. It is designed for smart manufacturing, providing a supply-chain solution that supports Industry 4.0. It tracks and identifies any asset, providing real-time data to facilitate warehouse and inventory control, keep track of critical tools, and slash lost asset costs.
Land surveying is an ancient practice, dating back at least 5,000 years to when Egyptian rulers used it to tax land plots. Over the centuries, it has been repeatedly transformed by new technologies — the compass (about 200 B.C), the theodolite (1550s), Gunter’s chain (1620), the sextant (1757), electronic distance measurement (1950s), and total stations (1970s). Then came GPS, followed by the other GNSS and corrections services.
Now comes sensor fusion, which aims to compensate for the limitations of GNSS — orbit and satellite clock errors, ionospheric and tropospheric delays, multipath, dilution of precision, urban canyons, jamming, extremely weak received signal, etc. — by integrating it with other sources of positioning data, including inertial measurement units (IMUs), lidar sensors and cameras. Even crowdsourced geolocation data collected with cell phones help expedite surveys by guiding surveyors to landmarks.
In the following article, representatives of five companies share their perspectives on recent advances in surveying and the remaining challenges.
Many More Satellites
City Rail Link is New Zealand’s first underground rail network and the largest transportation project ever undertaken there. In this photo, taken at Karangahape Station, the Mined Tunnel Team installs a lattice girder secondary support structure using a Trimble SX12. (Photo: Link Alliance)
Compared to just a few years ago, there are many more GNSS satellites, signals and options for correction services. Over the past decade, the average number of satellites in view has more than doubled to more than 40 today. Some parts of the world have more than 70 satellites in view, said Boris Skopljak, vice president, Surveying & Mapping Strategy and Product Marketing at Trimble Inc.
“The developments in GNSS field systems have always been geared toward simplifying workflows, improving accuracies and increasing productivity,” Skopljak said. “In the last few years, we’ve seen that on a massive scale. In some of our materials, we no longer even quote how many signals our GNSS receivers are tracking.”
The vast increase in the number of satellites has extended high-precision applications to the robotics and automotive markets. The challenge now is “position solution,” not just GNSS, said Simon Peng, director of the Overseas Department at ComNav Technology. The improvements in the satellite constellations, antenna technologies and algorithms also enable surveyors and other users to obtain results faster and to operate in environments previously impervious to GNSS, such as under heavy canopy and very close to buildings.
“Our customers can now operate in environments where there is no virtual reference station (VRS) infrastructure or real-time kinematic (RTK), by leveraging precise point positioning (PPP) solutions, such as the Trimble RTX corrections service,” Skopljak said.
“Additional satellite signals and constellations (like Beidou),” Skopljak said, “improved antenna technology and continuously evolving algorithms are contributing to improving the RTX accuracy while bringing the convergence times to almost instantaneous in normal conditions and making technology available in more regions.”
“When I first started surveying, if we had a 12-channel receiver, that was doing very well,” recalled Jesse Huff, head of Sales and Marketing, JAVAD GNSS. “Now, we’re tracking 36 birds in the sky at one time with an 874-channel receiver. That’s phenomenal.”
Huff described a patent-pending feature called real-time post-processed kinematic (RTPK). “It combines RTK, PPK and PP techniques, with multiple core processing engines and a single solution coming out of that. It is impressive standing underneath a giant oak tree and surveying that monument with GPS and knowing what your accuracies are. We’re not even chasing RMS values; we can report the actual positional uncertainties, which is amazing.”
Pole tilt compensation enables surveyors to precisely and easily localize points that are difficult or dangerous to access. (Photo: ComNav Technology Ltd.)
“With so many signals and the new ways of how we compute positions based on PPP technology, we can almost globally get to centimeter-level positioning within a couple of minutes from just one global correction link,” said Bernhard Richter, vice president of Geomatics at Leica Geosystems AG, part of Hexagon. “Under optimum conditions, you can have almost an instantaneous global accuracy of a couple of centimeters.” In mature areas, he added, a local RTK network infrastructure enables achieving centimeter accuracy within a couple of seconds.
Galileo, Richter pointed out, will be fully operational in 2023 with great signals, though he’s “a bit skeptical” about the system’s target date for its high-accuracy service. “So, we will basically get global constellation corrections that allow us also centimeter-level positioning.” BeiDou has been fully operational since 2020. “GLONASS is more unpredictable,” Richter said. “It looks like modernization is slowing down a bit, in particular the CDMA developments.” Additionally, he pointed out, it is possible that one or more governments may decide not to use those signals, for military or political reasons. “It’s not the manufacturers who decide which signals to take.”
“In open-sky conditions, additional satellites have added redundancy — which is always good for position integrity — but it’s only when obstacles start to appear on the horizon, blocking out parts of the sky, that all-in-view RTK really comes into its own,” said François Freulon, Head of Product Management at Septentrio. When they did not have a full view of the sky, he recalled, GNSS users used to have to carefully schedule their work to coincide with times of high satellite visibility. “Nowadays, by using multiple constellations and signals, RTK can reach the parts that receivers in the past could not tread. More signals and constellations have also helped in easing the collection workflow for surveyors, making the capture of data in difficult conditions much quicker and more efficient.” New correction services are further simplifying the workflow “thanks to new positioning techniques, pricing business models and simplified network density.” However, corrections companies still face challenges in ensuring that centimeter accuracy can be uniformly achievable at a global scale.
Sensor Fusion
The ongoing evolution in computing power and communication technology “leads to many more sensor combinations,” Skopljak said. “We are not talking about GNSS alone anymore. We are talking about integrating a GNSS antenna, a receiver, an IMU, power and communications into a single compact housing.” The integration of inertial sensors makes it possible to localize the instrument rod tip when the pole instrument is tilted. “That allows our customers to measure more safely in dangerous environments.”
“We are reaching a maturity stage of what we can do only with GNSS,” said Richter. “It’s all about sensor fusion. The problem when signals are obstructed, that’s not solved, even though we can do positioning from Wi-Fi hotspots or from local pseudolites.” So, fusing data from cameras, lidar, GNSS and IMUs in better ways is the way to go and presents “a huge open research ground.”
For Richter, the challenge is not just positioning, the orientation of objects is almost as important as that, especially for such tasks as machine control. “It’s also about what you do with the data that you collect. Hexagon’s vision is of an autonomous future where we put data to work in connected ecosystems to boost efficiency.” However, he pointed out, this requires large amounts of data, such as those from aerial photogrammetry, lidar and mobile mapping systems used to create city models and digital twins of buildings. “If you really want a car to drive autonomously through a city with all the things that could happen, you must rely on a perfect replication of the real world,” he said. Other examples he cited are more efficient evacuation plans and flooding simulations. “GNSS will never be enough, but it will always be a very good enabler because it works.”
Classes of Receivers
JAVAD GNSS designed its TRIUMPH-LS Plus receiver to work under heavy tree canopy. (Photo: JAVAD GNSS)
Two decades ago, we would often group GNSS receivers by accuracy into three buckets: consumer grade, resource or mapping grade, and survey grade. As accuracy has increased for all GNSS receivers, the boundaries between those categories — especially between mapping and surveying — have blurred. “The performance of GNSS has increased so much that we are not using the traditional accuracy-based differentiation between surveying and GIS,” said Skopljak. “For mapping professionals, 10 years ago it was all about points, lines and polygons; now it is all about locating assets and adding the most accurate positions as attributes to those assets. For our survey and engineering customers, what matters is still geometry and working with the models to serve the connected construction in the field.” As for the pure GNSS technology stack, “we are seeing fewer differences between mapping and surveying receivers, but we are focusing on serving the customer in terms of product-as-a-service or as a productivity tool.”
Huff made two points. First, that “survey grade” does not necessarily equal RTK. “Some education needs to happen so that people understand RTK as a technique, not an accuracy. You can get poor accuracy and poor fixes with RTK, even when you’re using good techniques. So, when I say ‘survey grade’ I’m still talking about the full frequency receivers, using all available signals.” Second, that consumer-grade receivers, such as the chipsets in our phones and computers, do not require the same robustness as professional ones. “While they may be achieving the same precision, surveyors must be able to defend their position in a court of law.”
Huff cited the “phenomenal” success of the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) movement with all kinds of positioning challenges. “From a survey perspective,” he said, “we’re dealing with a much more feature-rich dataset than we were even just 10 years ago, with everybody having some type of GPS device on their phones. There are location tags on everything. That creates evidence for the surveyor to be able to go out and recreate things, reduce trips to the field, reduce rework times — all those things that make a surveyor’s life much easier.”
Surveyors now can fly aerial surveys of hundreds of acres in less than half an hour using drones with RTK, Huff said, instead of having to wait for the flying season with traditional airborne photos. If needed, they can pick a few ground-control points for ground truthing. “We’re able to do that with photogrammetry techniques, but using GNSS technology to position drones, whether it’s real time or post-processing, has definitely made surveying jobs easier.”
Correction Services
The adoption of GNSS in construction is growing and receiver manufacturers are making it easier to use their equipment in the field. (Photo: Leica Geosystems)
Correction services — such as satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS), the ground-based Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) — make a big difference along with PPP and similar techniques when base stations are not available. “We have the whole CORS network here in the United States,” Huff pointed out. “We also have services available from the National Geodetic Survey.”
Those who don’t want to have to fully engage in post-processing can upload their data to the Online Positioning User Service (OPUS), AUSPOS (a free online GPS data-processing facility provided by Geoscience Australia) or other corrections services that will post-process positioning data. “It has made it more accessible for all the surveyors all the way around, especially as the technology has improved and the cost barrier to entry into a survey-grade GPS receiver has come down significantly as well,” Huff said.
Growing Adoption of GNSS
The greater number of satellites in orbit significantly reduces convergence time and increases the accuracy of the solution, which makes the technology much more user-friendly for professionals and nonprofessionals alike.
For surveyors and mapping professionals, the increasing levels of GNSS performance means that “GNSS continues to be the dominant equipment and they can operate in challenging GNSS environments while still meeting the accuracy and precision requirements,” Skopljak said. GNSS usage is also growing in such industries as agriculture, construction, transportation and logistics. “Now, when farmers are on a combine, they don’t have to wait for an RTX or PPP solution to converge for 20 minutes. The solutions just work, and they can perform their task.”
Skopljak also pointed to “more flexible business models, such as pay-as-you-go or equipping seasonal workers or fleets of spatially enabled consumers to use GNSS,” that reduce the required upfront investment. “Surveyors now can go for longer and be productive in more areas where they could not use GNSS technology before. The non-surveying professionals — such as in natural resources, farming or construction — now can just turn on the machine and things work for them. They don’t have to worry about coordinate transformations and things like that.”
“Twenty years ago, when RTK and networks kicked in and then became popular, we were discussing whether it was the end of the automated total station,” Richter recalled. “Yet, the number of automated total stations has grown ever since.” To him, this is proof that GNSS alone will never solve all surveying problems. GNSS’ weak signal will always require surveyors to supplement it with other sensors, such as reflectorless total stations. “These instruments always need to work in harmony,” Richter said.
Success on both construction sites and in machine control require a very good robotic total station and a very good GNSS receiver, Richter said. “The simple problem of leveling a pole is actually solved, and we are using the technology that we developed for tilt-compensating GNSS receivers. We’re leveraging this now into the world of the total station.” This has solved one of the fundamental problems surveyors have long had, because they no longer need to level up and can measure tilted poles with a total station and with a GNSS receiver. “We have also made it very seamless for surveyors to switch between using GNSS receivers and total stations,” Richter said.
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have been cooking up a way to get some of Mars back to Earth, so that samples can be analyzed in detail — just like the rocks the astronauts brought back during the Apollo missions, which gave us a deeper understanding of our Moon.
The Perseverance rover already on Mars has been seeking promising areas to investigate that might provide evidence of ancient past life, with the help of the Ingenuity helicopter drone. Recently, the two worked together to drive the rover to an old river delta, expected to be a prime location where such samples could be found.
The rover has been drilling and saving rock and dirt samples in onboard storage tubes. The difficulty is that getting them back to Earth requires another major undertaking.
Returning the Samples
Termed the “Sample Return Mission,” the two space agencies have been discussing for months how best to bring the samples back, and have now refined an approach. Given that Perseverance has been so good at the job it was given, the NASA/ESA team has decided that the rover should be used for the return mission in 2030 when things would be in operation on Mars. (We’re not sure if the warranty sticker on Perseverance will still be valid in 2030, but if past performance is an indication, all the rovers have significantly outlived their initial design lives.)
Its partner Ingenuity has graduated from proving it can fly in the thin Martian air to actually scouting routes for the large rover. Because Ingenuity has proven reliable and capable of traveling significant distances, NASA and ESA have decided that two new helicopter drones will become part of the return mission. They will be based on the successful Ingenuity design, but will be fitted with wheels, one on each of the four landing legs, to enable movement on the ground.
They will also be fitted with a device which is capable of picking up and carrying a sample tube. Since the prototype drone helicopter was designed to be as light as possible, this infers a substantial increase in lift capacity will be required. The original mission included a sample-collection rover, but this task will now be assigned to Perseverance, with the two sample-carrying helicopters acting as backup, if needed.
An earlier concept had the rover dropping sample canisters behind it as it progressed around the surface for subsequent pick up. This concept appears to have been shelved for the moment. Keeping the canisters onboard the rover throughout perhaps simplifies transfer to the return lander.
This NASA return sample concept illustration includes wheeled helicopters. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
The Mars Ascent Vehicle would then carry the samples into orbit, to a waiting Earth Return Obiter, where the samples would be transferred to a return system for onward transit and atmospheric re-entry to Earth. Some of these details are a little sketchy, but there sure are a lot of moving (autonomous, robotic?) parts. This, of course, means a lot of opportunities for something to go wrong. No doubt continuing refinement of the mission will reduce the risks. The Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) and AeroVironment designed and built Ingenuity — they may face some challenges developing the successor helicopter drones.
Meanwhile, Here on Earth…
Drones led the news Aug. 1, when President Biden announced the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul, Afghanistan. Al-Zawahiri topped the U.S. 9/11 wanted list, and his removal was all about the offensive use of drones. Presumably fired from a General Atomics Reaper variant drone at quite some altitude, two Hellfire AGM-114R9X “knife bomb”missiles took out al-Zawahiri as he stood alone on the balcony of a home in Kabul.
This means that video/infrared from high altitude was sufficiently clear to determine that the man was alone on the balcony, presumably confirming information on the ground that his family was elsewhere. So long-distance, high-level authorization was then granted to fire on him in a foreign country now run by the Taliban.
Suspected damage at the al-Zawahiri house in Kabul. (Photo: Secunder Kermani/BBC News)
To minimize inadvertent casualties, the Hellfire R9X missile was used, which lacks explosive armaments. The weapon is a nasty piece of work, weighing ~100 lb with an inert payload, and fitted with six long knives that deploy before impact. This missile has previously been used in perhaps 11 other instances to take out terrorist individuals and minimize collateral damage.
Bladed R9X missile lacks a warhead (Image: Newsy/Bellingcat)
This is another instance of how the U.S. use of military drones has become less devastating, but is still very deadly to the specific target.
To Sum Up
We’ve taken a quick glimpse at how NASA and ESA are planning more drones for the surface of Mars, and a much more aggressive use of drones here on Earth.
Tesla has applied to patent a new multi-band GNSS antenna with increased precision for self-driving and navigation in its autos, reports electrek. The antenna would be positioned inside the rear-mirror enclosure, and the system would also provide a heating element.
While increasing precision, it is also designed to reduce power demand, noise and cost.
The automaker describes the new device in the abstract of the new patent application:
A multi-band antenna system is provided. The antenna system can be placed under and embedded within a glass exterior surface of a vehicle. Such an antenna system can include a capacitively coupled metallic element on or adjacent to the glass exterior surface, which can serve as both a parasitic element to enhance gain and as a heating element to melt snow and/or ice accumulation over the glass area that covers the antenna. In certain applications, the antenna’s structure itself can be used as a heater to improve performance in adverse weather conditions while the heating elements are positioned away from the thermally sensitive electronics. The antenna system with integrated heating can include a spiral antenna.
A diagram of the antenna provided with the patent application. (U.S. Patent Office)
USSF Lt Col Robert Wray takes command of 2SOPS. (Photo: USSF/Dennis Rogers)
The 2nd Space Operations Squadron (2 SOPS), which oversees the GPS constellation, now has a new leader. Outgoing U.S. Space Force (USSF) Lt. Col. Michael Schriever relinquished command of the unit to USSF Lt. Col. Robert Wray.
The squadron conducted a change of command ceremony at Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado, on July 6, officiated by Space Delta 8 Commander Col. Matthew Holston.
As the new commander, Wray assumes the responsibility of overseeing the daily operations of a unit whose mission is to operate the GPS constellation, which provides global navigation, time transfer, and nuclear detonation detection.
Col. Matthew Holston honors Lt. Col. Michael Schriver for his 2SOPS service. (Photo: USSF/Dennis Rogers)
