U.S. Army completes qualification testing for new Stinger missile proximity fuze.
The new proximity fuze enables the Stinger missile to destroy a wider array of battlefield threats such as enemy unmanned aircraft systems. (Photo: U.S. Army)
The U.S. Army has completed qualification testing for a new proximity fuze that significantly enhances the combat-proven Stinger missile produced by Raytheon Company.
The proximity fuze detonates the warhead if the missile passes within a certain radius of the target, creating a cloud of shrapnel that eliminates the target.
During testing at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida in April 2017, the upgraded weapon system scored a perfect 100 percent hit rate against a variety of targets. The missiles were shoulder- and vehicle-launched.
The new proximity fuze enables the lightweight, self-contained air defense system to destroy a wider array of battlefield threats such as enemy unmanned aircraft systems by detonating the missile’s warhead near the target, while maintaining its hit-to-kill capability.
“Equipped with a new proximity fuze, Stinger is an affordable, near-term and proven solution for countering emerging threats in the battlespace,” said Kim Ernzen, Raytheon Land Warfare Systems vice president. “Together with the Army, we are putting the most capable Stinger yet into the hands of our brave men and women on the battlefield.”
https://youtu.be/h75hxN-hcMQ
With qualification testing complete, the Army can move toward a near-term fielding under an Urgent Materiel Release. Plans call for the new proximity fuze to be integrated into Stinger missiles as part of a Service Life Extension Program to be conducted at the Army’s ammunition plant in McAlester, Oklahoma.
Combat proven, the Stinger missile has more than 270 fixed- and rotary-wing intercepts to its credit. It’s deployed in more than 18 nations and with all four U.S. military services. The weapon can be rapidly deployed by ground troops and on military platforms, and has been integrated for use on the Apache Attack Helicopter.
An Air Force professor was honored for years of work exploring every PNT technology imaginable in conjunction with GPS; Rockwell Collins launched a new MicroSTRIKE multi-GNSS chip for military and professional applications, available globally on a non-ITAR basis; and Spirent Federal previewed its SimMNSA, a new M-code simulation option delivering to authorized customers by the end of the year.
John Raquet, AFIT, accepts 2018 Leadership Award for Services from Justin Eldredge, Spirent Federal. (Photo: Melanie Beus)
John Raquet, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Air Force Institute of Technology, received the 2018 Leadership Award for Services. Raquet was recognized for work he and his team at the Autonomy & Navigation Technology (ANT) Center developed on PNT sensors and systems utilizing almost every available source, including GPS, GNSS, inertial, vision, lidar, magnetic field, pseudolites, radar, terrain mapping, signals of opportunity, star trackers, radio ranging, 3D audio, X-ray pulsars, clocks, and more.
Raquet has co-authored many defense-oriented technical papers over the past three decades. See the list at the end of this article for some of the most recent ones.
Justin Eldredge from Spirent Federal introduced Raquet and bestowed the award, after updating the audience on Spirent’s most recent advance: “This year we maintain our position of being first to market with new signals, with the launch of SimMNSA. We’re currently in the final test phase of this new M-code option and it will delivering to several authorized customers by the end of the year. If M-code signals aren’t in the spectrum of testing for you, we offer products that simulate all other GNSS signals, plus a variety of other sensors.”
SimMNSA was demo’d at the Spirent Federal Systems booth at the neighboring ION GNSS+ conference. A video presentation of SimMNSA (for Modernized Navstar Security Algorithm) is available here. Spirent’s new software will support M-code using MNSA. M-code is an updated GPS military signal that is being rolled out as part of the modernization of the current GPS constellation. Until now, AES and SDS have been the only methods authorized to be used within a GNSS simulator to produce M-code. As the long-awaited MNSA M-code signals become available, Spirent Federal Systems will make this capability available to authorized users on the GSS9000 series simulator.
ANT
After receiving the 2018 Leadership Award, Raquet spoke about his work at theAutonomy & Navigation Technology Center. “Sometimes I called the ANT the Crazy Idea Factory. We’ve tried lots and lots of things. I think I have the best job in the world, because I get to experiment with many, many things, and work with amazing people.”
John Raquet, U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology (Photo: Melanie Beus)
“This is not the kind of community where you build something once and you’re done, you put it away. This is a growing worldwide enterprise that takes new talent to come in and fill the spots that many of the people in this room have occupied. I’m privileged to see some of the students that we’ve worked with to then go on and fill some of the gaps, really do some amazing things.”
MicroSTRIKE, a non-ITAR GPS chip
Two awards prior to Raquet’s Services award, Phil Froom from Rockwell Collins, UK, spoke about an innovative venture from Rockwell and partners QinetiQ UK as he bestowed the Satellites award.
“For many years most of you here this evening will have known Rockwell Collins as a reliable partner in the delivery of Secure (encrypted) GPS receiver, and indeed, we are still the largest producer of encrypted military GPS solutions in the world. Our partners QinetiQ also have great expertise in the design and delivery of high assurance low SWAP GPS receivers, bringing together many years of expertise of our two companies in this new venture.
Phil Froom, business development lead for Rockwell Collins, Europe, Middle East and Asia (Photo: Melanie Beus)
“However, over the past few years we have seen our military and professional (government) users looking to greater flexibility in their use of GNSS, as new capabilities and constellations come on line. But with that flexibility, a retention of assurance and where possible, mitigation of threats. For this reason, last May, Rockwell Collins and QinetiQ signed an Alliance Agreement in London, to produce a new family of high-assurance, multi-constellation GNSS receivers for professional and military use.
“This new family of receivers is aimed to be complementary to the current encrypted family of Rockwell Collins receivers in service across the globe, but allow the customer to select his level of capability and protection based upon his operational, political or even financial needs. The new “MICRO” family of GNSS receivers will offer a multi-constellation open service (MCOS) GNSS capability, which will initially provide two receivers; the first, to be known as the Q40-MicroPNT, will address dismounted low dynamics requirements, and the second, the Q40-MicroSTRIKE, will be a gun hard, high dynamics receiver.
“You will note I said they are MCOS receivers. Therefore, they will not include an encryption device, will be Non-ITAR and will actually be produced in Europe, under the control of Rockwell Collins UK. QinetiQ are today working on the Q40 ASIC and, once available, this will be incorporated into these first two Micro Family receivers.
“These receivers will be of a common format to our existing and highly successful SAASM based MicroGRAM receivers and will offer users and OEMs the ability to select an MCOS receiver, or a SAASM (or ultimately M-Code) receiver, of a common form – factor, to meet their mission or platform needs. Thus allowing OEMs to reduce costs in integrating different form-factors, and to allow users to hold common hardware, but mounting mission specific receivers.
“We are of course extremely excited about this Alliance with QinetiQ and equally by the prospect of what it will bring to our existing and future users as we all move forward into this new era of GNSS capability.”
Check out videos from the event below. Click on the icon in the top left hand corner to choose which video you’d like to watch.
Recent technical papers co-authored by John Raquet.
• “Magnetic field navigation in an indoor environment,” Ubiquitous Positioning Indoor Navigation and Location Based Service, (Aiding an inertial navigation system when GNSS signals are not available, by taking advantage of the uniqueness of magnetic field variations);
• “Comparison of two image and inertial sensor fusion techniques for navigation in unmapped environments,” IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, (navigation of miniature aerial vehicles (MAVs) couplimng information from an IMU with visual information from an electro-optical camera);
• “Real-time UWB-OFDM radar-based navigation in unknown terrain,” IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems (a signal processing algorithm and simulation study for aerial navigation with an ultrawideband orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (UWB-OFDM) radar in GPS-denied environments;
• “Navigation in GPS denied environments: Feature-aided inertial systems,” Air Force Research Lab, Eglin AFB FL Munitions Directorate (latest alt-nav trends for navigating in difficult urban, indoor, and underground environments where typical GPS receivers do not function;
• “Coded aperture aided navigation and geolocation systems,” US Patent office #8577539 (A micro air vehicle having a navigation system with a single camera to determine position and attitude of the vehicle using changes the direction to the observed features);
• “Multisensor navigation systems: A remedy for GNSS vulnerabilities?” Proceedings of the IEEE (A multisensor navigation approach to GNSS-challenged environments using inertial measurement units (IMUs), barometers, magnetometers, odometers, and digital compasses);
• “Large scale image aided navigation,” IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems (images from an airborne camera match features against a reference image to compute global position);
• and many more.
An open-sky freeway environment on Interstate 280 in California where Starling + the BCM47755 were tested and data collected and processed in real time. (Image: Swift Navigation)
Swift Navigation has announced that its Starling positioning engine is available with Broadcom’s dual-frequency GNSS receiver chip, the BCM47755.
The new solution is capable of delivering centimeter accuracy with minimal power consumption and small footprint for rapidly expanding precise positioning applications, the company said.
The Starling Positioning Engine is a modular and portable GNSS high-precision positioning engine that leverages Swift’s Skylark Cloud Corrections Service. Platform independent, Starling is an advanced GNSS processing engine that enhances the measurements from commercially available GNSS receivers to provide true precision and integrity capabilities.
Swift’s Starling software is GNSS receiver agnostic and works with a variety of GNSS chips and inertial sensors. According to the company, Starling features multi-band, multi-constellation support to provide centimeter-level accuracy and supports the calculation of integrity outputs to provide absolute position, velocity and time (PVT).
Broadcom’s BCM47755 chip now works with Starling. (Image: Broadcom)
Swift showcased the integration of Starling with the Broadcom BCM47755 chip — the latest generation of Broadcom GNSS receiver chip — during a recent test drive in California. The synergistic benefits of integrating Starling with the BCM47755 measurement engine include low system-level power consumption and a smaller PCB (printed circuit board) footprint.
The successful integration illustrated the accuracy of the combined solution and forthcoming offerings for autonomous vehicles including unmanned aerial vehicles, robotics, asset tracking, fleet management and other applications requiring precise positioning.
The BCM47755 simultaneously supports GPS and GLONASS in the L1 frequency band or GPS and Galileo in both the L1/E1 and L5/E5a frequency bands, the company added. Starling combines the GNSS raw observations from the BCM47755 with corrections from Swift’s Skylark Cloud Corrections Service to deliver centimeter-level positioning.
Horizontal Position
Horizontal CDF (Cumulative Distribution Function). (Chart: Swift Navigation)
“Broadcom is delighted to work with Swift in their integration of Starling and Skylark with our BCM47755,” said Vijay Nagarajan, senior director of product marketing for the Wireless Communications and Connectivity Division at Broadcom. “This is an exciting development for Swift and Broadcom, bringing together innovative hardware and software for the precise positioning market.”
“Swift has taken its mature Starling positioning engine that has long been powering Swift’s Piksi Multi and Duro receivers and made it interoperable with other industry leading chipsets to provide customers with a broader selection of precise autonomous navigation solutions,” added Samir Kapoor, executive vice president of engineering and product at Swift Navigation. “We are excited to offer an integrated solution with the Broadcom BCM47755 GNSS receiver chip.”
Evaluation Kit
Swift has developed an out-of-the-box evaluation platform for the combined Swift/Broadcom solution, called the Starling + BCM47755 Evaluation Kit, which will be available to order in the fourth quarter of this year.
The Evaluation Kit includes:
Starling Evaluation Board
Cortex-A7 Processor Running Starling Positioning Engine on Linux
Broadcom BCM47755 Chip
I/O – RS-232, Ethernet, USB, CAN
Supports SBP, NMEA and RTCM3 Protocols
Built in NTRIP Client
Built in Client for Skylark, Swift’s Cloud-Based GNSS Corrections Service
Dual Frequency, Multi-Constellation Antenna
External Cell Modem
Power Supply, Cabling and Accessories
Evaluation Kit Hardware Design Documentation, including Schematics and Layout
Evaluation Kit User Manual, Swift Console PC Application and Firmware Image
Integrity Monitoring of LTE Signals of Opportunity-Based Navigation for Autonomous Ground Vehicles
By Mahdi Maaref, Joe Khalife and Zak M. Kassas/University of California, Riverside
FIGURE 1. RAIM framework for LTE-based navigation without GNSS signals. (Images: Authors)
Proprietary receivers and navigation frameworks for autonomous ground vehicle (AGV) navigation with long-term evolution (LTE) cellular signals demonstrate meter-level accuracy with standalone LTE signals and lane-level accuracy with LTE signals coupled with other sensors (inertial and lidar).
As the number of systems that rely on cellular signals for navigation grows, the need for monitoring the integrity of their navigation solution becomes essential.
This paper proposes a receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) framework for AGV navigation with LTE signals of opportunity. Experimental results evaluate the efficacy and accuracy of the proposed RAIM-based fault detection and exclusion technique, demonstrating a reduction of 22% in the position root-mean-squared error (RMSE).
FIGURE 1 demonstrates the RAIM framework: (a) When GNSS signals are unusable, LTE signals are used for navigation and integrity measures are calculated; (b) simulation results of downtown Riverside, California, where the black regions represent areas where multipath is expected to exceed 0.5 meters; (c) experimental setup; (d) environment and location of LTE towers; and (e) experimental results showing severe multipath being autonomously detected and excluded.
The estimation error represents the difference between the ground truth from an RTK GNSS-IMU system and our LTE-IMU system.
Researchers from NASA’s Frontier Development Lab (FDL) and Intel are proposing a way to navigate on a new planet using artificial intelligence (AI).
The researchers presented their planetary navigation research during an Intel event on Aug. 16.
The immense challenge of building GPS-similar constellations around every planet or moon could be avoided by using imagery, according to researchers Andrew Chung, Philippe Ludivig, Ross Potter and Benjamin Wu.
The team developed a system for simulating the Moon’s surface so that AI could be used for navigation on the surface.
How It Works. The researchers created a highly detailed digital model of a virtual moon using 2.4 million images of its surface. The images represent ones that might be taken by a rover.
The AI learned what this moon looks like by being fed the millions of images, and then used its neural network to create a model of the virtual moon.
According to the team’s presentation, this was enough to effectively enable navigation on the virtual moon’s surface.
With the model in place, a person merely needs to take a photo of their surroundings on the surface. Based on the photo, the AI determines the person’s location and shows how to navigate to a destination. The AI would even understand the distortions of known features from the point of view of the camera.
The team wants to try to do the same thing with a real celestial body: Mars. They think they have enough satellite images to make it work.
If they’re right, the first Martian visitors could navigate the Red Planet by photo.
Keolis Canada and Montreal suburb City of Candiac have launched a long-term demonstration project of an autonomous electric shuttle on public roads in Canada. The shuttle will complement the public transit services currently available in Candiac.
The pilot project will take place over a period of 12 months, with about eight months dedicated to serving citizens.
This initiative was made possible through the financial support and expertise of the Quebec government and the collaboration of Propulsion Québec, the Cluster for Electric and Smart Vehicles and the Technopôle IVÉO.
Screenshot from Keolis Canada video.
The NAVYA autonomous shuttle will operate along a two-kilometer route between the park-and-ride lot and exo’s bus terminal and the intersection of Marie-Victorin and Montcalm North boulevards with several stops along the way, including City Hall, a retirement complex and local businesses.
The autonomous shuttle, which will coexist with regular traffic, will allow employees in the area to reach their workplaces from the bus terminal.
Along the route, the shuttle will go through a railway crossing and an intersection where it will communicate with four traffic lights. During the winter period, a research and development project, without passengers on board, will test how the autonomous electric shuttle adapts to Quebec winter conditions.
“This initiative is exciting because it’s the first pilot project in Canada, and the way it’s carried out will set the course for the next one,” said Marie Hélène Cloutier, vice president, Passenger Experience, Marketing & Sales for Keolis Canada. “For Keolis Canada, multimodal service is the key to the future of transportation. Autonomous electric shuttles are a great example of this because they complement existing services. The enthusiasm for this project has surpassed our expectations, which is very promising for the future.”
“We are extremely proud to be enabling Candiac residents to participate in this historic achievement,” said Normand Dyotte, mayor of Candiac. “It’s an outstanding opportunity for our citizens to be able to travel aboard the first-ever electric autonomous shuttle on a public road in Canada. We invite all public transit users and anyone who is curious or interested to come and try it now.”
NavVis, a provider of indoor spatial intelligence technology, can now automatically convert E57 point cloud files into interactive, realistic 360-degree walkthroughs, following the latest software upgrade to IndoorViewer.
Visitors to Intergeo 2018 can demo the new NavVis IndoorViewer release as well as the NavVis M6 indoor mobile mapping system by visiting NavVis in Hall 12.1 at booth 12.1D.086.
Image: NavVis
NavVis IndoorViewer is a web-based application that displays realistic digital twins using 360-degree panoramic images, point clouds and maps generated by 3D scanning devices. Users can move around digital twins of scanned spaces as if they are on site and use the interactive functionality to add, search for and route to geotagged information and take accurate measurements.
The intuitive user interface and functionality has made NavVis IndoorViewer a valuable deliverable for laser scanning professionals who want to extend the use of point clouds beyond BIM models and building plans to a wider range of building stakeholders who would also benefit from 3D scan data.
This is particularly relevant for stakeholders working on complex projects or properties, such as manufacturing facilities and construction sites, where IndoorViewer enables remote access to the site and is used as a platform for collaboration and exchanging information, the company said.
“IndoorViewer was originally developed to display the data captured by our indoor mobile mapping system in a way that is accessible to every user,” said Felix Reinshagen, NavVis CEO. “In recent years, we have seen that making scan data available to every building stakeholder is fulfilling an unmet need. Many of our partners using a NavVis indoor mobile mapping system for conventional scanning projects are offering IndoorViewer as an additional deliverable to increase the number of stakeholders who can make use of this data.”
“To meet the growing demand for extending the use of valuable 3D scan data, we developed a feature that automatically renders 360-degree immersive images from structured E57 point cloud files. The latest software release brings the full functionality of IndoorViewer to E57 point cloud files and therefore marks an important step towards our goal of making scan data meaningful for every building stakeholder.”
NavVis IndoorViewer currently supports third party point cloud files in most standard formats. However, a key component of the immersive experience that NavVis IndoorViewer provides is the 360-degree panoramic images.
The new IndoorViewer feature bridges this gap for structured E57 files by automatically rendering 360-degree immersive imagery from E57 point cloud files. This means data collected by terrestrial laser scanners can now also be used to create realistic, immersive 360-degree walkthroughs that can be published and shared online without the need to download or install software.
The E57 panorama extractor is available as part of a free software upgrade to IndoorViewer subscribers.
Orolia has introduced its latest military technology innovation, the SecureFind Combat Rescue Beacon, at the 2018 AUSA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
In addition to protecting the most critical assets and leaving no one behind, combat search and rescue (CSAR) technology can significantly enhance military operations by avoiding the loss of sensitive information and technology, avoiding hostage situations and helping to prevent conflict escalation.
SecureFind is based on Orolia’s search-and-rescue technology suite, selected by military forces for CSAR missions. The wearable base unit includes an open channel search-and-rescue solution, for military use in training or test mode. It can also be configured with a customer-defined, secure channel solution for covert operations.
The versatile CSAR solution operates with a silent, push-button functionality that does not require voice activation. SecureFind enables military forces to precisely and safely execute CSAR missions, with optional Assured PNT (positioning, navigation and timing) technology that prevents GPS signal interference, spoofing and jamming, the company said.
“There is no greater need for urgency, stealth and precision than when military personnel are isolated in rugged environments or behind enemy lines,” said Paul Zweers, Orolia’s vice president of defense programs.
“Software-defined, wearable communications technology is now more important than ever on today’s air, land, sea and cyber battlefields,” added Orolia CEO Jean-Yves Courtois. “CSAR missions are just the beginning of potential uses for this resilient military technology, which can ensure reliable positioning, navigation and timing data in any operating environment. Orolia’s solutions are tailored to support today’s soldiers and engineered with a view toward the future of global military networks.”
According to Orolia, the standard SecureFind solution is available at a price point that could enable thousands of warfighters to benefit from the new battlefield technology. More advanced functionality is also available, such as the ability to change signals on-the-go for additional security, to detect and mitigate GPS jamming and spoofing, and to generate important strategic information such as virtual battlefield maps of jamming and spoofing activity.
Orolia offers a cost-effective, modular approach to assured PNT, with a flexible, open architecture that integrates easily with legacy systems. This layered platform meets critical technology requirements without over-engineering a solution that is complex, expensive and difficult to maintain.
Additional SecureFind product information is available at the AUSA Annual Meeting, Orolia booth #8051.
European students and researchers are invited to compete in a new Galileo smartphone app competition sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA).
The goal is to develop an app capable of performing fixes using raw Galileo satnav measurements. An earlier Galileo smartphone app competition has already resulted in the winning app becoming publicly available.
This year’s event challenges teams to make use of the dual-frequency capability of the latest Android 8.0 smartphones, to compute dual-frequency positioning solutions from raw satnav signals to compare them with their single frequency equivalents.
The competition is run by ESA in collaboration with the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA) plus the European Commission with the support of Google.
The Galileo app competition is open to all students from European universities and trainees in posts at European research and development organizations.
“The inaugural Galileo smartphone app competition was open solely to ESA graduate trainees, but the response was so great that this time we have opened up to students and young researchers across Europe, forming teams of three to five people,” explained ESA Galileo Services Engineering Manager Rafael Lucas Rodriguez.
The set objective is to reach sub-meter accuracy worldwide in unobscured sky conditions. The app should allow the user to select Galileo-only positioning, GPS-only positioning and the combination of both on a simultaneous basis, with the potential to include other satnav constellations in turn.
The receiver chipsets inside smartphones routinely make use of Galileo in combination with several other satnav constellations — the U.S .GPS, Russian GLONASS and Chinese BeiDou. These chipsets function in “black box” style, making the resulting positioning fixes accessible to users, but without giving any option to the user to select which constellation to employ — or information on Galileo’s particular contribution to the phone’s overall positioning performance.
However, in newer Android smartphones it has become possible to access the raw signal measurements used to compute position, opening the door to the development of applications where the user can indeed select which constellations to employ.
The very latest models also allow the use of dual satnav frequencies, giving a major boost to positioning precision. The higher chip rate of the additional frequency allows the chipset to compensate for signal propagation errors from the signals’ journey through the ionosphere — the electrically active outer layer of atmosphere — and reduces false ‘multipath’ detections caused by signals reflecting off buildings.
“As a first step, teams submit a proposal of not longer than 20 pages, summarizing the application to be developed,” explained ESA navigation engineer Nityaporn Sirikan. “These proposals will be evaluated by a jury composed of representatives of ESA, GSA, the EC and Google, with the top five proposals selected to develop their app further, receiving on loan a state-of-the-art dual frequency satnav smartphone and receiving general guidance and technical support.”
The competition launched on Sept. 24; teams are invited to submit their proposals to [email protected] by Nov. 12, and will be informed of the jury’s response to their proposal by Nov. 26. The competition final is scheduled for April 18, 2019, at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Terms and conditions of the competition are posted here.
The first- and second prize-winning teams will win attendance to the ESA and EC International Summer School on Global Navigation Satellite Systems in Portugal. Additional prizes will be available to the most innovative app and the winner of a public online vote, to be undertaken during the final.
The second edition of the European GNSS Agency’s (GSA) GNSS User Technology Report has been published and is now available for free download, providing an exhaustive review of the latest GNSS trends and developments.
Since its launch in 2016, the GNSS User Technology Report has become the go-to-source for information on the dynamic, global GNSS technology industry.
The GNSS User Technology Report, a sister publication to the GSA’s GNSS Market Report, is published every two years and takes an in-depth look at the latest state-of-the-art GNSS receiver technology, along with providing expert analysis on the trends that will shape the global GNSS landscape in the coming years.
Three key segments
European GNSS Agency
Like the inaugural report in 2016, the second issue focuses on three key macro segments: mass market solutions; transport safety- and liability-critical solutions; and high precision, timing and asset management solutions.
The report opens with an overview of the latest developments and trends in GNSS, with a focus on the multi-constellation and multi-frequency that are driving new trends in the sector.
“With the GNSS User Technology Report, our aim is to provide everybody in the GNSS value chain with a comprehensive overview of the current landscape in the industry and to identify new trends so that stakeholders know in which direction the industry is moving,” GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides said.
“The most important new trend identified in this issue is the rapid adoption of multiple frequencies, including for consumer devices, as evidenced by the market introduction of the first dual-frequency smartphone in May 2018,” des Dorides said.
Editor’s special section: Automation
The final section in this year’s report — the “Editor’s special” section — is dedicated to automation and to the increasingly important role GNSS plays in a number of partially — or fully automated tasks and functions. The most publicised examples of these are found in the transport domain — driverless cars, autonomous vessels and drones but, as the report notes, GNSS-based automation applications go well beyond transport.
The analysis of GNSS user technology trends in the report is supported by testimonials from key suppliers of receiver technology, including: Broadcom, Javad, Kongsberg, Leica, Maxim Integrated, Meinberg, NovAtel, Orolia-Spectracom, Qualcomm, Septentrio, STMicroelectronics, Thales, Trimble and u-blox.
In addition, the report includes highlights from around 20 ongoing research projects from the Horizon 2020 and Fundamental Elements programmes, aiming at the development of GNSS receiver technology.
The full GNSS User Technology Report 2018 is available for download here.
GNSS User Technology Report 2018 Highlights
All global and regional GNSS constellations are developing, modernising and innovating, with more than 100 GNSS satellites now available over our heads.
The vast majority of current receivers are multi-constellation, and the most popular way to provide multi-constellation support is to cover all available constellations. Today only around 30% of receivers use GPS only.
In the mass market domain, we are seeing a divide between chipsets optimised for entry-level internet of things (IoT) products, where energy per fix is the primary driver, and high end, where the industry is innovating to propose enhanced positioning performance.
The need for accuracy in the mass market is initiating new solutions, including ones based on Android GNSS raw measurements or, more significantly, using multi-frequency signals.
The frequencies supported across all application areas range from single L1/E1 to 4 frequencies in the professional segment. The dual frequency solution showing the most growth is L1/E1 and L5/E5, however the legacy L1/E1 and L2 are still being used.
Growing interest has been observed in PPP and RTK services proposed by private industry and public system operators, leading to new PPP/RTK concepts aiming to address a wide customer base beyond high precision.
The need to ensure both safety and security of PNT solutions is being highlighted by all solution providers, particularly in systems where humans are out of the control loop, such as in autonomous vessels, cars or drones.
Caliper has released a free average annual daily traffic (AADT) map layer for Maptitude 2018 users.
The latest version includes fields with total AADT traffic count, semi-trailer truck count, single-unit truck and bus count, number of through lanes and road classification.
AADT is the total volume of vehicle traffic on a highway or road for a year divided by 365 days. It is a useful and simple measurement of how busy a road is, and is useful for:
selecting a new site or facility location, evaluating a site, or designing a territory
determining funding for highway maintenance and improvement
forecasting road maintenance needs and expenditure
identifying the best location for your business based on traffic patterns
analyzing how traffic may impact store construction
analyzing the environmental hazards of sound and pollution related to road transport
The downloaded layer can be added to any Maptitude 2018 map.
Caliper has released a free average annual daily traffic (AADT) map layer for Maptitude 2018 users.
The latest version includes fields with total AADT traffic count, semi-trailer truck count, single-unit truck and bus count, number of through lanes and road classification.
AADT is the total volume of vehicle traffic on a highway or road for a year divided by 365 days. It is a useful and simple measurement of how busy a road is, and is useful for:
selecting a new site or facility location, evaluating a site, or designing a territory
determining funding for highway maintenance and improvement
forecasting road maintenance needs and expenditure
identifying the best location for your business based on traffic patterns
analyzing how traffic may impact store construction
analyzing the environmental hazards of sound and pollution related to road transport
The downloaded layer can be added to any Maptitude 2018 map.
