GPS World

Category: Applications

  • Tim Tebow, GPS, Space Acquisition, 60 Minutes and the GAO

    Don Jewell
    Don Jewell

    Tim Tebow, GPS, space acquisition, 60 Minutes and the GAO.

    One of these things is not like the others. When you first learn this Sesame Street song as a child, where it may be presented as a series of cartoonish pictures, the odd item is usually fairly obvious. Years later, when you encounter this deceptively simple statement on a physics test at Stanford University — where the choices are beguilingly similar formulas or algorithms — the correct answer may be a bit more difficult to determine, and may actually require serious thought.

    It seems the U.S. government (USG) acquisition cadre seems to have a similar problem when it comes to recognizing the critical importance of small businesses. The USG has a federally documented mandate and stringent policies (unfortunately, often ignored) in place to support small businesses in the United States. Supposedly, a quota system is in place where, in a perfect world, 23 percent of all eligible contracts should be won and performed by small businesses — the word eligible being the fly in the ointment.

    Small Business

    For government contractor purposes, what exactly is a small business? This is not an easy question to quantify or answer simply but let’s try. NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) codes specify, among other requirements, the maximum number of employees in a business qualified to compete for contracts of a certain dollar amount — that is one way to designate not only a small company, but their small business qualifications as well. Some companies are not only small in size, but have special qualifications that allow them to compete in a special category for certain contracts; such as being owned by a woman, a Native American, an Eskimo, a handicapped person (any of the five senses), or by the economic success or lack thereof, where the business is geographically located, or the population it serves and employs.

    As you can readily see, this small business definition can become unwieldy in a hurry. For our purposes, let’s describe a small business as a company of 500 employees or less that may meet any or all of the aforementioned qualifications, but most importantly meets the operational requirement of having a certain field of expertise for which it is known and at which it excels in. In short, the small company is the domain expert in a certain field of endeavor and typically is sought after by government (municipal, state and federal) and commercial entities alike for their expertise.

    Such companies are also sought out by large government contractor competitors known as prime companies that may range in size from several thousand to hundreds of thousands of employees. These companies have historically been likened to a battleship that takes forever to change course. The large primes are the Warren Buffets of government contracting, as they typically have tons of resources and stores of cash, but they historically lack the flexibility, expertise and low cost structure (read low overhead) of the small companies. Therefore, the smaller companies are frequently sought out as critical team members on large government contracts at all levels. Plus, since there is supposedly, in writing anyway, a small business quota system in place, if you can place a small company on any government contract, so much the better. To the prime and the U.S. government, it may be just statistics, but to the small company, it is often a matter of success or failure for the company.

    It is a fact of life in government contracting that many times the small companies’ domain expertise is why the prime, who put a winning team together, wins the big contract in the first place. You would think this would ensure success for the small company. However, “build a better mouse trap” and “build it and they will come” are nice clichés, but often get lost in the real profit-and-loss world of government contracting.

    In my experience, problems typically come about because both the government and the prime contractors lose sight of why the small, domain expert company is on the team in the first place. Great small companies are so good at what they do, they typically under promise and over deliver and begin to make both the government oversight institutions and the prime look bad. By bad, I mean less efficient, not as capable, and burdened with a plethora of rules and regulations and monstrous overhead rates that rarely apply to small companies.

    Don’t think that I have a problem with prime contractors. I worked for two of the largest for many years and they were and are great companies. None of the satellites we have in orbit today would be there without prime contractors. So prime contractors are a great asset to this country and to the space programs, but even large primes occasionally lose their way or fail to deliver.

    Acquisition Analogy

    Bear with me as I present a simple football analogy some serious thought as it pertains to GPS contracting.

    Tim Tebow was/is arguably one of the most famous and sought after American college football quarterbacks of all time. He was the first college sophomore to win the coveted Heisman Trophy, the First round NFL draft pick in 2010, and the winner of two NCAA National Football Championships.

    At the conclusion of his phenomenal college career, Tim Tebow held the Southeastern Conference’s all-time records in college football for both career passing efficiency and total rushing touchdowns, appearing second and tenth (respectively) in the NCAA record book in these categories.

    Playing his rookie season for the Denver Broncos, Tim started the last three games and became the team’s full-time starting quarterback beginning in the sixth game of 2011. The Denver Broncos were a dismal 1–4 before Tim became the starting quarterback, but began winning with him on the field, playing just as he did in college, often scrambling and running with the football and coming from behind late in the fourth quarter to win. Under his tutelage and leadership, Denver won their first AFC West title and first playoff game since 2005, defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers in overtime.

    Tebow the Pro

    What happened next? This is where is gets interesting and pertinent to government space acquisitions.

    What happened is Tebow changed. He was made to conform to what is viewed as proper professional football behavior. Professional football pundits criticized Tim Tebow for everything from his scrambling and running plays to his obviously devout displays of Christian faith. Statements were made such as “He will get hurt scrambling and running the ball so much, then Denver will not have him as a starting quarterback.” “These college plays he keeps running just don’t work in the NFL.” “Tim needs to wake up and realize he is not in college anymore.”

    Amazingly, despite all the critiques, the Tim Tebow college-based solution was working. College plays and Christianity were the formula that worked for Tim in college and was obviously, despite his critics, working well in the NFL, at least for the Denver Broncos. For all the other NFL teams, not so much. Then it all started to come apart, because what the other NFL teams were really admitting to was what psychologists call social phobia or the fear of being embarrassed. In other words, what the other NFL teams were really saying was:

    “Come on Denver, we can’t have a college quarterback, using old college plays, defeating the NFL’s finest teams. It makes us all look bad. People pay big money to see NFL teams win on Sunday and Thursday. So get this flea flickering wunderkind under control and come back into the fold. You and your college quarterback are embarrassing the league with your success!”

    The Denver Broncos and subsequently other teams in the NFL bowed to pressure and forced Tim Tebow to drastically change the way he played football. The winning formula was shelved, and T2 was made to conform. When that happened, he became the league’s top-losing quarterback. His once accurate passes started to miss their mark because he was told to stay safely in the pocket and not scramble or run with the ball, even though historically his most accurate passes were thrown while on the run. Since he no longer scrambled or ran, he not only lost accuracy but historically the yards he gained running with the football were gone as well. So he rapidly became just what the league declared he should be, not a winning collegiate quarterback in the NFL, but a nominal losing NFL quarterback. At least he was not doing anything outside the norm for the NFL. He was no longer embarrassing the league by winning, but by finally playing by the rules and losing.

    Now let’s take the Tim Tebow saga and apply it specifically to federal government GPS acquisitions, or simply to space acquisition practices in general.

    Random Scenario

    Let’s take a random and totally make-believe scenario and say the federal government requires a new command and control system (C2) for a large global satellite constellation. For purposes of this imaginary scenario, I need to remind you of an old adage, that unfortunately is not imaginary, in the national security space business concerning space C2 systems. It goes like this: The space hardware is 95 percent complete when a team member remarks, ‘Wow! this satellite system is going to be the best in the world at what it does! I can’t wait to see the whole system up and running.” Another team member ponders that statement and replies, “A system, what system? All we have is space hardware. How are we going to launch it, control it (TT&C) and send and receive operational data? Oh yeah, we need a space C2 system. We better get right on that!” You may laugh, but this exact scenario has been played out more times than anyone cares to admit. But, of course, this is all just make believe! Right?

    RFI/RFQ

    Now imagine for a moment that you find yourself in this situation. As a member of the U.S. government acquisition team, at an SPO or (Special, Space, Strategic, Scientific — take your pick) Program Office, you quickly put an RFI (Request for Information) or an RFQ (Request for Quote) together just to see which companies have the requisite expertise and how much they, the companies, estimate it will cost to complete the C2 system for your constellation. The only problem being that in the RFI or RFQ, which is typically just a few pages, you only delineate the actual basic requirements and you only give the responding companies 30 days to determine how they will go about controlling a constellation you have been building for the last five years. Imagine that! The important part of the scenario is that the RFI/RFQ is actually on the street.

    You can be assured most of the five big space primes are going to reply. After all, they have teams of highly qualified proposal writers that do nothing but respond to these requests. While the response process is often a thing of beauty, it is also frequently highly inefficient and misleading. Remember an RFI/RFQ format is almost inconsequential, as it is just the response the government is looking for at this point: Does your company or team of companies have the qualifications to do the work? How long will it take? How much will it cost?

    This is far from the end of the story or process. Typically several small companies also respond to Space C2 RFIs and RFQs, primarily because the request concerns their area of expertise, not from a process point of view but from a domain expertise point of view, which may require radically different approaches.

    Small technological companies in the space control business are usually flexible and agile, no-nonsense, lean and mean, replete with subject matter experts that specialize in C2 for satellite systems, both commercial and for the USG. They may well be the best in the world at what they do. Alas, they initially and naively think that is all that is required. They may even be under contract to the federal government doing exactly the type of work the RFI/RFQ specifies is needed, but they are frequently overlooked because they are, you guessed it, a small company. However, being small and sometimes naïve, they answer the RFIs and RFQs with enthusiasm, expectations and hope that the system will work and they will be recognized for their expertise, low cost, low overhead and even their outstanding past and present performance. Then, to quote Gilda Radner, “Oh, Never mind!”

    Finally, the other shoe drops, as eventually the actual thousand-plus page RFP (Request For Proposal) is released. The RFP has critical detailed data for program success but unfortunately also contains frequently superfluous documentation and tedious requirements lists known as CDRLS (Contract Data Requirements Lists) that commonly reference hundreds of compliance documents so obscure that the USG provides the documents in a special digital online library, because no entity other than the USG would ever bother to keep such sleep-inducing documentation on hand. In this case, 90 percent of the CDRLs do not involve actual C2 of a space constellation, or whatever expertise is required to accomplish the mission, but rather they invariably pertain to some obscure government regulation concerning report formats and interfacing with the government oversight companies and committees.

    Too Small To Succeed

    Unfortunately we have all heard of companies and institutions that are supposedly too big to fail but what about too small to succeed? In one real-world example, and the USG actually put this in writing, the small expert company that was utilizing its expert system software to actively launch and control spacecraft flawlessly for seven years and is still actively controlling critical space payloads today was told in a competition debrief that they did not fully qualify for the new C2 RFP. Not because of any lack of expertise or past or current performance issues, but because they were too small — not that they could not and were not actually successfully accomplishing the same mission currently (they were the incumbent), but that they did not have the requisite number of personnel to interface with the government on a daily basis during the C2 contracts development phase. This 200+ person small expert company was told they would need to hire another 80 administrative staff just to keep up with the government paperwork and oversight the new C2 program would generate. None of these ‘required’ positions were engineers or subject-matter experts, just paper pushers that generate tons of paper and of charge at a high hourly rate that would add approximately $5M to the contract bid price. True story; sad but true.

    So the small company, fully qualified to accomplish the task in record time and for a pittance, a fact nervously recognized by some in the government and by the primes, is not awarded the contract because their hourly rates are half those of the big primes, they can do the work in two years versus six, which for some reason is considered a high-risk proposal, and they do not have the additional 80 staff members sitting around waiting to respond to every government inquiry. Just like Tim Tewbow they were embarrassing the USG and worrying the big primes.

    All is not lost. The small company is approached by Prime-A, a large company that is competing for the C2 contract even though they had never launched or controlled a satellite of this type before and are not known for their expertise in the space C2 area. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, the small company agrees to join Prime-A’s team on the six-year $900M effort that the small company was prepared to accomplish for $200M in only 24 months. Twelve months later, the contract is awarded to Prime-A. During the government debrief, one of the primary reasons for the “win” for Prime-A is because they teamed with the right small company — you guessed it, the one with all the domain expertise that was currently doing the work. Smart move by Prime-A.

    Ok, so all’s well that ends well, right? Unfortunately, Prime-A now makes a bad move and announces just days after winning the new C2 contract that, having reconsidered their position, now that they have won, they will not be utilizing the tried-and-true operationally proven system from our small expert company, that actually helped them win the contract. No, Prime-A has decided to develop their own brand-new C2 system, become a competitor to the small expert company (a teammate), and allow the government to pay for it all. Of course, the end product, if it is ever successfully developed, will be a totally unproven and proprietary system and will take twice as long, cost five times as much and be far less capable, without any flexibility. But competition is king!

    Time Passes

    Five years into our imaginary scenario and the C2 program is years behind schedule. The only deliverables the USG has in its possession are those accomplished by the small company partner with the C2 domain expertise, along with invoices from Prime-A that add a 20 percent handling fee or surcharge to all the small company’s accomplishments and that now make the original $900M program a $1.8B program that will only accomplish 50 percent of the original RFP’s stated objectives. The program has moved so far to the right that full completion of all program phases will now take 10-12 years at a cost surpassing $4.2B, during which time all the space hardware will be placed in storage for an additional cost of $1M per space vehicle per year, because the space hardware cannot be launched and fully utilized without the C2 system that makes them incredibly valuable global assets instead of space junk on orbit. More space debris if you will.

    Of course, if the small expert company had been awarded the contract or their product had been utilized by Prime-A at the outset, to do the job it currently does so well, valuable space assets would be ready for launch today and ready to benefit mankind worldwide. BTW the USG would also have $1.4B more in its coffers.

    But, alas, that is not how our imaginary scenario plays out. In this scenario the small space company experiences the Tim Tebow process and government indoctrination. Their expertise is discounted because they are playing with the “big boys” now, and they are required to hire 80 additional administrative personnel just to compete. They are required to submit all work product through Prime-A that adds an extra 20-50 percent just to process the paperwork and keep the marching army of support staff employed.

    As a consequence of the teaming agreement, the small expert company can no longer talk directly to USG representatives who are now suddenly very interested in the original $200M, 24-month proposal. As a member of Prime-As team, the small expert company cannot undertake any independent actions. It is under the thumb of the prime, and the USG will never have the opportunity to take the road less traveled that leads to success and a winning season with a small company. They have been Tebowed!

    Rare

    Fortunately, the imaginary scenario you just read rarely happens. The USG acquisition teams are very good at what they do, and they rarely allow the scenario described to take place. However, rarely is not “never,” and unfortunately similar scenarios do occasionally take place. Sometimes the USG just makes bad decisions. They fail to realize the true potential and the true domain expertise provided by small expert companies.

    Budget

    In this budget seques-castration era USG acquisition personnel and decision makers need to look beyond procedures, precedence and tradition. They need to think outside the proverbial box and consider all their options. A satellite C2 system does not require a huge prime company and a marching army of a thousand or more personnel. Constellation C2 can and has historically been accomplished by companies just like the 200+ commercial company in our scenario. Additionally once the USG realizes the prime has failed they need to stop throwing “good money after bad” and restructure the contract, reassign tasks or simply re-compete the contract. As I have said in these pages many times there is not a single satellite constellation in orbit today that requires a $1.6B and certainly not a $4.2B C2 system. And we should not have to wait for 10-12 years for it to come to fruition.

    That is outrageous, I hear you say, and you would be correct. But, of course, this is just an imaginary scenario! Surely that never really happened, did it?

    To quote Winston Churchill, as I have numerous times, “Gentlemen, we have run out of money; now we have to think.”

    60 Minutes and GAO

    Recently the investigative news program 60 Minutes has become keenly interested in space and so far it has been a great experience for AFSPC (Air Force Space Command), the United States Air Force (USAF) and the USG. Space and the technology it enables are force multipliers and our freedoms in this great country of ours depend more and more on the space domain and billions of people around the globe depend on GPS for positioning, navigation and timing. GPS is without a doubt the most successful and important constellation in orbit today; bar none. It is a good news story and one of which we can all be proud. Let’s hope it continues to be a good experience.

    However, when the GAO, or Government Accountability Office, comes calling the story or experience is not always so positive. The word is out that the GAO has been snooping around AFSPC and several prime space contractors and small space companies as well. As the investigative arm of Congress, government programs rarely fare well or, should I say, sometimes bid “farewell” once the GAO is on the scent. I challenge you to find a single government program manager that can say he is just waiting with fond hopes for Congress to tell him how to run his program.

    Bottom Line

    This could be an outstanding and pivotal year for NFL football, for Tim Tebow and for USG space acquisition programs, if we all learn the hard lessons from the Tim Tebow experience. Don’t mess with success, and bigger and more sophisticated is not always better.

    So, which word in the title is not like the others? Only time will tell.

    Until next time, happy navigating, and remember: GPS is brought to you free of charge, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force.

  • McMurdo Opens Emergency Response Experience Center

    McMurdo Opens Emergency Response Experience Center

    Photo: McMurdo

    McMurdo has opened an Emergency Readiness and Response Experience Center at its Washington, D.C., location. The center will showcase the latest innovations and technology developments for search and rescue (SAR) in an immersive experience with real-time demonstrations of the entire SAR process — from distress beacon activation to satellite-based location detection to emergency response coordination.

    The facility will feature a working MEOSAR (Medium Earth Orbit Search and Rescue) satellite-based search and rescue system, the next-generation version of the current Cospas-Sarsat satellite system that has saved more than 37,000 lives since 1982. When fully deployed in the next 3 to 5 years, MEOSAR will greatly improve the existing SAR process with global coverage, near instantaneous distress beacon detection and a unique Return Link Service feature that acknowledges distress signal receipt. MEOSAR’s advanced technologies will be able to accurately detect and locate a distress beacon signal almost instantaneously instead of taking up to 30 minutes today.

    For background on how GNSS satellites will be used in the MEOSAR system, see “The Distress Alerting Satellite System” Innovation article.

    Visitors to the center will gain an understanding of the different search and rescue technologies by taking part in various search and rescue scenarios. Participants will also have the opportunity to sit at the controls of mission control center and rescue coordination center systems, similar to the McMurdo solutions used around the world by NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Australia Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) and other SAR authorities.

    “This cutting-edge Experience Center allows us to demonstrate the incredible advancements being made in search and rescue all in a single location,” said Jean-Yves Courtois, CEO of McMurdo. “Our decades of experience in pioneering the latest SAR advancements, our leadership position as the only company that provides an end-to-end SAR ecosystem and our ongoing commitment to saving lives put us in the unique position to showcase these emergency readiness and response solutions for our customers, our partners and the industry.”

    Guests will also see SAR-enhanced applications such as fleet management, coastal surveillance and innovative partner solutions for aviation, fishing, maritime, military and other industries. Classroom training and other educational sessions led by industry experts and SAR specialists will take place at the new center.

    “The McMurdo Experience Center is unique in its ability to make the entire search and rescue process come to life, which we haven’t seen done before in a centralized setting,” said Bruce Reid, CEO, International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF). “We at the IMRF are delighted to be working with McMurdo on a variety of SAR training, education and awareness activities. Access to this location as a true center of excellence for the search and rescue sector can only enhance this activity.”

    Personalized, custom tours of the McMurdo Experience Center for customers, partners and press can be reserved.

    McMurdo products and services are used by some of the biggest names in the world including Airbus, Boeing, British Airways, Embraer, Southwest and United Airlines as well as the British Royal Navy, U.S. Coast Guard and numerous global search and rescue authorities. McMurdo was instrumental in the high-profile rescue of Clipper Round the World Race Sailor Andrew Taylor and was recently named as the official safety beacon partner of the hit reality series Deadliest Catch.

  • Satnav Augmentation Systems Settle on Common Channels Post-2020

    Satnav Augmentation Systems Settle on Common Channels Post-2020

    EGNOS is Europe’s first venture into satellite navigation. EGNOS broadcasts augmented information through a trio of geostationary satellites linked to a network of monitoring ground stations, to sharpen the accuracy and reliability of GPS signals across the continent.
    EGNOS is Europe’s first venture into satellite navigation. EGNOS broadcasts augmented information through a trio of geostationary satellites linked to a network of monitoring ground stations, to sharpen the accuracy and reliability of GPS signals across the continent. (artist’s concept: ESA)

    News from the European Space Agency

    The next decade’s aircraft pilots will be able to rely on enhanced, reliable satellite navigation signals on a seamless basis across much of the world, thanks to decisions made at the latest gathering of worldwide satnav augmentation system providers and experts.

    The U.S. Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) and European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) are leading examples of satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS) that apply additional ground stations and satellite transponders to sharpen the accuracy and reliability of existing satnav services across given geographical regions.

    These performance enhancements permit satnav to be employed for safety-of-life services, especially aviation. Such systems are based on the U.S. GPS for now, but plans are being laid to move to a multi-constellation design employing Europe’s Galileo, China’s Beidou and Russia’s GLONASS satnav systems beyond 2020.

    The 28th Satellite-based Augmentation Systems Interoperability Working Group (IWG), planning standardization of SBAS systems to come, was hosted at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre at Noordwijk, the Netherlands, on April 1-3.

    The ESTEC facility in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.
    The ESTEC facility in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. (Photo: ESA)

    All participants unanimously endorsed the “message definition” for a new secondary SBAS channel — to be known as L5, along with the current L1 — for the planned second-generation SBAS systems, which will utilize dual-frequency multi-constellation signals.

    Using dual frequencies greatly increases the accuracy of navigation systems, by allowing interference from the ionosphere — an electrically active outer layer of Earth’s atmosphere — to be largely subtracted from the final result.

    “This definition is presented in what is called the Dual Frequency Multi-Constellation Definition document,” explained Didier Flament, representing ESA. “It represents the outcome of a four-year activity, which started at IWG 19 in Japan, back in 2010, coordinated between all IWG members under the technical leadership of ESA and French space agency CNES on the European side, and the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and Stanford University on the U.S. side.

    “The formal IWG review loop for the document took six months to conclude, with this IWG 28 then allowing endorsements to be gathered by SBAS project managers, culminating in formal signatures to the document,” Flament said.

    Planned_SBAS_coverage_for_2020-W
    SBAS coverage for 2020: Comparing current worldwide SBAS coverage — based on WAAS, EGNOS and MSAS — to the situation envisaged for 2020–25: near-global coverage based on WAAS, EGNOS, MAAS, SDCM and GAGAN, with an expanded network of stations in the southern hemisphere, all based on a common dual-frequency/dual satnav standard being finalized by the SBAS Interoperability Working Group. (Image: ESA)

    IWG members now intend to have this document accepted by the official international SBAS standardization bodies: the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the U.S. Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) and the European Organisation for Civil Aviation Equipment.

    “This next step is very important,” added Didier. “Not only for the coming 2016-22 implementation of the European EGNOS v3 but for implementation of other second generation SBAS in other regions of the world.”

    The meeting also reported on the state of development of the other global SBAS systems. Along with the four operational systems — the U.S. WAAS, European EGNOS, Japan’s Multi-functional Satellite Augmentation System (MSAS) and India’s GPS-aided geo-augmented navigation or GPS and geo-augmented navigation system (GAGAN) — these comprise South Korea’s KASS, China’s Beidou SBAS, Russia’s System for Differential Corrections and Monitoring (SDCM) and the West African Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) SBAS.

    The follow-up IWG meeting will take place in October, hosted by the FAA in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the next RTCA meeting.

  • Geodetics Teams with Velodyne for Real-Time Mobile Mapping Systems

    Geodetics-SolPark-W

    Geodetics Inc. has teamed up with Silicon Valley’s Velodyne Lidar. Velodyne and Geodetics will work on a variety of initiatives to enhance each others technologies and products with the goal of offering a small-size integrated inertial navigation and LiDAR-based mobile mapping payload for UAVs and other autonomous platforms.

    Payloads will include Velodyne’s HDL-64E, HDL-32E and VLP-16 real-time LiDAR systems combined with Geodetics’ Geo-iNAV inertial navigation systems.

    Geodetics and Velodyne are exhibiting this week at AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems Show in Atlanta, being held May 4-7 (booth 1500J and booth 2838 respectively). See our show coverage page for more information.

    Velodyne’s LiDAR sensors are the highest performance LiDAR systems on the market in their size, weight and power class. Geo-iNAV is a fully-integrated GPS-aided inertial navigation system that provides real-time, high-precision positioning and navigation for manned and unmanned air, sea and ground vehicles. It combines GPS and proprietary sensor fusion technologies to achieve centimeter-level real-time positioning and navigation for dynamic platforms.

    “We’re delighted to work with Geodetics to ease the integration process for our customers,” said David Oroshnik, Technical Sales Engineer, Velodyne LiDAR. “Our decision to support Geodetics is based upon the growing demand for cost-effective, small-sized, fully-integrated mobile mapping payloads that deliver performance traditionally associated with higher-end systems.”

    “Velodyne’s LiDAR systems enable Geodetics’ products to reach new markets and customers by delivering high performance in a smaller package and for a lower cost than competing devices,” said Lydia Bock, Geodetics president and CEO.

    With recent advances in unmanned vehicle technologies, the GNSS ecosystem has expanded to support such mission-critical applications as mobile mapping. These applications increasingly require more accurate navigation to accomplish their mission. The Geo-iNAV family of inertial navigation products delivers this capability with features that support reliable and precise navigation with a low SWaP (size, weight and power) profile for autonomous vehicles and payloads on manned vehicles.

    Geo-iNAV is offered in several configurations designed to meet a wide range of requirements. It is available in commercial as well as SAASM configurations, meeting a wide range of inertial navigation application requirements.

  • Hemisphere GNSS Releases Next-Generation GNSS RTK Engine

    Hemisphere GNSS has released Athena, its next-generation GNSS engine. Offering significantly enhanced performance, Athena provides Hemisphere with a new, future-oriented foundation providing strong performance, flexibility and reliability, according to the company.

    Athena has yielded outstanding performed in virtually every environment where high-accuracy GNSS receivers can be used, the company stated. Hemisphere customers have tested Athena’s performance in long baseline, in open-sky environments, under heavy canopy, and in geographic locations experiencing significant scintillation.

    Hemisphere has designed its new core engine to maximize the company’s ability to excel at the rigorous GNSS requirements in multiple market segments, supplying its customers in machine control, survey and GIS, with a design for now and in the future, Hemisphere said in a statement.

    The release of Athena is a significant milestone for Hemisphere, which promises another new product entry into the market in the coming months.

    Features of Athena include these capabilities:

    • Initialization time — A reliably consistent initialization performance, less than 15 seconds at better than 99.9 percent reliability.
    • Robustness in difficult operating environments — Extremely high productivity under the most aggressive of geographic and landscape oriented environments for GNSS, while delivering up to 50 percent better performance in user tests matched against competitive systems.
    • Performance on long baselines — Position stability for long baseline applications, with position quality often times exceeding the performance of other leading RTK systems on the market.
    • Performance under scintillation — Sustained accuracy under ionospheric scintillation activities, providing one of the most reliable means to work with GNSS in scintillation-affected areas.

    Rodrigo Leandro, Hemisphere’s director of engineering, GNSS Positioning Systems, gave this description of the design process for Athena.

    “Development of Athena started shortly after I came to Hemisphere in August of 2013. The company has been a leader in RTK solutions for many years. During those years, we focused in certain specific market segments such as agriculture, and under new leadership we determined there was a need to address a wider spectrum of market segments, with very high accuracy and feature rich capabilities built on the strong legacy platform we had already established. So, working with Mike Whitehead, the company CTO and our main RTK technologist, we identified the goal of reengineering our RTK engine to match the needs of RTK for the next 10 years, and to provide a foundation for future product development.”

    Leandro continued, “As part of this, we made a decision to build an expanded, world-class software development team, pulling great talent from around the industry to create a group of 11 totally focused on what we should do to move GNSS technologies forward — looking at all types of positioning techniques, not just RTK. Athena is just the first result of that work to become publicly available — you will see plenty more coming from the team over time.

    “Looking at Athena specifically, we did a complete review, touching every part of the engine — from how we deal with the atmosphere, quality-control of the data, modeling the clock of the receiver, and so on, through to how to do external corrections, whether single-based or network-based. We even looked at and modified the receiver system, improving the multitasking architecture to more actively use the CPU for our computational work,” Leandro said.

    “I’m proud to say that the results of all that work match up to what we envisioned. RTK is a pretty mature technology at this point, so improving on what is available in the industry is a tough ask. However, our extensive competitive testing shows that the engine performs really well in terms of initialization, accuracy, and stability across a range of different environments, for instance in long baselines and under tree canopy, and our tests of scintillation are showing great results as well. Overall, we have seen excellent accuracy coming out of this engine compared to legacy as well as others in the marketplace. It’s hard to win every single time in a toe-to-toe comparison, as systems and conditions differ in every test, but our broad testing shows us not only matching, but beating competitive systems pretty consistently.”

    Photo: Hemisphere GNSS

    “In our user base, both Hemisphere branded products and our OEM boards, we get exposed to a wide variety of applications and environments, from agriculture and marine, through machine control applications and survey systems,” Leandro said. “Our goal from the start was to build a system that performed across that user base, and we are proud to say that we have delivered with Athena.”

    “In terms of availability, we want to get the Athena engine on as many current and legacy systems as possible, so our users have the best possible experience. However, we have also been improving the legacy engine as well, delivering gradual steps of improvement to our customers, so whatever version they are using, their experience should be much improved,” Leandro concluded.

    Test Reports

    Hemisphere GNSS provided the following statements by an independent tester and from customers, widely distributed around the industry.

    “I’ve had an opportunity to thoroughly test Athena in both moderate and extreme environments,” said Andy Carbognin, an independent GNSS test specialist at Vecto Geomatics of Ottowa, Canada. “I’m very impressed with the performance, and we’ve tested alongside the current industry leaders’ top-of-the-line products. In every situation, Athena is proving to be a tremendous improvement over Hemisphere’s most widespread legacy firmware versions, at a minimum, matching the industry’s best while in many cases exceeding their performance.”

    “Carlson Software has extensively tested Hemisphere’s new Athena RTK engine on the Carlson BRx5 GNSS receiver,” said Butch Herter, director of Hardware Development, Carlson Software. “The Athena RTK engine provides precise, reliable, and repeatable positions. Athena exceeds or matches the performance of all other GNSS receivers it has been tested against. We have been particularly impressed with the performance of the Athena engine, when using a long baseline or in areas where there is a limited view of the sky. Athena is a first class RTK engine.”

    “We’ve been working with Hemisphere’s technology for a number of years,” states Randy Noland, vice president of business development and director of Machine Control, Carlson Software. “I’m amazed at the team they’ve brought together and how they’re radically modernizing their technology. Collaborating with the ‘new’ Hemisphere has been an eye-opening experience, and I’m excited at how their innovative technologies will positively impact our future business.”

    “In the marine construction and hydrographic survey markets, time is money. We’ve seen very high system reliability and impeccable results using the Athena RTK engine, which ensures we are achieving maximum up-time,” said Harrison Steves, operations manager at Cable Arm. “As well, not being tied to a specific make of RTK base gives us flexibility with our equipment deployment.”

    “We’ve found Athena to offer exceptional performance, especially their RTK fix times and maintaining RTK lock on long baselines,” said David Vaughn, CEO, Novariant. “With the latest competitive performance testing completed, Novariant is excited about adding Hemisphere’s Athena offering to the list of the Novariant-recognized certified receivers that, when combined with our precision steering solution, can assure centimeter-level steering control in the toughest environments in the world.”

    CEO Statement

    “Our goal is to be nothing short of the best GNSS technology partner in the industry, and a key component of that is delivering market-leading technologies tailored to our customer’s needs,” said Chuck Joseph, Hemisphere GNSS CEO and president. “To that end, we have put together a world-class team that is totally rethinking our product family, and our new Athena engine is just the first, powerful proof of our fresh approach. Watch this space!”

    Availability

    Before the end of this month, Athena will be included in all Hemisphere multi-frequency, RTK-capable products, such as the A325, R330, S320 and VS330. To download and install Athena, visit Hemisphere’s Software page.

  • Sky-Watch Partners with General Dynamics on UAVs for Defense

    Sky-Watch Partners with General Dynamics on UAVs for Defense

    Artist's concept of the proposed Airborne Swarm Protection Shield by GDELS and Sky-Watch.
    Artist’s concept of the proposed Airborne Swarm Protection Shield over a GDELS armored vehicle (image courtesy of Sky-Watch).

    General Dynamics European Land Systems (GDELS) has signed a Memorandum of Interest (MOI) with Danish UAV company Sky-Watch in Støvring, which allows the two companies to explore potential areas of cooperation within next-generation applications of UAV technology in the battlefield.

    “Sky-Watch is constantly striving to be at the forefront of the rapidly developing UAV technology,” said Michael Messerschmidt, Sky-Watch chief business development officer. “We offer our vast accumulated know-how within sensor fusion to our partners, in the pursuit of finding new ways to solve tomorrow’s challenges. We constantly rethink and redefine the value proposition, of our own as well as our partners’ ideas and concepts and I believe that we can identify some very exiting avenues of cooperation with General Dynamics European Land Systems.”

    Sky-Watch offers the Huginn X1 multi-purpose Quadrotor UAV deployed all over the world and is developing the Muninn X1, a next-generation fixed-Wing VTOL UAV. The future of UAVs in the battlefield will be explored by Sky-Watch Labs, the research and development arm of Sky-Watch, in cooperation with partners such as the Technical University of Denmark on a variety of projects.

    With regard to the acquisition of new Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) for the Danish Army, General Dynamics European Land Systems is prepared to take its partnerships with Danish industry to the next level and explore business in adjacent markets like the one of Sky-Watch. GDELS has signed Industry Cooperation agreements with 40 Danish companies of all sizes across the country, and has already defined projects in excess of 3,7  billion  kroner covering all of the technology areas defined in the Danish Government’s Defence industry strategy.

    “Throughout the past 20 years, GDELS Industry Cooperation program has been one of the catalysts for the development of the Danish defence industry. We have executed projects of almost 1,7 billion kroner with the industry, which has helped to contribute to the development of new products and technologies in a variety of companies. By engaging with an innovative and creative company such as Sky-Watch, we help plant the seed for the future of the Danish defence industry,” said Jens Bauer, GDELS Senior Director International Business & Services, responsible for Industrial Participation.

    GDELS’s Industry Cooperation plan for the APC program is based on 20 years of experience and partnership with Danish industry. The program expands relationships beyond production and sustainment contracts to also include research & development projects, which will lay the foundation for growth in the Danish Defence industry for decades to come.

  • Mapping the Nation’s First Mothers for Mother’s Day

    FirstMothers-Esri-W

    Forty-four women gave birth to the most influential men in U.S. history — presidents. This Mother’s Day, Esri highlights these “First Mothers” in an interactive story map.

    Navigating the Story Map uncovers interesting facts, such as:

    ·        At 18 years old, Stanley Ann Obama became the youngest First Mother.

    ·        The seven presidents born in Ohio were Republican.

    ·        Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams were born .2 miles apart.

    View the story map here.

     

     

  • Avyon Offers Precision Mapping for Microdrones md4 Fleet from Applanix

    Avyon, a sUAS (Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems) integrator and distributor, is using the Applanix APX UAV for its md4 fleet, to provide users with cost-effective direct georeferencing technology.

    The integration of the Applanix APX-15 UAV on the md4-1000 and md4-3000 microdrones will offer solutions for unmanned aircraft while complying with weight and size restrictions for payloads. The APX-15 works seamlessly with all other airborne sensors such as digital cameras, LIDAR and other sensors, Avy0n said.

    The APX-15 on the md4-1000 microdrone is on display at booth 1803 at the AUVSI Unmanned Systems 2015 show, being held May 4-7 in Atlanta, Ga.

    “The integration of the APX-15 with md4-1000 and md4-3000 will provide users with a precision mapping capability, minimizing or eliminating the requirement for ground control points and making mapping missions more efficient,” said Mike Hogan, Avyon’s business development manager.

    The APX-15 UAV on the md4 fleet will improve aerial mapping by eliminating GCPs (ground control points) for triangulation, as well as reduce the amount of overlap in the surveying process. This will increase efficiency and effectiveness for area flown per mission and the post-mission data processing, Avyon said.

    “We recognize the need to provide the growing UAS mapping market with the same highly efficient solutions that we pioneered for airborne mapping over 15 years ago,” said Joe Hutton, director of Inertial Technology and Airborne Products at Applanix Corporation (xyHt pg. 14). “We are now offering a cost-effective solution that meets the size, weight, power and cost requirements of small UAS, and maintains the Applanix pedigree for quality and performance. We are pleased Avyon has partnered with us. The md4-1000 DMS-UAV is a powerful new solution.”

  • Kairos Unveils UGV Tech for Heavy Equipment at AUVSI 2015

    Kairos Unveils UGV Tech for Heavy Equipment at AUVSI 2015

    Kairos Autonomi produces solutions that can be retrofitted or "strapped-on" to any existing optionally unmanned vehicle or vessel.
    Kairos Autonomi produces solutions that can be retrofitted or “strapped-on” to any existing optionally unmanned vehicle or vessel.

    Kairos Autonomi is displaying its latest autonomous technology designed for use with heavy equipment and machinery. Kairos’ robotic applique kits are add-on vehicle autonomy systems that provide unmanned capabilities to current manned vehicles, rendering them optionally unmanned.

    Equipped with larger gear faces, stronger actuators than its predecessors and a pathing upgrade, the Pronto4 Heavy delivers the increased torque needed to control the traction, braking, throttle and implements in heavy vehicles and equipment, as well as smarter robotic functions such as GPS path following and supervised autonomous behaviors.

    The Pronto4 Heavy Planar Robotic Applique Kit For Heavy Equipment.(PRNewsFoto/Kairos Autonomi)
    The Pronto4 Heavy Planar Robotic Applique Kit For Heavy Equipment. (PRNewsFoto/Kairos Autonomi)

    The robotic applique kit is platform independent, meaning it can be installed in any heavy vehicle or machine, rendering that vehicle optionally unmanned, which means the equipment can still operate manually as needed.

    Kairos Autonomi is exhibiting at the AUVSI Unmanned Systems 2015 show being held May 4-7 in Atlanta, Ga. (booth #1437).

    The Pronto4 Robotic Applique Kit manufactured by Kairos is used throughout the world to convert existing man-operable ground vehicles and surface vessels into unmanned systems. Applications include government or academic research and development; military training and test and evaluation; range clearance; mining; and tactical military applications.

  • Trimble Expands UAS Portfolio for Aerial Imaging with Multirotor Partnership

    Trimble is partnering with unmanned aircraft system (UAS) manufacturer Multirotor service-drone, GmbH. The collaboration will allow Trimble to expand its existing UAS portfolio to provide its customers with additional solutions to choose from based on their aerial imaging project needs.

    Trimble made the announcement at the AUVSI Unmanned Systems 2015 show being held May 4-7 in Atlanta, Ga.

    Multirotor service-drone, based in Germany, is a manufacturer of multi-rotor systems. Trimble will be Multirotor service-drone’s exclusive provider of multi-rotor vehicles for aerial mapping use in surveying, construction, mining, agriculture, oil and gas, and utilities. The combination of Multirotor service-drone’s stable and reliable platforms with Trimble’s industry-leading sensor technology and workflow efficiencies will provide customers with best-in-class solutions for aerial data capture.

    Unmanned multi-rotor systems are powerful solutions for visually documenting smaller areas, vertical structures or environments where holding position is important. High-resolution imagery, orthophotos, terrain models and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) map deliverables created from multi-rotor data provide valuable information for the survey, engineering and agriculture industries that Trimble serves.

    “We are very excited to partner with Multirotor service-drone. At Trimble we’re always looking for ways to meet our customer’s needs and enable them to solve the complex problems they encounter every day,” said Todd Steiner, product marketing director in Trimble’s Geospatial Division. “The collaboration will enable our customers to use a technology rapidly growing in popularity due to its flexibility and productivity.”

  • SenseFly Launches Intelligent Mapping and Inspection Drone

    SenseFly Launches Intelligent Mapping and Inspection Drone

    Photo: SenseFly

    Swiss professional drone maker senseFly has launched the eXom, its new quadcopter UAS for mapping and inspection. The eXom is available to pre-order immediately and ships this summer.

    SenseFly made the announcement at the AUVSI Unmanned Systems 2015 show being held May 4-7 in Atlanta, Ga. (Hall B2, Booth 519).

    The eXom is a sensor-rich system, sensefly said. Developed by experts working across numerous fields of robotics, this lightweight quadcopter offers professionals such as civil engineers and land surveyors the situational awareness, imaging flexibility and durability they need to complete challenging tasks safely, accurately and efficiently.

    “We believe the eXom’s level of application-focused technology is unique in the civilian drone market,” said Antoine Beyeler, CTO and co-founder of senseFly. “This platform tightly integrates several one-of-a-kind features, such as TripleView imaging, advanced situational awareness and full flight mode flexibility — to provide inspection and mapping professionals with the functionality they desire from a rotary system.”

    eXom is a future-ready platform with a quad-core computer onboard, senseFly said. Like senseFly’s fixed-wing drones, it offers users evolving performance through regular software updates, adding the latest drone tech innovations to keep the eXom at the cutting edge for years to come, the company said.

    eXom’s low take-off weight of 1.7 kg (3.7 lb) ensures its users will, in many countries, have less flight authorization paperwork to deal with than those who use heavier systems.

    The eXom’s advanced integrated sensors work together to provide the user with full situational awareness and support obstacle avoidance:

    • Five navcam vision sensors allow the operator to see in the direction the drone is moving, automatically via its flight control software, without needing to turn the system’s TripleView camera head. This technology is similar to the visual parking sensors in modern cars, but brought into a 3D flight environment.
    • Five ultrasonic proximity sensors work in harmony with eXom’s navcams to ensure the operator always knows the drone’s distance from nearby objects. (The drone’s shock-absorbent carbon fibre shrouding is also always on hand to protect its rotors in case of surface contact.)
    • Numerous other sensors, including inertial measurement units, barometers, magnetometers, GPS and magnetic encoders, maximize the drone’s stability and safety.

    eXom’s autopilot-controlled TripleView camera head enables the user to view and record three different types of imagery during a single flight without needing to land to change cameras:

    • HD video
    • Ultra high-resolution stills
    • Thermal still/video

    Because the TripleView head faces forwards, eXom can fly up close to target structures such as building walls and dams to achieve sub-millimeter data resolutions. Plus, with the head’s 270-degree vertical field of view, users can document objects positioned directly above and below the drone — crucial for tasks such as bridge and roof inspections.

    eXom offers various flight modes:

    • Autonomous mode — for mapping projects. First, create a flight plan using eMotion X’s mission blocks. eXom then launches, flies, acquires geo-referenced imagery and lands itself.
    • Interactive ScreenFly mode — this streaming video mode is for live inspection tasks. Use the supplied joypad to navigate and orient the drone via computer screen. This mode includes flight assistance features such as cruise control and distance lock.
    • Create a flight plan, launch in autonomous mode, then go live on demand.
    • No matter which mode is activated, RC-based manual control always remains available as a backup function and for experienced pilots.

    Full technical specifications can be downloaded on this PDF.

    Visit senseFly at Unmanned Systems 2015: Hall B2, Booth 519. The eXom will be demonstrated in flight at the senseFly booth at at the show’s Air & Ground Demo Area (demo timings: May 6, 12:15 and 14:15, May 7, 11:45 and 14:15).

  • Trimble Provides Software Enhancements for GIS, Remote Sensing

    Trimble has announced a series of new software enhancements that enable photogrammetry, GIS, geospatial and remote sensing professionals to streamline workflows, achieve faster results and gain increased value from highly accurate geospatial data. Enhancements include the Trimble Inpho version 6.1 photogrammetric suite, UASMaster version 6.1 and UASMaster Lite for Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) applications, and eCognition  version 9.1 and eCognition Essentials version 1.1 image analysis software.

    The announcement was made at the Imaging and Geospatial Technology Forum (IGTF), formerly ASPRS, held May 4-8 in Tampa, Fla.

    “Optimizing software workflows for our customers to gain value from imaging data is critical for the success of geospatial professionals and a continued focus of Trimble Geospatial,” said Alain Samaha, business area director of GIS and Geospatial Software Solutions for Trimble’s Geospatial Division. “The new enhancements will enable customers to streamline processes and increase their efficiency and productivity, which translates to increased cost savings and decreased operational expenditures.”

    Photogrammetry professionals generating high-quality deliverables, with Trimble’s Inpho software, such as 3D CAD line work, GIS layers and DTMs, can now reduce production time by days through optimized geo-referencing capabilities and new tools for CAD object creation. The Inpho version 6.1 enhancement allows snapping-to-elevation and draping lines-to-elevation models—for greater efficiency in creating CAD data layers—while maintaining the highest level of accuracy.

    The UASMaster version 6.1 software enhancement offers greater productivity through new support for precise GNSS data that allows users to reduce the number of ground control points required without compromising accuracy. For professionals new to the UAS market, UASMaster is now also available in an entry-level “Lite” edition. The new UASMaster Lite edition allows users to quickly extract high quality deliverables within a simplified workflow, while obtaining the same industry-leading quality offered with Inpho software.

    Inpho version 6.1 and UASMaster version 6.1 now also include a direct interface connection to Trimble’s eCognition analysis software, making it easier to obtain actionable and valuable information from imagery data in land classification maps, GIS layers and change analysis.

    eCognition version 9.1, an object-based image analysis software, now includes enhanced multi-core processing, allowing GIS, geospatial and remote sensing professionals to extract valuable information from satellite and aerial based data faster than before. New GIS-based analytic tools and improved tools for packaging applications make it easier to create customer solutions.

    eCognition Essentials version 1.1 provides up to 50-percent faster processing than previously, including improved flexibility and control of classification workflows for professionals generating land-cover mapping deliverables.

    The new versions are available now.