GPS is an essential element of the global information infrastructure and supports nearly every facet of modern life. However, the availability and usage of low-cost GPS jamming devices has resulted in the increased threat of intentional and unintentional disruption to commercial and industrial systems that rely on precise GPS data. That is why Exelis developed Signal Sentry 1000, a solution that enables authorities to locate with pin-point accuracy the sources of interference thereby assuring safety, efficiency, and revenue. This webinar will discuss the threat and Signal Sentry, and will be of interest to anyone whose organization relies on GPS for information or commerce. Registration is free.
Date: Thursday, December 5, 2013 Time: 10 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. EST / 6 p.m. GMT
Moderator
Don Jewell, Editor, Defense PNT Newsletter
Speaker
Jeff Coffed, Product Marketing Manager, Exelis Inc.
Jeff Coffed is a marketing professional with over 20 years’ experience in the high-tech sector. Currently, he has product marketing responsibility for the Analytical Instruments, Precision Optics, Precision Structures and Positioning, Navigation and Timing divisions at Exelis.
Panelists
Carl Slutsky, Product Manager for Signal Sentry 1000, Exelis
Carl leads product strategy and development efforts and is responsible for product technology road maps and the engineering requirements for the ongoing development of the Signal Sentry product line.
Joseph Rolli, Signal Sentry Business Manager, Exelis
Joseph Rolli is a senior program manager in the Positioning Navigation and Timing group at Exelis.
Jon Schnabel, Chief Scientist, Geospatial Systems, Exelis
Jon Schnabel is a Senior Staff Scientist at Exelis Geospatial Systems with 33 years of Systems Engineering experience. He has worked on for 15 years in various Systems Engineering roles on both the Space Segment (Blocks IIR, IIR-M, III) and Ground Segment (OCX) programs.he pace will only accelerate. Sort through the multiple issues and get your roadmap to the future with Janice Partyka and a panel of industry experts.
Imagine a vault of highly accurate geolocation data that provides look-up service for any device, in any country, based on publicly sent signal data. It is an appealing idea. Mozilla, best known for its popular Firefox browser, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to openness on the web. No one is better positioned to create the very first public geolocation database. Mozilla wants to build the data service with the end goals of enabling innovation and improving location data privacy. The group makes the point that improving the privacy of user data is counter incentivizing for-profit companies that collect this data. Privacy continues to be a major industry issue that has gotten more than one company in trouble with regulators and customers.
Mozilla is starting out with a pilot project, named “Mozilla Location Service,” to assess how it would build and operate a location service to provide geolocation look-up for devices. The data will be based on publicly observed cell tower, Wi-Fi or IP address information. Mozilla is enlisting its loyal community to collect the data via a special app for Android-based phones.
Admitting Wrongness. Those of us who skewered Apple for its map troubles continue to eat crow. The Apple maps have improved and are popular, or at least good enough, with most iPhone and iPad users in the U.S. As you may recall, Google maps were expelled from the iPhone when Google refused to give Apple access to its turn-by-turn navigation. Google, who had delighted in Apple’s map debacle, has now been badly humbled. The company has lost almost 23 million mobile users in the U.S. as a result of its banishment. iOS users can still assess Google Maps, but data from market research firm ComScore suggests that few actually take the trouble to download Google Maps. When iOS 6 began to roll out and introduced Apple’s maps as the default, the number using Google Maps dropped precipitously, even as the number of iPhones and Android phones began rising.
Big Money from Mapping. The value of being a map provider cannot be underestimated. Both Apple and Google cull anonymous data for traffic reporting and improving their network. More importantly, they have created a gold mine by using the data to glean for behavioral information about users. The data is fed to advertisers who create contextual ads that are more likely to get us to buy. Google also uses the data to improve search results.
Good news for the Enterprise Industry. A survey of 500 fleet operators conducted by C.J. Driscoll and Associates shows high satisfaction and strong intent to purchase GPS fleet management systems. From an enterprise customer’s standpoint, GPS-enabled solutions are measured by how quickly the company can recoup its outlay. An impressive two thirds of the fleets surveyed reported that they have recouped their investment in their GPS fleet solutions. Of the fleets that haven’t deployed a GPS fleet management system, 16 percent indicated that they expect to do so within the next 18 months. The fleet survey is contained in the C.J. Driscoll 2013-14 Survey of Fleet Operator Interest in MRM Systems and Services report.
The Final Frontier: Indoor Location. Applications are increasingly hungry for ubiquitous, well-performing location for all devices. Sensor fusion, or the intelligent combination of data from multiple sensors, will become a standard feature to help make this happen in indoor locales. “Sensor fusion will surpass Wi-Fi and Bluetooth low energy (BLE) as the most important handset-based indoor location technology by 2017,” predicts Patrick Connolly of ABI Research. “We see a significant trend towards hybridization, with Wi-Fi, BLE, and sensor fusion proving to be vital.” Companies in this market include Movea, HillCrest, indoo.rs, and Senionlab.
Wind Blowing in New Direction. PlaceIQ, the location context company, has ventured into location-based behavior analytics. The start-up company had been focused on providing information on the context of location in small geographic areas, 100 by 100 square meter units. One of the company’s new offerings, PIQ Analytics, “can identify which competitors a brand’s audience is most likely to visit, the restaurants where they typically dine, the type of device they use, and the stores that they frequent,” reports the PlaceIQ website. The company’s other new product tracks individuals and “determines where consumers were before arriving at a brand’s physical location.” PlaceIQ is going to have to careful how it treads this ground, if it wants to avoid raising opposition from privacy watchdog groups.
Mapping Sadness As you may have heard, a father has discovered that Google Maps shows the body of his son, who was shot to death in 2009 beside a railroad track in Richmond, California. In a written statement, Google announced that it would accelerate the replacement of the satellite image of the map, the first time that it made such a change due to a request. Google indicated would take about eight days to make the change, as the image has continued to be visible on their maps. Perhaps a reader can explain to me why replacing this map segment would take so long, or why the image could not have been obscured by Google until the replacement is made?
I will be moderating a session at the IEEE International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo on December 5 in Las Vegas. The SAE-organized panel is on Connected Infotainment. The panelist are industry experts who will share perspectives in this interactive session.
Niche markets for location companies are sometimes hit-and-miss. One real opportunity that is gaining more traction among location companies is towing. There are legions of Duck Dynasty-type of towing trade show attendees, but you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. There is tons of money in the towing industry as banks, insurance companies, motor clubs and other technology entities are flocking to these shows. Many times that scruffy-looking guy in a Duck Dynasty T-shirt is a multi-million-dollar owner of a big towing company. Companies such as Verizon are ramping up their fleet opportunities for more conventional markets, which leads one to say, once again, that the fleet, mobile resource management market is still growing and lucrative.
BALTIMORE — Although it is a strong niche market, the towing industry is gaining traction among the dozen or so location companies that were exhibing at the recent American Towman Exposition here.
Location companies exhibiting asked towing operators to look at the usual benefits of their products: fuel savings, dispatching tow trucks to the nearest incident, reducing idle time, reduced overtime hours, monitoring of speeds and other features. The location companies present were TomTom, Teletrac, Fleetmatics, Progressive Platforms and others.
Several financial institutions were on site who acknowledged the importance of tracking and monitoring technology in towing company fleets and headquarters. One banker said that he will not give a loan to a towing company unless it has, across a fleet, a real-time tracking system. The same goes for many insurance companies.
TomTom Business Solutions is offering its Webfleet product to tow companies. The company recently integrated the unit with Service Station Computer Systems Digital Dispatch software to reduce administrative tasks between an office and tower site. At the conference, towing software and services companies such as FTI Groups are integrating location company products from BudgetGPS, Geotab, TomTom and sureFleet Mobile into their offerings for transportation markets.
One challenge that location companies may have in smaller niche markets is volume. One company says it cannot sell to fleets with five or fewer trucks.
Verizon Partnering with Samsung and XRS on Trucking Product
Verizon recently partnered with Samsung Telecommunications America and XRS Corp. on a mobile software product, called NXT, for the transportation industry. The unit uses Verizon’s 4G LTE network and works on Samsung Mobile’s devices.
NXT allows drivers and fleets to use Samsung Mobile devices with an XRS trucking software subscription. The unit is available on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 and has a $54 per month data and subscription plan. Other fees include $39 for a monthly XRS fee and $15 for wireless data.
The NXT rollout doesn’t affect sales or shift away from in-vehicle hardware now offered by Verizon, said Michael Toto, Verizon Enterprise Solutions director of strategic global alliances. “We view this as a complementary addition, not a shift away from our in-vehicle solutions,” he said.
Toto says that the company’s partnerships, with Samsung and XRS, allow Verizon to provide a broader portfolio that allows its customers more business options. With best-in-class partnerships, such as Samsung and XRS, it can provide a broader solution portfolio allowing its customers to select a solution that closely matches business needs.
Toto believes the NXT deal is a big deal and differentiates Verizon from other wireless carriers’ fleet offerings. “NXT is a game changer in the fleet industry because it is a comprehensive solution to help transportation companies be MAP 21 compliant,” he said. “The elements are available separately, but have never been offered before as a complete end-to-end solution.”
Toto says Verizon provides high-speed wireless connectivity right now for operators. “Tomorrow we will further integrate the solution with Verizon technologies,” he said.
Echoing what Toto said, NXT also offers integration with many enterprise transportation products. Over time, the platform collaboration will expand to introduce additional components, including MDM and wearable products, the companies said in a prepared statement.
The product, which was developed through the Samsung Solutions Exchange program, works in both over-the-road and private carrier configurations — and according to the companies — is tailored to fleets of all sizes. The companies say that since the unit works on certified smartphones, tablets and handhelds, it allows companies to comply with the pending Electronic Logging Device, or ELD, mandate for recording driver’s hours-of-service.
In other location news:
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently said that more than two-thirds of the calls to 911 emergency centers in Texas from wireless phones do not include the accurate location information necessary to find a caller in crisis. The data, provided to the FCC by state and local 911 agencies, show a dramatic drop in more accurate “Phase II” data in Texas from 67 percent of all wireless calls in January 2011 to just 33 percent in June 2013, despite a dramatic increase in cell phone calls over the same period.
C.J. Driscoll & Associates released a new multi-client marketing research study covering U.S. fleet operators with Mobile Resource Management systems and services. The 2013-14 Survey of Fleet Operator Interest in MRM Systems and Servicesassesses fleet operator interest in GPS fleet management, driver behavior management, and GPS-equipped handset/portable solutions for managing mobile workers. The study was partially funded by 14 companies, including major cellular carriers, GPS fleet management solution providers, suppliers of driver behavior management systems, and other leading telematics suppliers to the fleet market. The following are among the key findings of the study: More than three-fourths of the fleets that are using a GPS fleet management system reported a high level of satisfaction with their system and two-thirds reported that they have recouped their investment in the system. Another study finding indicates participating fleets that have never used a GPS fleet management system expect to deploy a system in the next 12-18 months.
MapQuest, which hasn’t gotten the publicity of Google Maps or Apple, recently rolled out a new mapping application, which was a nine-month project. The new mapping app features layers of information “around” a user such as coffee, bars, gas, banks and parking. The new app gets traffic updates on the fly and works more like a standard GPS system, according to published reports. MapQuest is still the number 3 mobile map provider, which is a quiet stat given how long the company has been around in the location industry.
Qualcomm Incorporated has announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., is enhancing location precision in smartphones and tablets initially in China with support for China’s BeiDou Satellite Navigation System.
Supporting the BeiDou constellation within Qualcomm IZat location solutions increases the number of satellites that Qualcomm-based devices can access to provide greater position location accuracy. Qualcomm is collaborating with Samsung to launch the first wave of BeiDou enhanced consumer smartphones, demonstrating the commitment of the companies to provide technology that delivers optimum performance for location-based services within China and globally.
Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor (MSM8974), the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (WCDMA 3G version SM-N9006 & TD-LTE 4G version SM-N9008V) uses the industry’s first, integrated tri-band location platform to provide more accurate and responsive location data to mobile users. It does so by concurrently processing signals from multiple satellite networks. Armed with this capability, users will have more enjoyable experiences using their location-based services, even in the most challenging of environments.
Leveraging Qualcomm IZat location solutions, Samsung will be able to deliver an optimal user experience with quick and accurate location information and services in China. Historically, this has been a challenge in some locations, especially in urban canyons, where devices may suffer from low visibility to satellites blocked by tall buildings that obstruct the signals. Bringing BeiDou-enabled phones to China means the Galaxy Note 3 has access to more satellites, which increases location accuracy. This ultimately improves customers’ pedestrian navigation, speeds local searches and enhances other location-based services.
Qualcomm’s mobile chipsets feature interoperability with existing constellations, which use tri-band hardware integration to deliver improved location capabilities in an optimal way, with enhanced accuracy, and with no additional increase in power consumption. In Snapdragon and Gobi™ chipsets, global positioning support is built into the modem and RF chips, enabling the location signals to be processed in the modem, instead of waking up the apps processor, thus saving power without sacrificing location accuracy.
“This industry-first implementation of BeiDou in a smartphone underscores Qualcomm’s leadership in the location industry. More than 3 billion devices which feature Qualcomm’s location technology have shipped to date and the introduction of BeiDou is the latest step to evolve our technology,” said Amir Faintuch, president, Qualcomm Atheros. “We see BeiDou’s support being an important factor for OEMs in China, and globally as well. With this new location enhancement, we believe our customers can bring greater differentiation with advanced performance, applications and services.”
Proteus, a provider of satellite-derived bathymetric mapping and seabed classification services, represented the mapping industry in a British trade delegation to Tripoli organized by the Libya-British Business Council (LBBC). Proteus presented potential solutions to coastal mapping challenges faced by Libya during meetings with the National Oil Corporation, Ports and Maritime Transport Authority, University of Tripoli, and Libyan Center for Remote Sensing.
“At every meeting, we were introduced to government ministers and business leaders who are eager to begin rebuilding Libya,” said Proteus CEO, David Critchley. “Libya recognizes that mapping will be the critical first step in rebuilding infrastructure across the country.”
Invited to participate by Tilden International, Proteus was the sole mapping representative in the LBBC delegation, which included British companies involved in the energy, security and computing sectors. Held in late September 2013, the delegation mission was led by Sir Dominic Asquith, former British Ambassador to Libya.
Since 2011, Proteus has been delivering offshore mapping projects for environmental, oil and gas, marine biology and other coastal zone applications in Europe, the Middle East and Caribbean, completed in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods. Proteus is currently engaged in a major offshore project in the Arabian Gulf, providing bathymetric and seabed classification services in the coastal zone using satellite imagery.
“Whether exporting petroleum products from its shores or bringing tourists into the country, Libya sees development of its Mediterranean shipping ports as key to future economic success,” said Critchley. “Upgrading existing ports and building new ones will require mapping the seafloor several kilometers from the coast, and that’s why Proteus was invited to join the delegation.”
Proteus uses commercially developed processes to derive bathymetric and seafloor classification information from high-resolution, 8-band multispectral imagery collected by DigitalGlobe Inc.’s WorldView-2 satellite and acquired by Proteus through its direct relationship with DigitalGlobe. Derived products have high accuracy, meeting the requirements of engineering, environmental monitoring and strategic geospatial planning applications.
“Compared with maritime sonar and airborne LiDAR, satellite-derived bathymetric surveys are completed at a fraction of the time and cost,” said Critchley. “The ecological constraints, submerged reefs, and political issues that hamper traditional hydrographic mapping methods are of no hindrance to us.”
UrsaNav’s President, Charles Schue, shown accepting the transmitter from Nautel’s President, Peter Conlon.
After extensive Final Acceptance Testing at Nautel’s Hackett’s Cove, NS facility, UrsaNav has accepted delivery of the first production NL40 Loran-C and Enhanced Loran (eLoran) transmitter. This seventh-generation Loran transmitter technology is the culmination of more than six years of collaborative development between the two companies.
The transmitter successfully met or exceeded all of the requirements of the U.S. Coast Guard “Specification of the Transmitted Loran-C Signal.” Testing was conducted into a simulated antenna matching the characteristics of a U.S. Coast Guard “standard” 625-foot top-loaded monopole. The NL-Series transmitters are capable of transmitting Loran-C, eLoran, Chayka, and eChayka in any combination at power levels exceeding one megawatt. They are qualified for today, and prepared for tomorrow, UrsaNav said.
“Resilient PNT begins with complementary technologies, layered one upon the other in such a way that the user is ensured improved continuity of operations over a sole-source solution,” said UrsaNav President Charles Schue. “eLoran is the terrestrial co-primary complement to GNSS, and our technology makes eLoran the most economical, efficient, and wide-area alternative when GNSS is not available.”
Explosive growth in the UAV market is the focus of a free GPS World webinar this Thursday. Most on-board navigation systems in UAVs — unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — rely on GNSS or GNSS with inertial aiding.
As military budgets decline, interest in civilian commercial applications is growing rapidly. The FAA recently awarded special type certification to two UAVs for commercial Arctic operations, and the industry is now poised for the opening of the regulation floodgates to address a growing commercial demand.
In Thursday’s webcast, “Unmanned Aircraft Navigation,” participants will hear from industry leaders in GNSS-based navigation for UAVs, in both the military and civilian sectors: they will tell us what they are doing in UAV navigation and where they see this exciting market going.
The webinar will be held Thursday, November 21, 10 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. EST / 6 p.m. GMT. Registration is free.
Guest Speakers
Olivier Casabianca, Business Area Manager, Trimble GNSS OEM
Casabianca works on the Trimble GNSS OEM portfolio which includes both the Trimble and Ashtech receiver module product lines. He joined Trimble in 2011 with the Ashtech acquisition where he was driving the Ashtech GNSS Technology roadmap and OEM portfolio. He has worked in the GNSS industry since 1997 and has held various positions in Engineering (RTK, GNSS Heading and Attitude firmware engineer, program management, engineering manager) and Marketing. He is located in Nantes area of France.
Hal Adams, Chief Operating Officer, Accord Technology
Hal Adams is founder and Managing Director of AvValues LLC which partnered with Accord Software & Systems, Bangalore, India to form Accord Technology LLC of Phoenix, Arizona USA. Adams has more than 35 years of civil and military aerospace and avionics experience in the aerospace industry, including senior leadership positions in general management, product and business strategies, development activities with Northwest Airlines, Lockheed-Martin, Litton Aero Products (now Northrop Grumman), Rockwell Collins Avionics, Thales Avionics and Aviation Communications and Surveillance Systems (ACSS – an L-3 Communications and Thales Joint Venture). As a co-founder of Phoenix Aerospace Consulting Group, Adams’ oversight responsibility was leading the NexNav business area which provided the industry’s first certified GPS WAAS Beta-3 sensors to the commercial aviation marketplace.
Neil Gerein, Defense Product Manager, NovAtel
Neil Gerein joined NovAtel Inc. as a GPS Software Engineer in 2001. Since 2009 he has worked as the Defense Product Manager for NovAtel. He is responsible for the navigation warfare product lines, including the GAJT GPS Anti-Jam antenna and OEM625S SAASM receiver used in unmanned vehicle systems. He holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan, where he specialized in digital signal processing. Neil currently serves on the Council of the Institute of Navigation, as well as on the executive of the Alberta regional section of the Institute of Navigation.
Eric Brewer, Senior Systems Engineer, Rockwell Collins
Eric develops and tests guidance, navigation, and control algorithms for unmanned and optionally piloted aircraft. He was a key contributor to Rockwell Collins’ damage tolerance program, which successfully recovered a sub-scale F18 after simulated battle damage ejecting more than 75% of the right wing. As lead systems engineer, Eric spearheaded the successful integration of SAASM RTK on the STUAS program. He received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Penn State in 2008, and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering specializing in autonomous rotorcraft from Virginia Tech in 2009. When he’s not programming away in MATLAB, Eric enjoys hiking, rock climbing, and testing the damage tolerance capabilities of R/C airplanes and helicopters.
Howard William Loewen, President, MicroPilot Inc.
Howard is the president of MicroPilot Inc. Howard has a degree in Electrical Engineering with an option in Computer Science and a Masters degree in Computer Science both from the University of Waterloo. Howard has been involved in the UAV industry since 1994 when he started MicroPilot. Under Howard’s leadership, MicroPilot was the first to introduce a single board, fully integrated UAV autopilot into the market, the first to introduce ultra lightweight autopilots, the first to introduce a triple redundant UAV autopilot among others. MicroPilot has continued this tradition of leadership with its recent introduction of XTENDERvalidate a requirements management tool designed specifically for UAV system integrators.
PCTEL, Inc. will display its GPS, GNSS, mobile, and infrastructure communication antennas at the 2013 MILCOM Military Communications Conference. MILCOM is being held in the San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California, November 18-20.
PCTEL Connected Solutions provides advanced military antenna designs. Its high-precision, ruggedized antennas enable reliable communications, timing, and location services in the field, while its site solutions products aid deployments of communications equipment for outdoor and indoor applications, the company said.
PCTEL’s precision GPS and GNSS antennas are used for munitions guidance, aviation, marine, tactical radio manpack, vehicle tracking, soldier, and asset tracking. Recently, PCTEL expanded its GNSS antenna line to include the GPS-LB12GL-MAG, a multiband GPS L1/2, L-Band, and GLONASS antenna. At MILCOM, PCTEL will be showcasing the GPS-L1L2-28MAG, a GPS L1/L2 antenna that has been approved for DAGR (Defense Advanced GPS Receiver) applications. Both of these antennas can be used as soldier-worn asset trackers, military vehicle trackers, and other military tracking applications.
Reliable communications are critical to any field operation. PCTEL’s ruggedized, high performance antennas have been deployed and qualified for tactical mesh networking, which enables complex field communications. PCTEL designs both SISO and MIMO antennas that cover the NATO IV band, also known as the 4.4 GHz C band. For mesh networking and many other mission critical communications systems, accurate GPS timing information is essential. PCTEL has designed the GPS-TMG-HR-26N GPS timing antenna with high out-of-band rejection for reliable communications in high-interference environments.
In addition to its high-performance antennas, PCTEL provides site solutions that enable indoor and outdoor deployments of communications systems for public safety and defense applications, including enclosure systems, coaxial cable assemblies, fiber jumpers, lightning protection, and mobile towers.
“PCTEL designs products that users can count on to help deliver wireless solutions when it matters–and no situation matters more than military field operations,” said Jeff Miller, president of PCTEL Connected Solutions. “We continue to work closely with our customers to expand our portfolio of GPS, GNSS, and communications antennas and site solutions that address emerging needs,” added Miller.
Source: Hansen, Potapov, Moore, Hancher, et al, 2013
A multi-organizational team led by the University of Maryland has created the first high-resolution global map of forest extent, loss and gain. This free resource greatly improves the ability to understand human and naturally-induced forest changes and the local to global implications of these changes on environmental, economic and other natural and societal systems, members of the team say
According to the announcement, the team of 15 university, Google and government researchers reports a global loss of 2.3 million square kilometers (888,000 square miles) of forest between 2000 and 2012 and a gain of 800,000 square kilometers (309,000 square miles) of new forest.
Their study, published online on November 14 in the journal Science, documents the new database, including a number of key findings on global forest change. For example, the tropics were the only climate domain to exhibit a trend, with forest loss increasing by 2,101 square kilometers (811 square miles) per year. Brazil’s well-documented reduction in deforestation during the last decade was more than offset by increasing forest loss in Indonesia, Malaysia, Paraguay, Bolivia, Zambia, Angola and elsewhere.
“This is the first map of forest change that is globally consistent and locally relevant,” says University of Maryland Professor of Geographical Sciences Matthew Hansen, team leader and corresponding author on the Science paper.
“Losses or gains in forest cover shape many important aspects of an ecosystem, including climate regulation, carbon storage, biodiversity and water supplies, but until now there has not been a way to get detailed, accurate, satellite-based and readily available data on forest cover change from local to global scales,” Hansen says.
To build this first of its kind forest mapping resource, Hansen, UMD Research Associate Professor Peter Potapov and five other UMD geographical science researchers drew on the decades-long UMD experience in the use of satellite data to measure changes in forest and other types of land cover. Landsat 7 data from 1999 through 2012 were obtained from a freely available archive at the United States Geological Survey’s center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS). More than 650,000 Landsat images were processed to derive the final characterization of forest extent and change.
Source: Hansen, Potapov, Moore, Hancher, et al, 2013
The analysis was made possible through collaboration with colleagues from Google Earth Engine, who implemented the models developed at UMD for characterizing the Landsat data sets. Google Earth Engine is a massively parallel technology for high-performance processing of geospatial data and houses a copy of the entire Landsat image catalog. What would have taken a single computer 15 years to perform was completed in a matter of days using Google Earth Engine computing.
Hansen and his coauthors say their mapping tool greatly improves upon existing knowledge of global forest cover by providing fine resolution (30 meter) maps that accurately and consistently quantify annual loss or gain of forest over more than a decade. This mapping database, which will be updated annually, quantifies all forest stand-replacement disturbances, whether due to logging, fire, disease or storms. And they say it is based on repeatable definitions and measurements while previous efforts at national and global assessments of forest cover have been largely dependent on countries’ self-reported estimates based on widely varying definitions and measures of forest loss and gain.
Dynamics from local to regional to global scale are quantified. For example, subtropical forests were found to have the highest rates of change, largely due to intensive forestry land uses. The disturbance rate of North American subtropical forests, located in the Southeast United States, was found to be four times that of South American rainforests during the study period; more than 31 percent of U.S. southeastern forest cover was either lost or regrown. At national scales, Paraguay, Malaysia and Cambodia were found to have the highest rates of forest loss. Paraguay was found to have the highest ratio of forest loss to gain, indicating an intensive deforestation dynamic.
The study confirms that well-documented efforts by Brazil – which has long been responsible for a majority of the world’s tropical deforestation – to reduce its rainforest clearing have had a significant effect. Brazil showed the largest decline in annual forest loss of any country, cutting annual forest loss in half, from a high of approximately 40,000 square kilometers (15,444 square miles) in 2003-2004 to 20,000 square kilometers (7,722 square miles) in 2010-2011. Indonesia had the largest increase in forest loss, more than doubling its annual loss during the study period to nearly 20,000 square kilometers (7,722 square miles) in 2011-2012.
Hansen and colleagues say the global data sets of forest change they have created contain information that can provide a “transparent, sound and consistent basis to quantify critical environmental issues,” including the causes of the mapped changes in the amount of forest; the status of world’s remaining intact natural forests; biodiversity threats from changes in forest cover; the carbon stored or emitted as a result of gains or losses in tree cover in both managed and unmanaged forests; and the effects of efforts to halt or reduce forest loss.
For example, Hansen says, that while their study shows the efforts of Brazil’s government to slow loss of rainforest have been effective, it also shows that a 2011 Indonesian government moratorium on new logging licenses was actually followed by significant increases in deforestation in 2011 and 2012.
“Brazil used Landsat data to document its deforestation trends, then used this information in its policy formulation and implementation. They also shared these data, allowing others to assess and confirm their success,” Hansen says. “Such data have not been generically available for other parts of the world. Now, with our global mapping of forest changes every nation has access to this kind of information, for their own country and the rest of the world.”
Support for Landsat data analysis and characterization was provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the United States Geological Survey and Google, Inc. GLAS data analysis was supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Development of all methods was supported by NASA through its Land Cover and Land Use Change, Terrestrial Ecology, Applied Sciences and Measures programs (grants NNH05ZDA001N, NNH07ZDA001N, NNX12AB43G, NNX12AC78G, NNX08AP33A and NNG06GD95G) and by the United States Agency for International Development through its CARPE program.
High-resolution global maps 21st-century forest cover change, Science, Nov. 15, 2013, Vol 342 #6160, authors M. C. Hansen, P. V. Potapov, S. A. Turubanova, A. Tyukavina, L. Chini, C. O. Justice and J. R. G. Townshend of the University of Maryland; R. Moore, M. Hancher and D. Thau of Google, Inc.; S. V. Stehman of the State University of New York; S. J. Goetz of Woods Hole Research Center; T. R. Loveland of the United States Geological Survey; and A. Kommareddy, and A. Egorov of South Dakota State University.
A couple of years ago, wearing a different hat, I found myself on a guided tour of a key military C2 (Command and Control center) that was about as big as a football field and was to be deployed somewhere in Southwest Asia. My colleagues and I, who are all GPS SMEs (Global Positioning System Subject Matter Experts), asked the same question of almost everyone we saw that day. Near the end of the day and the tour, we had yet to receive an adequate answer. The typical response was, “Please save that question for our senior communications officer.”
Finally, at the end of the tour and demonstration, we met the communications chief, and we once again asked our persistent and, for some of us paramount, question: “What would happen if we walked into this facility in the middle of a major military operation and activated a Coke-can-size GPS jammer that we were surreptitiously carrying in a backpack? In other words, what would happen if we disrupted your GPS signal reception?”
The communications expert thought awhile and then answered. Unfortunately, the answer was a bit perplexing and yet all too common, inside the military and out. The communications officer hesitantly replied, “Well, this is a C2 center, and we are all about computers, networks and communications, and although I have to admit I don’t know much about GPS, other than we use it to navigate our military and civilian vehicles, I guess I would have to say it would not make any difference. In fact I am not even sure we would notice.”
Quick as lightning, before I even had a chance to challenge the response or thought process, a grizzled old E9, who proved his operational savvy that day, interjected, “Beg your pardon, but all of our radios, computers, networks and communications gear are referenced and synchronized to GPS time. A GPS jammer would take us out of business until we brought up our backup atomic reference system. So, initially a Coke-can jammer activated in our facility would be catastrophic, but we would soon be back in business because we have backup atomic reference systems.”
Fast-forward, and today that transition between GPS and atomic reference system is seamless. There is no down time, and yet the systems still run on GPS time. But during that initial visit, I could tell by the looks on the junior communications officers faces that surrounded us that, while they appreciated the save by the old chief, they were also still wondering, just how pervasive is the actual impact of GPS time for computers, networks and communications?
The answer is simple. The world as we know it today runs on GPS time.
GPS — Time and Frequency
This is unfortunately a scenario my colleagues and I encounter all too often. While it is not my intention to launch into GPS 101, it bears repeating that of the approximately 3.5-billion-plus users of GPS and PNT (Position, Navigation and Timing) systems in the world today, 90% use the signals for incredibly accurate time-keeping and frequency stability, not just for positioning and navigation.
Indeed, GPS SVs (space or satellite vehicles) today typically contain either three or four atomic reference systems (atomic clocks), primarily long-term, stable Rubidium systems with shorter term stable Cesium clocks as a Primary Reference Source, that continually broadcast Stratum-1 timing signals with stability on the order of 1×10-E13 or a pico second (a trillionth of a second) or greater.
For the mathematically challenged, that means the stability of the atomic clocks are such that if the GPS atomic reference system could be maintained in a perfect environment for the lifetime of the clock, nominally 20-30 years for Rubidium systems, it would never lose a second of time. To put this number in perspective, consider that the navigation revolution (easily the biggest change in navigation since the sextant was invented) brought about by Harrison’s chronometer, perfected in 1759, allowed accurate navigation by Longitude and Latitude, by keeping and transferring time aboard ships with accuracies in the 10-second range over periods of weeks. And even though at the time it was hailed as a chronometer, its lack of accuracy is such that most navigators today could not tolerate the inaccurate time or lack of stability, not when they can measure time to the trillionth of a second or better simply by receiving a free GPS timing and frequency signal available globally.
Interestingly, the clocks on the Boeing IIF GPS satellites (currently four SVs on orbit), which certainly have other issues, are proving to be the most stable Rubidium atomic reference systems ever flown in space to date, as they are currently displaying an unexpectedly high degree of frequency stability. Hopes are that future spaceborne atomic reference systems (such as in the GPS III LMCO SVs) may achieve two orders of magnitude greater stability at 1×10-E15. Compared to Harrison’s chronometer, that is an improvement on the order of 17 orders of magnitude!
Now, if you are still wondering what all this clock stability means to you, consider that one nanosecond, or merely one billionth of a second, equates to a foot of positioning accuracy on the Earth, but even more importantly, for 90% of GPS users globally, time and frequency stability equates to an incredible, dependable, stable, ubiquitous timing source for the initiation and synchronization of networks and communications systems worldwide.
When you consider that almost everything we do today involves timing, networks, computers and communications in some form, it also means that when we consider our (United States) Critical National Infrastructure (there are 16 critical infrastructure sectors defined today), all 16 depend in some form or function on GPS time and frequency stability. That is a sobering thought, and is exactly why we often use the words “ubiquitous” and “utility” when referring to the Global Positioning System. Make no mistake about it: almost every major country you can name today has the same dependency on time and frequency stability for their Critical National Infrastructures, and the majority use GPS as their primary timing, frequency and/or reference source.
Dependence
Some of you — and you don’t necessarily have to be a conspiracy theorist to think this way — will immediately see this dependence on one space constellation or system as a vulnerability. You would be correct, if there were no backup systems, augmentations or alternatives. Fortunately, just like the military C2 center, the majority of our Critical National Infrastructure sectors today have interim or temporary backups. While you should view that as a fortunate circumstance, it is also the limiting factor, or LIMFAC, in our infrastructure; the majority of the backups are terrestrial, oftentimes temporary in nature, and they rarely have the same degree of coverage, reliability or stability of GPS.
Many of you may still be saying to yourself, so what? Here’s the so what: without GPS timing and frequency stability, we as a nation may be able to generate electricity, but we would not be able to distribute it. We may be able to drill for oil and produce products such as gasoline and diesel, but we could not distribute them, and you would not be able to dispense or purchase them at the pump. You could earn money, but you would not be able to access your bank account or bank records online or at an ATM. All of these systems depend on computers, networks and communications, and they all depend on GPS time and frequency for synchronization. Get the point!?
Knee-Jerk Reactions
Unfortunately, this realization has led many of our senior leaders in the services and the federal government, who should know better, to make broad and blanket knee-jerk statements concerning the need to replace GPS that are entirely unwarranted. As I said earlier, if you think of GPS as a global utility, that is exactly what it is. Then you must treat it just like you would electricity, for example. Certainly much of the world runs on electricity, and as you have seen, much of the world also runs on or certainly depends on GPS timing and frequency signals.
However, as much as we depend on electricity, we don’t scream “find another energy source” every time the lights go out due to a storm, or power cables are cut by an accident or a farmer’s plow. Instead, prudence dictates that we plan for these occurrences, and we utilize other temporary or alternative methods of generating electricity such as backup generators. Indeed, we routinely use solar power, wind power, and batteries to hold us over until the main power is restored.
We should think of GPS in the same way. When the GPS signal is interrupted, we should not immediately call it unreliable. Rather, we should use atomic clocks, inertial systems, and other PNT systems until the gold standard GPS signals are once again available. The solution is all in how you parse the problem.
eLORAN
If there were only a persistent, wide-area, wireless solution to our problem. Fortunately, there is, and as a nation we are well acquainted with one answer and one solution, which in my opinion is the answer and a time-proven solution. For more than 70 years, since before WWII until 2010, we as a nation had the answer. The near-perfect backup and/or augmentation system for GPS was already in place; it was a coterminous system originally designated LORAN-A (long range navigation). The legacy system (LORAN-C) was in the process (90% complete) of being updated to eLORAN, a modern digital system, when inexplicably the current administration decided the entire project was a waste of money; it’s a well known government condition or disease better known as myopia or shortsightedness. Now that same administration is spending more money every year ($50M) to tear down the LORAN-C and existing e-LORAN infrastructure and remediating land at the 28 transmission sites. The annual cost of operating the e-LORAN system for one year ($16M) means these same funds could operate the eLORAN system for more than three years.
The sad part is that while our government is wasting taxpayer dollars in a severely constrained, sequestered budget environment, destroying badly needed LORAN-C and eLoran infrastructure, the rest of the world is busy building modern eLORAN systems (there are currently ~75 LORAN towers in the world today) as a backup and augmentation to GPS — countries such as Great Britain, Japan, South Korea, and Russia with their CHAYKA system, just to name a few.
A recent RNTF (Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation) white paper (more on this new organization later) on GPS and LORAN points out that an independent think tank known as IDA (the Institute for Defense Analyses), an organization of which I am proud to be a member and which includes Dr. Bradford Parkinson, who many call the father of GPS, recently conducted a study on GPS and LORAN and recommended that, “an existing and outdated nationwide navigation system called ‘Loran-C’ be greatly updated and modernized to ‘eLoran’.’’ Such a system would provide a navigation and timing signal comparable with and complementary to GPS. The IDA study concluded that: “eLoran is the only cost-effective backup for national needs; it is completely interoperable with and independent of GPS, with different propagation and failure mechanisms, plus significantly superior robustness to radio frequency interference and jamming. It is a seamless backup, and its use will deter threats to U.S. national and economic security by disrupting (jamming) of GPS reception.”
The story of how the United States, which pioneered LORAN, wound up without an eLORAN system today, would be comical if it were not so sad. It is a long and sometimes incredulous tale, as Shakespeare once said, “full of sound and fury,” that I will not take the time to relate; however, I will say that it is not too late. Indeed, if we were to merely admit our mistakes and take the money budgeted for one year of LORAN-C and eLORAN destruction, we could not only build an entirely modern eLORAN system (for ~$40M) but we could operate it for the better part of a year while we figured out ways to make it pay for itself, and believe me when I say there are numerous viable courses of action that make this a real possibility. Then we, as a nation, would not only have a 4,000 KW terrestrial backup and augmentation to GPS, but we would have a backup and augmentation for timing and frequency stability for all of our Critical National Infrastructure sectors that would be nearly impossible to jam or spoof. Consequently, if you can’t jam or spoof the backup, then why bother trying to jam or spoof the primary system, GPS? In this instance, a modern e-LORAN system becomes a security blanket for GPS as well. It is indeed a win/win proposition.
NSPD-39 and RNTF
Lest you think I am a lone voice crying in the wilderness, in 2004 President Bush issued a National Space Policy (NSPD-39) that addressed the problem of GPS dependence. The space policy directed DOT and DHS (Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security) to find a suitable backup and augmentation for GPS. Six years later, a new administration unabashedly began destroying the only viable system that currently meets the parameters spelled out in NSPD-39. Fortunately, there are many today in and out of government that think as I do, and fortuitously they are doing something about it.
Several months ago, I wrote about Charles (Chuck) Schue and his new digital e-LORAN system at UrsaNav being tested and supported by a CRADA or Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the U.S. Government, and I promise you an update on that endeavor soon.
Now there is an independent non-governmental foundation, the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation (RNTF), that supports a P3, or Private-Public-Partnership, to help develop and fund eLORAN as a private/public leased service to the government, and any other interested parties for that matter. In other words, the foundation proposes, among other ideas, to build and operate a modern digital eLORAN system for the United States, for all the reasons mentioned earlier, and lease that service to the U.S. government among others. Using P3 means that in this sequestered budget environment there are no upfront development or deployment costs to the government, and yet the system that augments and backs up GPS and critical timing for our Critical National Infrastructure is in place and operating as a private entity, employing people, paying taxes and providing a critical service. As I said, a winning proposition for all concerned.
If that were not enough, just this week the GAO came out with a report entitled GPS Disruptions: Efforts to Assess Risks to Critical Infrastructure and Coordinate Agency Actions Should Be Enhanced. You can find the highlights for the report at the following link: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-15. Once there, you can click on the PDF link for the report, which is about 58 pages. So, it is a hot topic, and one that can be easily solved once common sense again reigns in our government.
What Is Don Reading?
This month, I am going to recommend two edited books that are worlds apart in concept but are both highly related to the use of GPS, one theoretically and the other physically and fundamentally.
The Global Positioning System: Theory and Applications, by Parkinson and Spilker.
The Global Positioning System: Theory and Applications,
by Dr. Bradford Parkinson and Dr. James Spilker
1996, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
ISBN 978-1-56347-106-3
This exhaustive two-volume compendium of GPS knowledge is my daily bible for almost any GPS technical query you can muster. The two volumes total 781 pages and, truth be told, they are certainly doorstops, and while they are essential to your encyclopedic knowledge of GPS, they are certainly not to be carried around as textbooks. They are reference books, and the kind that should remain in your library at home. I treat my copies very gingerly, since they are about to fall apart from constant use. Plus, both volumes are signed by both editors, since they are both close friends and colleagues — but that is not why I recommend them. If Dr. Bradford Parkinson is the father of GPS, then Dr. James Spilker is the father of the GPS frequency and signal structure. Both Brad and Jim are currently Professors Emeritus at Stanford University and we visit on a regular basis, but again, friendship does not enter into my recommending these volumes.
I recommend them because they are simply the best compiled and edited volumes on GPS that exist today. They are authoritative and technical to a fault. As I said before, the word exhaustive comes to mind, and frankly, I don’t know how any GPS aficionado or SME could make it through the day without these incredible reference tools. I know from first-hand knowledge that both Brad and Jim have been approached about an updated edition, but I don’t know how they would find the time. They are both in great demand and are constantly writing and speaking about GPS in venues around the globe. But it would be wonderful if they could fit it in. Now a digital, searchable version — that would be something.
Guide to Super Snipers, Soldier of Fortune Magazine, edited by Brown and Spencer.
Guide to Super Snipers, Soldier of Fortune Magazine,
edited by Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown and Vann Spencer
2013, Skyhorse Publishing
ISBN 978-1-62636-067-9
This book is an edited history of snipers and their equipment that in the last 15 years has included GPS and other PNT systems on a consistent basis. Soldier of Fortune magazine and the editors interviewed literally hundreds of snipers around the world, and this is their story. Some of the snipers made headlines, like Audi Murphy, and were popular American heroes. Others you will have never heard of, but that does not make them any less meaningful or important in the roles they have played keeping their country safe.
This book includes great details about legacy and current sniper rifles and the expert marksmen behind the scopes and sights. It may be more than you ever wanted to know about the art and science of snipers, but it is an inspiring and patriotic book that many will thoroughly enjoy. Be aware there are numerous typographical and grammatical errors — try not to let that impair your enjoyment of this one-of-a-kind book.
Until next time, visit the RNTF site, support eLORAN, read a good book, and I wish you happy navigating.
As some of you may know, I also write a monthly column for Geospatial Solutions, which is all about geospatial technology encompassing GIS, surveying, engineering, and anything regarding geospatial technology. On occasion, I write something that fits very well with both my Survey Scene newletter and Geospatial Solutions Monthly newsletter. This is one of those months.
Drones, UAVs, UAS…whatever you want to call them, are getting a lot of press coverage, both in the mainstream media and the surveying trade media. Rightly so — there are a terrific number of uses for drones in surveying and mapping from forensic mapping to crop monitoring to creating terrain models for volume estimations. A little later below, I’ll give you a link to my more detailed article about applications and my personal experience.
In this article, I’d like to focus on the U.S. law regarding using drones for commercial purposes (eg. mapping, surveying, etc). I’ll start with a blanket statement.
Under the current law, it is illegal for any commercial entity to operate a drone in the U.S. Period.
The only exception is that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is issuing special airworthiness certificates in the experimental category for testing, market survey, and training of drones. However, the FAA specifically states that drone users awarded such an experimental certificate are not licensed to use drones for “hire or compensation.”
The only other possibility is if the commercial entity has an airworthiness certificate for the drone like what’s required for any other aircraft such as an airliner. However, you can bet that no drone within your price range has such a certificate.
What about hobby users?
This is where it gets interesting and where some commercial users think there is wiggle room.
Under the current FAA rules, hobbyists (the FAA calls them modelers) can fly drones up to 400 feet above ground level (AGL) and must notify the airport operator if flying within three miles of the airport. Hobbyists are covered under the AC 91-57 rules, a simple one-page document.
Some (maybe many) companies and/or individuals who are operating drones for mapping in the U.S. think this is a loophole in the FAA rules, and that as long as they do not charge for the drone flight-time, they are not violating the FAA rules (they say they only charge for processing the data). The FAA begs to differ. When I asked the FAA this question, FAA Spokesperson Alison Duquette responded:
“They would be violating FAA rules. Please read this policy link. The FAA recognizes that people and companies other than modelers might be flying UAS with the mistaken understanding that they are legally operating under the authority of AC 91-57. AC 91-57 only applies to modelers, and thus specifically excludes its use by persons or companies for business purposes.”
This begs the question, is the FAA following a “don’t ask, don’t tell” informal policy? The best way to determine this is to look at their enforcement activity. When I asked the FAA if it would send me the list of enforcement activity regarding drones, the agency said I’d have to submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which I did this week. I’m told by my colleagues it may take some time before I get a response.
I know of at least one instance where the FAA told an entity to shut down its use of drones. Take a look at this three-minute CBS news video.
Last month’s article about post-processing alternatives, “Seven Free Alternatives to OPUS GPS Post-Processing During U.S. Federal Government Shutdown,” was one of the all-time, most-read articles ever published on the GPS World website. It’s ironic because I’m not a fan of post-processing in general. Mind you, I coordinated the development of several post-processing (both L1 and L1/L2) software packages back in the 1990s, so it’s not like I’m afraid to post-process or don’t understand the technology. It’s just that it’s so inefficient compared to RTK. However, I do concede that OPUS, AUSPOS, CSRS, Centerpoint RTX, GAPS, Scout, and MagicGNSS online post-processing tools combined with an increasing number of publicly available, worldwide GNSS reference stations make centimeter-level post-processing a lot easier (and less expensive) than ever before. It seems like a lot of you still prefer it!
RTK technology is advancing too, from both a receiver perspective and a satellite system perspective. Which geographic region of the world do you think is the most well-suited for RTK positioning?
It may seem like an odd question, and it would have been to me had I not attended the ION GNSS+ conference in Nashville, Tennessee, in September and the Intergeo 2013 conference in Essen, Germany, in October. How could one geographic region be significantly better for RTK positioning than another? Terrain? Nope. It’s the same country that consumes more L1/L2 receivers than any other country in the world: China.
Why China? A picture (well, two pictures) is worth a thousand words:
At this point, China’s BeiDou (now referred to as BDS) navigation system is a regional system. If you look at the above graphic of the BDS satellite orbits, you can see the satellite figure eight orbits above southeast Asia. These satellites, combined with GPS and GLONASS, give the RTK user a tremendous number of usable satellites. Furthermore, since the BDS satellites are in figure-eight orbits, they stay “in view” longer ,which is ideal for RTK.
The result is that GNSS users in the BDS coverage area have more satellites in view than any other region in the world, and we all know that more satellite observations make for better RTK positioning.
China’s plans don’t stop with BDS being a regional system. By 2020, China says it plans for BDS to be a global system similar to GPS and GLONASS. The BDS presenter at ION GNSS+ said, “China always regards BeiDou belonging to both China and the world.”
GPS and Galileo Delays
Meanwhile, as it seems China is pushing forward, both GPS and Galileo suffered delays last month.
The fifth GPS IIF satellite (IIF-5) launch scheduled for last month was postponed. A fuel leak in the Delta 4 launch rocket seems to be the culprit. No new launch date has been scheduled for IIF-5. The United Launch Alliance (ULA) issued the following statement:
“The ongoing Phase II investigation has included extremely detailed characterization and reconstructions of the instrumentation signatures obtained from the October 2012 launch and these have recently resulted in some updated conclusions related to dynamic responses that occurred on the engine system during the first engine start event.
“The GPS IIF-5 Delta IV launch is being delayed to allow the technical team time to further assess these updated conclusions and assess the improvements already implemented and determine whether additional changes are required prior to the next Delta IV launch.
“The Delta IV booster for the GPS IIF-5 mission has completed the standard processing and checkout on the launch pad and will be maintained in a ready state for spacecraft mate and launch pending completion of this assessment. A new launch date will be established when the assessment of the updated dynamic response information is completed in the coming weeks.”
Meanwhile, Europeans have been waiting on pins and needles for the first production launch of dual Galileo satellites. A fall 2013 launch date was expected, but has been postponed until Summer 2014.
According to European officials, the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) thermal vacuum chamber for testing satellites under orbit conditions was not ready for the two FOC satellites delivered by OHB in late summer.
The satellites thus cannot ship to the Guiana spaceport in South America in time for a planned 2013 launch on a Soyuz rocket. The Galileo schedule is also running into bottlenecks with scheduled launches by other satellite programs aboard Guiana Soyuzes.
A six-week test of the first Galileo satellite at ESTEC reportedly got under way in October.
The pressure is rising for Galileo to start delivering usable satellite observations, which China is already doing, albeit for themselves and their neighbors.
SPOT LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Globalstar, Inc., has launched its SPOT Trace anti-theft asset tracking device. SPOT Trace ensures cars, motorcycles, boats, ATVs, snowmobiles and other valuable assets are where they need to be, notifying owners via email or text when movement is detected anytime, anywhere. SPOT’s growing family of products uses 100% satellite technology to provide location-based messaging and emergency notification for on or off the grid communications.
SPOT Trace users can view their boat, ATV, motorcycle or other asset’s GPS coordinates online 24 hours a day in near real-time through Google Maps. With multiple mounting options, SPOT Trace is small and durable enough to be placed practically anywhere. With up to 18 months of battery life, affordable rate plans and satellite coverage that goes beyond the reach of cellular coverage, there is no comparable product on the market to track anything, anytime, anywhere. Other SPOT Trace features include:
Tracking. View your asset’s GPS coordinates from your smartphone or online
Movement Alerts. Receive texts/emails when SPOT’s vibration sensor detects your asset has new movement
Dock Mode. Configure your device to track an asset that is primarily stored on the water
Power Off Message. Receive a notification if your device is powered off
Low Battery Message. Receive a notification when the device’s batteries are low
Status Message. Receive a once per day alert to let you know your asset is secure
SPOT Trace also features customizable tracking, which allows users to track an asset’s GPS coordinates at 2 1/2, 5, 10, 30 or 60 minute
intervals. The units will sell starting at $99.95, with service plans from $99.99/year.
