Reyax Technology, a telematics tracking systems provider for the automotive industry, has developed an industrial high-integration 3G GNSS tracking platform, the Reyax RY277AI, which is fully based on technology from u-blox.
“Our vehicle tracking platforms are dependent on highly accurate position data to deliver the performance crucial to meet the demands of our customers. u-blox’s highly reliable products as well as a flawless technical support were convincing,” said Ritchie Chang, general manager of Reyax Technology. “u blox’s MAX M8C positioning module and SARA U270 cellular module were the right choice for this new platform,” he added.
RY277AI is designed for 3G telematics applications, in particular vehicle tracking, fleet management and insurance box. With both MAX-M8C and SARA U270 modules embedded, it also benefits from two of u blox’s GNSS and wireless technology services. With AssistNow, Assisted GNSS (A-GNSS) accelerates the calculation of a position by delivering satellite data to the GNSS receiver via wireless networks or the Internet, also ensuring faster TTFF (time to first fix).
CellLocate, another of u-blox’s trademarked technologies, matches cellular positioning data with previously successful GNSS fixes in shielded environments such as indoors. This is especially useful in case of jammed GNSS signals and in M2M applications. Additionally, u-blox’s nested design enables hosting of next-generation wireless and positioning modules on the same PCB.
“We are excited about this co-operation with Reyax Technology, the recognized leader in telematics tracking systems. Reyax-based solutions make full use of u-blox’s advanced positioning and cellular technologies to enhance vehicle tracking. This solution is an answer to the growing encouragements by the Taiwanese government to promote IoT/M2M applications and whose vision we share.” explained Ming Chiang, country manager of u-blox Taiwan.
RY277AI comes in an LGA package, with a dimension of 70mm x 30mm x 7mm, and an operating temperature of -40～+85° C.
Microsoft will no longer collect its own map data, according to the website re/code. As part of the change, Microsoft is selling some of its assets to rideshare company Uber, including a data center, cameras, intellectual property and roughly 100 engineers. Uber is also buying a data center near Boulder, Colo.
Microsoft plans to continue to offer Bing Maps using data licensed from partners.
Microsoft already gets much of its map data from Nokia and other partners, but had been collecting its own aerial, 3D and street-level maps. It will now source those images from partners, focusing its Bing Maps work on the user experience that overlays the map data and imagery.
Industry watchers suggest the cameras might soon end up on the roofs of Uber vehicles. Uber already has hundreds of thousands of cars being tracked around the world every day.
EGNOS Service Provision Workshop 2015 will be held in Copenhagen September 29-30. The workshop is sponsored by the European Satellite Services Provider (ESSP).
The agenda, now available online, includes program and status updates on EGNOS on Day 1, as well as a focus on aviation. Included are an update on the EGNOS Safety-of-Life Service for aviation and several sessions focused on successful EGNOS implementation stories in aviation.
On Day 2, sessions include EGNOS market status and the adoption plan, EDAS for added value applications, E-GNSS benefits in the environmental domain, EGNOS in the maritime application domain and EGNOS in land application domain.
To learn more or to register, go to the ESSP website.
A Vision-Aided Integrity Monitor for Precision Relative Navigation Systems
By Sean M. Calhoun, John Raquet and Gilbert L. Peterson
INNOVATION INSIGHTS by Richard Langley
TO MEET THE ACCURACY, availability, continuity and integrity requirements for many navigation applications, multiple-sensor systems are commonly used. For example, a GPS receiver might be combined with an inertial measurement unit, electronic compass and an altimeter to permit enhanced navigation accuracy, availability and continuity in obstructed or otherwise difficult environments. The use of arrays of sensors can also help to ensure that systems used in safety-critical navigation applications provide safe information by maintaining a high level of integrity.
An important group of devices that can be used in multi-sensor systems is one whose processes are based on light. These optical or vision-based devices include laser rangefinders and digital cameras. We could even consider our eyes to be in this group. In common with many other animals, we have built-in visual sensors to get around in our daily lives. Together with our memories, we use our eyes to get safely from one place to another. Ancient mariners tended to sail close to shore so that they could use visual cues for navigation. Later on, they learned how to use the light from celestial objects to navigate in the open ocean. And these days, while we could use the so-called “Mark 1 Eyeball” to continuously monitor the performance of a navigation system, this is often impractical, impossible or unwise.
In this month’s column, we’ll take a look at the development of a generalized vision-aided integrity monitor for precision relative navigation applications. The work is based on the concept of using a single-camera vision system, such as a visible-light or infrared electro-optical sensor, to monitor the occurrence of unacceptably large and potentially unsafe relative navigation errors. A vision-aided integrity monitor of this type could be extremely valuable in augmenting existing precision relative navigation systems, such as GPS, for many different safety-critical aerospace applications such as formation flying, aerial refueling, rendezvous/docking systems, and even precision landing.
It is particularly appropriate that such vision-aided systems be discussed at the present time since 2015 is the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies, or IYL 2015. This United Nations initiative aims to raise awareness of the achievements of light science and its applications, and its importance to humankind. As mentioned on the IYL 2015 website, “[l]ight plays a vital role in our daily lives and is an imperative cross-cutting discipline of science in the 21st century. It has revolutionized medicine, opened up international communication via the Internet, and continues to be central to linking cultural, economic and political aspects of the global society.”
2015 is also an important anniversary year for several notable developments in our understanding of light. It is the 1,000th anniversary of the work of the Arabic scholar Ibn Al-Haytham, which culminated in his Book of Optics. A Latin translation significantly influenced a number of scholars in medieval and renaissance Europe including Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, and Johannes Kepler. 2015 is also the 200th anniversary of Augustin-Jean Fresnel’s proposal that light behaves as a wave and the 150th anniversary of the publication of James Clerk Maxwell’s paper describing electromagnetic wave propagation as we discussed in “Insights” this past March. And we should also mention that 2015 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which includes a description of the propagation of light and other electromagnetic waves in the presence of a gravitational field. And where would GPS and the other global navigation satellite systems and their augmentations be without the understanding that general relativity provides? Nowhere.
“Innovation” is a regular feature that discusses advances in GPS technology and its applications as well as the fundamentals of GPS positioning. The column is coordinated by Richard Langley of the Department of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering, University of New Brunswick. He welcomes comments and topic ideas. Email him at lang @ unb.ca.
Recently, there has been an increased recognition of GNSS limitations in terms of robustness, availability and interference. As a result of this recognition, there has been renewed interest in developing non-GNSS-based navigation systems to augment system capability. This has become particularly important with the trend toward autonomous systems, where required navigation performance (RNP) metrics, such as accuracy, integrity, continuity and availability become operational drivers. Because of this trend, there is renewed interest in gaining navigational diversity using imaging or vision-aided navigation approaches. Early research with vision systems used 3-D terrain databases and imaging systems to provide periodic position updates in collaboration with onboard inertial navigation systems (INS), much like radar systems did prior to the wide proliferation of GNSS.
For precision relative navigation applications such as formation flying, aerial refueling, rendezvous and docking systems and even precision landing, there is a significant body of research for the use of vision navigation systems. For example, a vision-based relative navigation solution for aerial refueling with the use of an a priori 3-D tanker model has been developed. Results from flight tests showed that image-rendering relative navigation is a viable precision navigation technique for close formation flight, specifically aerial refueling, and demonstrated 95% relative navigation accuracies on the order of 35 centimeters within the operational envelope.
As the body of vision-aided navigation research continues to grow, consideration of other RNP metrics is required. Ensuring that systems are providing safe information and maintaining a high level of integrity is paramount when considering safety-critical navigation applications, but is largely neglected in current vision-navigation research.
The concept of integrity, particularly for navigation systems, refers to the level of trust that can be placed in a navigation system in terms of detecting gross errors and divergences. Many navigation applications have adopted the use of protection levels, which are real-time navigation system outputs that bound the navigation errors to the required probability of integrity risk. For the case of vertical navigation, the vertical navigation system error (NSE) is bounded by the real-time vertical protection level (VPL), and as the long as the VPL is below the vertical alert limit (VAL), the system can continue its operation. Loss of integrity is defined by the case when the NSE > VAL without an alert or, in other words, when NSE > VAL and VPL ≤ VAL.
One of the richest sources of information for how integrity can be handled for precision relative navigation systems can be found with the Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS), which focused on providing integrity under fault-free and single ground reference receiver failure conditions. LAAS employs several quality monitors such as receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM).
Much of the vision-aided navigation research to date has focused more on system and algorithmic robustness, rather than quantitative and verifiable integrity, particularly for feature-based processing. One approach has introduced the concept of regional bounding for feature correspondence between time-sequenced image frames, including some feature-unique criteria that can provide some protection from feature correspondence errors. Although this approach does yield some robustness for the algorithms, no quantitative integrity characterization was developed. Another approach introduced a truly quantitative integrity monitor for failures in the mapping of features to pixels, particularly in the presence of a bias. This approach predicts the largest possible position error in the presence of one such bias due to feature mismatch using a GPS RAIM-type approach. The current state of research addressing integrity for vision navigation, using an image-rendering or template-matching approach, is even less mature. In fact, we have not identified any previous integrity-specific work for image-rendering vision navigation.
The research presented in this article generalizes the concept of integrity in terms of operating and alerting regions. Applications that use navigation systems generally have objective operating regions that require a certain navigation performance, whether this be around a glide-slope, a formation flight position or even a flight-path clearance. Navigation integrity becomes critical because large divergences from these operating regions, without an alert, can become safety risks. The alert limit is simply the instantiation of this concept. It is the threshold or measure of how much undetected divergence from the operating region can be tolerated without inducing unacceptably large safety risks.
The remaining sections of this article will describe the development of a rigorous and quantitative vision-aided integrity monitor for precision relative navigation systems. First, an introduction to relative navigation using image rendering will be covered in order to describe the fundamental vision navigation approach. This will be followed by a detailed derivation of the proposed vision-aided integrity monitor and simulation based performance results.
Using Image Rendering
The basis of our research is that vision-aided techniques, specifically image rendering, can be used to construct a high-performance integrity monitor for precision relative navigation systems. Image rendering approaches and/or template matching have been used extensively in vision applications such as machine vision, medical image registration, object detection and pose estimation, and recently as a precision navigation system for applications such as aerial refueling and formation flight. The general concept of image-rendering precision relative navigation was evaluated for an automated aerial refueling application, using the approach illustrated in Figure 1. The image rendering approach is based on comparing image sensors with rendered imagery from high-fidelity models, to estimate a relative location based on the best image correspondence.
The image correspondence process is the most critical aspect of the image-rendering or template-matching navigation approach, but the focus of our research is not to make claims of optimality or performance-difference judgments between these image correspondence techniques, but rather show feasibility in the overall vision-aided integrity approach using some of these techniques. Most image correspondence approaches transform the images into feature space, such as scale-invariant feature transform, silhouette, edges and corners, to name a few, and then compute a distance metric between the feature sets, such as Minkowski or Mahalanobis distance, to determine the degree of matching.
Once the actual sensor image is converted to feature space, rendered images are generated based on the relative navigation state estimate using the model, converted to feature space, and compared to the sensor features. This process is repeated across the navigation state space, computing an image correspondence value for each state estimate. The selected navigation state estimate is based on the “best” image correspondence value across the state space.
An example result of this process is presented in FIGURE 2, which shows correspondence values for an edge-based image-correspondence process. In this case, the minimum correspondence value represents the best estimate of the relative navigation state. These image correspondence values between the sensor image (IS) and the rendered reference images (IR) will form the basis for the integrity monitor detection rule.
FIGURE 2. GRD-based image correspondence illustration as a function of 2-D relative navigation state.
Vision-Aided Integrity Monitor Development
As indicated in the preceding sections, our research is based on defining a vision-aided integrity monitor in terms of detecting when the system navigation state (x) is within a specified operating region (XOR) versus being within the alert region state space (XAR). The integrity monitor can yield four distinct conditions: rejection (PR), misdetection (PMD), detection (PD) and false-alarm (PFA). The performance of this type of binary (H0/H1) detection scheme can be characterized using just two of these metrics, the detection and false-alarm rates, which will be the two primary performance metrics for this research. PD is the primary metric measuring navigation integrity, describing the probability that the monitor successfully detects the condition when x ∈ XAR.
Bayesian, Minimax and Neyman-Pearson are a few of the detection schemes available to solve this type of binary detection problem. These detection schemes rely on the knowledge of the underlying statistics of the H0 and H1 condition, often characterized in terms of the probability density functions (PDFs). The main difference between these approaches is the resulting detection rule value (δ). Once δ has been established, the resulting theoretical performances of the detectors are computed by integrating the underlying PDFs of the H0 and H1 conditions, pH0 and pH1 respectively. The probability of detection (PD) is computed as
(1)
The integrity performance of the monitor can also be described in terms of integrity risk or probability of missed detection
(PMD), which is computed as
(2)
Similarly, the probability of false-alarm (PFA) is computed as
(3)
This is represented graphically in FIGURE 3.
FIGURE 3. Graphical illustration of detection performance.
The PDFs represent the statistical distributions of image correspondence values for the respective H0/H1 condition. The general detection rule premise is such that for a given sensor image, the underlying PDF for the “best” image correspondence with the rendered reference set is sufficiently distinct when the sensor image is in an H0 condition versus H1. The characteristics of the H0/H1 PDFs that dictate the monitor performance are dependent on many factors, including the fidelity and accuracy of the world model, the general observability of the image rendering process and the image correspondence approach for the specific application. For our research, we used two image correspondence techniques to evaluate the overall integrity monitor approach.
The first image correspondence technique evaluated is a simple binary silhouette (SIL). In this approach, both the sensor image IS(x) and reference image set IR() are converted to a silhouette using pre-defined thresholds to first convert the red-green-blue (RGB) images to gray scale and then subsequently to a binary image. An image correspondence function computes the percentage of overlap between the silhouettes.
The resulting image correspondence is based on the ratio of the cardinality of these sets. The navigation state estimate () that yields the maximum image correspondence value from the set of rendered reference images or template database is considered the most likely for that particular image sensor (IS).
The second image correspondence utilizes edge features for the image correspondence process. Under this approach, magnitude of gradient (GRD) processing is used, in which the sensor image and the rendered reference images are preprocessed through a Prewitt filter to determine changes in image intensities between adjacent pixels. This process computes the components of the gradient. The gradient magnitude is computed by root-sum-squaring the x-y components and normalized, resulting in an edge detection. A Gaussian blur filter is then applied to the output of the edge detection.
The application of the Gaussian blurring compensates for the spatial discrepancies between the discrete reference set or template database and the sensor image. Finally, the resulting feature images, including both the reference image (IR_GRD) and the sensor image (IS_GRD), are processed through a sum-squared-difference (SSD) image correspondence.
The resulting PDFs are based on the best image correspondence with the RE reference set, which is the minimum for the GRD processing.
These image correspondences build the basis of the detection metric, utilizing both the sensor image (IS) and the rendered reference set (IR), which is spatially distributed across the operating region, illustrated by FIGURE 4. This illustrated example shows instances of both a H0 and H1 sensor image (blue and red, respectively). The underlying H0/H1 PDFs for establishing the detection threshold are determined by sampling sensor images from XOR and XAR and computing the image correspondence against IR. This can be done through a combination of high-fidelity simulation and/or test data. The overall performance of the integrity monitor will be dictated by these underlying distributions. The following sections show the results of this integrity monitor approach for an aerial refueling application.
FIGURE 4. Simplified example of rendered reference set (IR) illustrating image correspondence process for integrity monitoring.
Simulation Evaluation
To explore the performance of the proposed integrity monitor approach, an aerial refueling (AR) application was modeled within a simulation environment. The AR operation lends itself well to the construct of the proposed integrity monitor and is developed to show that the system (refueling aircraft) is in the refueling envelope (RE) and has not violated the alert limit, which in the AR case is the safety boundary (SB). In this operational case, H0 is defined as the condition when the integrity monitor determines the refueling aircraft is in the RE, and H1 as the case when the integrity monitor determines the refueling aircraft to be within the SB. A validity region is also defined in order to bound the problem, in which it is assumed that the refueling aircraft is always within, under both H0 and H1 conditions, as shown in FIGURE 5.
FIGURE 5. Integrity regions of interest for an aerial refueling application and illustrated example of a rendered H0 image set for the refueling envelope used as the correspondence basis for the integrity detection metric.
To determine the underlying H0/H1 distributions, a set of reference images uniformly sampled from the RE was rendered using the associated tanker and camera models. This rendered image set was used as the common basis for performing the image correspondence with the actual sensor image.
The baseline RE reference set used for this research was developed using 504 rendered images distributed in a spherically uniform manner across the entire RE volume. Then, two random sets of simulated sensor images were generated and drawn from both RE and SB regions. It is assumed that the refueling aircraft and corresponding sensor images are within the validity region in order to bound the simulation. This bounding assumption is an acceptable constraint, given that the system most likely had to pass several operational checks to ensure the refueling aircraft is in the general region of the RE as defined by the validity region. To get detailed statistical representation of the PDFs, particularly at the tails of the distribution, both RE and SB image sets included more than 100,000 simulated sensor images, representing true states of the refueling aircraft. The simulation environment for this analysis uses the same refueling tanker model for the sensor images and the RE reference set, which eliminates the effects of modeling errors. Additionally, variations in the attitude are currently not considered. The resulting PDFs for H0 (blue) and H1 (red) conditions are shown in FIGURE 6.
FIGURE 6. Underlying image correspondence distribution for H0 (blue) and H1 (red) conditions.
Figure 6 shows generally good distinction between the H0 and H1 hypotheses — a necessary condition to achieve good detection performance. Several techniques were evaluated for determining the PDF including histogram, nearest neighbor and kernel with a Gaussian weighting function. These underlying H0 and H1 distributions will be used as the basis for designing the detection thresholds, based on the image correspondence of the sensor image with the RE reference set. These results assume uniform prior distributions across the RE and SB regions; however, it would be relatively straightforward to incorporate non-uniform prior information, based on a particular application, as available.
Detection schemes are often characterized using receiver operating characteristics or ROC curves, which illustrate the detection-monitor trade-off between probability of detection and probability of false alarm. The predicted detection performance for this AR application is a function of these underlying H0/H1 PDFs, and this performance is captured in the ROC curves shown in FIGURE 7. The ROC curves show that 10-3 level integrity-monitor detection performance (PD) is realizable for both SIL and GRD image correspondence approaches, while still maintaining a reasonable probability of false alarm (PFA) of less than 0.05 (5%). The SIL approach demonstrates slightly better performance than GRD under the chosen image resolution and RE reference set density. Normally, theoretical ROC curves would extend through the whole range of values [0,1] for both PD and PFA; however, this assumes unbounded PDFs. Doing so would require an infinite number of simulation cases and is obviously not practical for a simulation evaluation to gain statistics necessary to extend the PDFs near the entire theoretical ranges. Overbounding of the PDF tails could be performed to extrapolate and extend the tails of H0/H1 PDFs to determine the integrity detection performance beyond the current ranges, but this was not performed as part of this research.
FIGURE 7. Predicted integrity detection performance for both SIL and GRD image correspondence techniques.
In most applications, conditions exist that are outside of the nominally defined operational envelope, but yet are not significant enough deviations to be considered safety risks that require alerts and action. Such a case exists for the refueling operation under consideration in this research, where there exists a region outside the RE, but not in the SB, which we will refer to as the operational limit volume (OLV). The current definitions of H0 and H1 for the vision-aided integrity-monitor approaches developed above only consider conditions within the RE or the SB volume, and not within the OLV volume. OLV conditions were omitted since they technically aren’t considered a safety or integrity risk. However, it is possible under certain implementations and operational considerations that integrity monitoring coverage is desired under these OLV conditions.
Using the same analysis process as the original evaluation, an updated simulation was performed, this time considering all points within the validity region, including the OLV points. To construct a detection scheme under this new paradigm, the OLV conditions must be either mapped to the existing H0 or H1 hypotheses, or a new hypothesis must be defined, possibly creating an M-ary hypothesis scenario. The approach taken for this research was to consider OLV conditions as a safety risk, which is a conservative approach, rather than defining any new hypotheses. The resulting image correspondence distributions are shown in FIGURE 8. Subplots (a) and (b) show the difference the OLV points have on the underlying PDF distributions. As expected, when the OLV points are excluded, the PDFs track the original distributions quite well. The impact of including sensor locations from the OLV is clear from these figures, yielding a much bigger overlap between the H0/H1 conditions.
FIGURE 8. Simulation testing results assuming OLV states are a safety risk. The prediction represents expected performance without consideration of the OLV states. (a) SIL image correspondence PDFs,(b) GRD image correspondence PDFs, (c) SIL ROC curve, (d) GRD ROC curve.
Much like the PDFs, the ROC curves align with the previous results quite well when the OLV conditions are omitted, but take a order of magnitude integrity performance hit when OLV is captured under the existing H0/H1 definition and detection thresholds. Even under this conservative assumption, the overall monitor performance still yields a 0.96 (96%) detection rate at a 0.05 (5%) false-alarm rate, as illustrated by the ROC curves shown in subplots (c) and (d) of Figure 8. It is likely that these results could be significantly improved by redefining the terms of the H0 and H1 conditions or defining an H2 condition specifically for the OLV region.
Sensitivity Analysis
In addition to the baseline integrity monitor results, various sensitivity studies were performed to evaluate the integrity monitor performance impacts of environmental and hardware considerations. These sensitivity evaluations focused on common vision-based considerations such as sensor distortions and lighting conditions, and monitor design choices such as pixel resolution and reference image density. The sensitivity aspects that were evaluated under this research included the number of reference images, the effects of image distortion, pixel resolution and lighting conditions.
Reference Set Density. In addition to our standard reference set of 504 RE images, we conducted tests using 288 and 729 images. While a larger number of images improves integrity detection performance, processing speed is decreased. It is possible to trade off processing power for performance as necessary for a particular application and the associated integrity monitor performance requirements.
Image Distortion. We applied radial and tangential distortions to the simulated sensor images (IS) such that they represented a 95% certainty of the residual error to represent an outer envelope case for this type of sensor. The impact on the H0/H1 PDFs is very minimal, and the results demonstrate a potential robustness to this common type of sensor effect.
Pixel Resolution. We evaluated eight different pixel resolutions from 12 × 9 to 1280 × 1024 pixels per image. Our results showed a surprising robustness to pixel resolution, indicating only marginal performance impacts down to extremely limited pixel densities.
Lighting Conditions. To explore the impact of lighting conditions, the simulated sensor images (IS) used as the basis for the sensitivity analysis were regenerated under a secondary lighting condition, intended to emulate a much brighter background environment, and processed against the original RE reference set. The results demonstrate that under these varying lighting conditions, the system again demonstrates a high level of robustness, particularly using the SIL image correspondence approach.
Ratio Test Integrity Test
The initial integrity monitor results discussed thus far only used reference images from the operational region, RE. However, it is also possible to use a reference image set created with rendered images from the alert region, SB, by including an additional image correspondence process between the sensor image and rendered SB reference set. This is done to create a ratio test statistic as the detection metric. We compute the ratio of the highest image correspondence between the RE and SB reference sets. This approach is very analogous to the use of ratio tests for GNSS carrier-phase integer fixing.
The resulting ROC detection performance of the ratio threshold approach showed that, as with the single RE reference set, the SIL image correspondence approach yields the best H1 detection performance, resulting in the best integrity protection.
The GRD ratio detection performance also yields improved performance and is comparable to the SIL image correspondence approach solely with RE reference set.
Conclusions and Future Work
In this article, we have discussed the feasibility of a vision-aided integrity monitor for precision relative navigation systems. The research posed the relative navigation integrity problem within the context of an aerial refueling application. Using image rendering, where an imaging sensor and high-fidelity 3-D model is used, we have shown that 10-3 to 10-5 level of integrity monitoring is attainable for aerial refueling and formation flight applications. Having this level of independent monitoring could provide significant relief to a GPS-based precision relative-navigation system from a system-safety and certification perspective. The research demonstrated the proposed integrity monitor was robust against several degrading imaging effects, including lens distortions, lighting conditions and reductions in pixel resolution. Although more work is required to validate the results of this research, which was based on simulated images, the results show high promise for this type of integrity monitor approach.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
Acknowledgment
This article is based on the paper “Vision-Aided Integrity Monitor for Precision Relative Navigation Systems” presented at ITM 2015, the 2015 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation held in Dana Point, Calif., Jan. 26–28, 2015.
SEAN CALHOUN is the managing director at CAL Analytics, Columbus, Ohio, and is pursuing his Ph.D. degree at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), Wright-Paterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
JOHN RAQUET is the director of the Autonomy and Navigation Technology Center at AFIT, where he is also a professor of electrical engineering.
GILBERT L. PETERSON is a professor of computer science at AFIT and vice chair of the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group 11.9, Digital Forensics.
FURTHER READING
Authors’ Conference Paper
“Vision-Aided Integrity Monitor for Precision Relative Navigation Systems” by S.M. Calhoun, J. Raquet and G. Peterson in Proceedings of ITM 2015, the 2015 International Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Dana Point, Calif., Jan. 26–28, 2015.
Image-Sensor Navigation
“Flight Test Evaluation of Image Rendering Navigation for Close-Formation Flight” by S.M. Calhoun, J. Raquet and J. Curro in Proceedings of ION GNSS 2012, the 25th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17–21, 2012, pp. 826–832.
“Fusing Low-Cost Image and Inertial Sensors for Passive Navigation” by M. Veth and J. Raquet in Navigation: Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 54, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 11–20. doi: 10.1002/j.2161-4296.2007.tb00391.x.
“Automated Rendezvous and Docking Sensor Testing at the Flight Robotics Laboratory” by J.D. Mitchell, S.P. Cryan, D. Strack, L.L. Brewster, M.J. Williamson, R.T. Howard and A.S. Johnston in Proceedings of 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, Mont., March 3–10, 2007, doi: 10.1109/AERO.2007.352723.
“Performance of Integrated Electro-Optical Navigation Systems” by T. Hoshizaki, D. Andrisani II, A.W. Braun, A.K. Mulyana and J.S. Bethel in Navigation: Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 51, No. 2, Summer 2004, pp. 101–121, doi: 10.1002/j.2161-4296.2004.tb00344.x.
Simultaneous Localization and Mapping
“A Review of Recent Developments in Simultaneous Localization and Mapping” by G. Dissanayake, S. Huang, Z. Wang and R. Ranasinghe in Proceedings of 6th IEEE International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems, Kandy, Sri Lanka, Aug. 16–19, 2011, pp. 477–482, doi: 10.1109/ICIINFS.2011.6038117.
Navigation Integrity
“Developing a Framework for Image-based Integrity” by C. Larson, J.F. Raquet and M.J. Veth in Proceedings of ION GNSS 2009, the 22nd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division The Institute of Navigation, Savannah, Ga., Sept. 22–25, 2009, pp. 778–789.
“From RAIM to NIOAIM: A New Integrity Approach to Integrated Multi-GNSS Systems” by P.Y. Hwang and R.G. Brown in Inside GNSS, Vol. 3, No. 4, May-June 2008, pp. 24–33.
Minimum Aviation System Performance Standards for Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS), DO-245A, by RTCA SC-159 WG-4, RTCA Inc., Washington, D.C., December 2004.
Camera Calibration
“Flexible Camera Calibration by Viewing a Plane from Unknown Orientations” by Z. Zhang in Proceedings of ICCV’99, the Seventh IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, Kerkya, Greece, Sept. 20–27, 1999, Vol. 1, pp. 666–673, doi: 10.1109/ICCV.1999.791289.
Digital Image Processing
Digital Image Processing, 4th Ed., by W.K. Pratt, published by John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2007.
Digital Image Processing, 3rd Ed., by R.C. Gonzalez and R.E. Woods, published by Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, N.J., 2007.
Signals and Noise
Detection of Signals in Noise, 2nd Ed., by R. N. McDonough and A.D. Whalen, published by Academic Press, Inc., Waltham, Mass., 1995.
An Introduction to Signal Detection and Estimation, 2nd Ed., by H.V. Poor, published by Dowden & Culver, an imprint of Springer, New York. 1994.
The Garmin dezlCam trucking navigator has a built-in dash cam.
Garmin International Inc. is offering dēzlCam, an all-in-one trucking navigator with a built-in dash cam that serves as an onboard eyewitness. Truckers can rely on firsthand video footage that continually records the drive and automatically saves video footage on impact.
The dēzlCam provides custom truck routingfor the size and weight of a driver’s truck as well as route warnings for bridge heights, weight limits, sharp curves, steep grades and more.
“The dēzlCam is an innovative navigation solution for truckers,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of worldwide sales. “As technology evolves, so do the needs of truck drivers who spend their lives on the road. Truckers will like dēzlCam especially because of its premium trucking features combined with an integrated dash cam that records proof of road incidents and protects their driving reputation. The combination of these features adds significant value to our trucking community.”
This premium truck navigator features a six-inch pinch-to-zoom display, a built-in dash cam with an adjustable swivel lens, and a magnetic mount to quickly secure or remove the dēzlCam from a driver’s truck. The built-in dash cam starts recording as soon as the dēzlCam is powered on, while the Incident Detection (G-sensor) automatically saves footage of collisions upon impact.
Location, speed, date and time data can be optionally recorded allowing drivers to know precisely when and where an incident occurred. The Snapshot feature captures still images and provides truckers the freedom to remove the dēzlCam from their truck to take close-up pictures. Users can also play back driving footage directly on the device, or review on a computer using garmin.com/dashcamplayer.
A comprehensive directory of preloaded TruckDownLocations and Services make it easy to find places highly rated by truckers. Drivers can filter trucking points of interest to find locations with their preferred brands or amenities.
The dēzlCam is also bundled with Foursquare data that adds millions of new and popular points of interest to the navigator’s searchable database. Easy Route Shaping lets drivers modify a route to include preferred cities or roads by touching the screen. The Up Ahead feature displays a constant stream of nearby services, such as upcoming rest areas, fuel stations and restaurants.
The dēzlCam also provides a history log to record fuel usage, IFTA mileage and hours of service, and displays mile-marker information, automatic time zone changes and alerts drivers of upcoming state and country borders.
Created with safety in mind, the dēzlCam offers advanced navigation features that aid truckers in reaching their desired destination. Voice-activated navigation lets truckers control the dēzlCam with their voice, while Bluetooth technology allows for hands-free calling and pairing with a Bluetooth-enabled headset (sold separately). The dēzlCam is also compatible with the Garmin BC 30 Wireless Backup Camera (sold separately) to easily see behind a truck when in reverse. Spoken Garmin Real Directions can help drivers locate hard-to-find addresses with spoken directions that use recognizable landmarks, buildings and traffic lights. Active Lane Guidance with helpful voice prompts indicates the proper lane needed for a trucker’s route, while realistic Junction View imagery helps navigate complex interchanges with ease.
The dēzlCam comes equipped with preloaded maps of North America with free lifetime map updates, as well as free HD Digital traffic that provides updates as often as every 30 seconds. Drivers can also download the free Smartphone Link app to access live weather radar on the dēzlCam and other real-time data services from a compatible iPhone or Android™ smartphone.
The Garmin dēzlCam is expected to be available this month with a suggested retail price of $499.99.
EGNOS demonstration equipment aboard an Airbus ATR-42. (Photo by Tim Reynolds)
Toulouse, France, an aerospace city and the center of the French aerospace industry, was the birthplace of EGNOS, Europe’s satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS), in 1994. So it was appropriate that the first-ever EGNOS Flight Event was organized there in May by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) and the European Commission.
EGNOS is the acronym for European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service. It is also songe — the French word for “dream’”— spelled backwards and, according to Jean-Luc Moudenc, mayor of Toulouse, that is how the name originated.
The dream is now very much a reality. Since its certification for civil aviation in 2011, EGNOS has made steady progress in implementation. Today, 111 airports in 15 countries across Europe benefit from EGNOS, and many more are preparing for implementation — 171 LPV (localizer performance with vertical guidance) and 86 BARO approaches are already certified for use.
The EGNOS Flight Event was organized in collaboration with Airbus and brought together aviation media and other sector stakeholders for a briefing and demonstration of EGNOS, how it works, its benefits for aviation and a glimpse at its future.
The state-of-the-art Airbus A350 WXB is the first wide-body airliner equipped with the SLS. (Photo by Tim Reynolds)
EGNOS for Airbus
It was clear that Airbus sees integration of EGNOS, and SBAS generally, into the avionics of its product offerings, from helicopters to the giant Beluga transport plane, as very much part of the future.
A highlight of the event was a “show and tell” with the Airbus A350 WXB — a real beauty of an airplane. Participants were given a tour of this new state-of-the-art wide-bodied airliner, including a simulation of an EGNOS-enabled LPV landing in the cockpit. Airbus test pilot Jean-Christophe Lair described the A350’s new Satellite-based Landing System (SLS) that works with SBAS such as EGNOS. This is the first time such a system has been installed on a wide-body airliner and will be supplied as a standard feature to all customers.
EGNOS is fully integrated into a common harmonised landing system interface on the A350 — the SLS — that allows the pilot to fly precision approaches like an ILS with geometrical vertical guidance down to 200 feet. This new navigation system will allow Airbus users a wider range of solutions to optimise operations and increase accessibility without any compromise on safety.
“All the systems look the same to the pilot — it is a seamless integration of EGNOS — so no human-factor issues,” said Jean-Christophe. Pilot feedback had been excellent with some 3,000 hours flown on LPV approaches using both EGNOS in Europe and WAAS in North America. “We have experienced no technical or operational issues with SBAS operations,” he claimed. “The SLS shows value every day that it is used.”
SLS/LPV is operationally equivalent to CAT 1 ILS, but brings significant additional assets above the LPV minimum such as the secure coding of the final approach segment and the fact that the SBAS/ LPV vertical profile is geometric and fixed in space. The system can also be useful for creating en-route diversions and allows creation of instrumented approaches. Overall the SLS development on the A350 XWB had been a very positive experience he stated.
Earlier Philippe Rollet, senior expert Air Traffic Management at Airbus, had said that “EGNOS was more important for helicopters than aircraft.” The enhanced EGNOS guidance enabling access to helipads in urban environments. “With EGNOS you can have a helipads everywhere and the system increases operational safety in bad weather,” he claimed. “For Airbus all new helicopter models will be EGNOS capable – it is the baseline for Airbus.”
This enhanced access facility was demonstrated via the GSA-funded GARDEN project that is using EGNOS to enable increased safety and better access for helicopters, for example, enabling air ambulances to more easily access city centre hospitals. EGNOS implementation was demonstrated in the cockpit of an Airbus H175 multi-mission helicopter used as a test-bed for GARDEN.
Technology at Work In Flight. EGNOS was also in action during a series of flights for the media using EGNOS for landing procedures on an ATR turboprop development craft. The plane was equipped with additional avionic displays in the main cabin, and this allowed the press to watch the technology at work without crowding out the pilots on the flight deck! The flight demonstration took off from Blagnac for a 15-minute circuit around the beautiful “pink” city of Toulouse before demonstrating an immaculate EGNOS LPV approach and landing.
Earlier the “press pack” had also been taken on a tour of the massive assembly plant for the Airbus A380 double-decker airliner next to the airport. Well worth a visit if you are ever in the area! In fact, Toulouse is blessed with aerospace tourism attractions such as the City of Space.
Expanding EGNOS?
The media was welcomed to the event by GSA executive director Carlo des Dorides. He emphasised that EGNOS for aviation delivers high precision at low cost. “EGNOS is Europe’s first satellite navigation system — and already has a good success story to tell,” he said. “It helps aviation to be safer, greener and more efficient.” He highlighted EGNOS’s ability to deliver continuous integrity protection in compliance with ICAO standards allowing CAT 1 approaches with more than 99 percent availability.
“Today 142 airports across Europe are benefitting from EGNOS, and the number is growing steadily,” he said. EGNOS’s success in aviation was also helping to spread the word for applications in other transport sectors such as maritime.
With a near-term target of 500 runways to be EGNOS enabled in Europe, the support available for airports and operators wanting to benefit from EGNOS was emphasised by Gian Gherardo Calini, the head of market development at GSA. During 2015 the agency has allotted €6 million to co-fund projects to implement EGNOS in aviation. A similar amount had also been allocated in 2014. GSA provided technical and educational support for implementation as well as financial assistance.
He saw the benefits being increased safety, operational enhancements, plus reduced cost and environmental impact. Widespread implementation would enable new point-to-point commercial airline opportunities.
Key to Significant Growth. EGNOS could be the key to a significant growth in general aviation in Europe. “The need to install ILS made the business case for most general aviation airfield out of the question,” claimed Martin Robinson, senior vice president of the International Council of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Association (IAOPA). There are 4,649 aerodromes in Europe and some 50,000 general aviation aircraft operating from them. In comparison to the situation in the U.S., only a small percentage the aerodromes had been. Of course, the widespread uptake of WAAS in the U.S. is a clear result of a deliberate federal strategy.
“There is definitely room for growth,” said Robinson. “EGNOS will help to provide greater access to aerodromes throughout Europe and to improve safety, but we need to be much quicker if we are to realise these benefits sooner.” He felt every general aviation airfield needed a clear business plan working towards EGNOS ability.
There was some dispute about the exact cost of implementing an EGNOS approach as it varies from location to location, but in broad terms the one-off cost of implementation seems to be equivalent to the annual maintenance cost of on-the-ground ILS equipment. With these economics, wider uptake by regional airports in Europe should be a no-brainer; however, the go or no decision often came down to individuals, said Robinson. He believes European countries need to be more willing to support the European Commission in introducing the technology. Perhaps a more region-led approach is required?
The French government line on EGNOS was given by David Comby of the French Ministry for Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, who said France sees EGNOS as essential part of the modernisation process for European airspace making flying safer, more efficient, greener and more cost effective. France was working hard on EGNOS implementation, and it was possible that all French runway ends (~200) would be equipped for EGNOS by 2018.
EGNOS over Africa?
The potential for expansion of EGNOS / SBAS across the globe is huge. Despite having to battle against a barrage of taxiing aircraft noise, Jean-Marc Piéplu Head of EGNOS Exploitation at GSA described the upgrade path for EGNOS from the current Version 2 to EGNOS V3. “Version three will feature new capabilities,” he said. “Dual-frequency and dual-constellation with both GPS and Galileo signals available.”
In theory EGNOS V3 could provide EGNOS / SBAS coverage for aviation to more than 90 percent of the global land surface. Piéplu indicated that if the political will was there to implement, then this extension of coverage could be accomplished in 10 years. There were no outstanding technical issues. He also said that there were no current plans to use GLONASS signals with EGNOS.
A key market could be Africa. Establishment of transport infrastructure is seen as a key enabler for sustainable development in the less-developed world, and SBAS-based infrastructure could provide a cost-effective solution to boost connectivity safely without having to invest in vulnerable ground-based equipment.
Julien Lapie from the Agency for Air Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) highlighted that over 40% of citizens in Africa were more than 250 miles from an ILS-equipped airport. Negotiations on use of EGNOS over Africa are ongoing, but could be completed as soon as 2016.
As the not-so-subtle EGNOS advertising tag goes: It’s there. Use it.
Aspen Avionics has acquired Accord Technology LLC from Accord India. Accord Technology will operate as an Aspen Avionics company continuing to supply Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) -approved OEM GPS solutions to the aerospace industry. Support of its current client base will carry on as usual with licensed production.
“Accord’s expertise to design and develop solutions that meet NextGen and other performance-based navigation requirements, coupled with Aspen’s display offering, create the opportunity to provide unique solutions for all aerospace segments,” said John Uczekaj, president and chief executive officer, Aspen Avionics.
“This is a perfect blending of two companies known for their innovative culture. Aspen and Accord share the same passion to develop aviation solutions that improve situational awareness and promote flight safety at an affordable price,” said Shenoy Raghavendra, Accord Technology chief executive officer.
The transaction, announced today, was completed on June 19 using a combination of cash and securities. NEXA Capital Partners provided merger and acquisition financial advisory services to Aspen Avionics. Also acquired was AvValues LLC, also based in Phoenix. Accord Technology LLC is a joint venture of Accord Software & Systems Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, India, and AvValues.
Hal Adams, founder of AvValues, has been named executive vice president of business development for the combined companies. He will be driving new business to include growing the successful NexNav product line.
“Our combination of innovation and capabilities is unmatched in the aviation industry with the potential to deliver even more affordable, intuitive fight deck and avionics solutions. This translates into meaningful benefits to owner/operators in all areas of manned and unmanned aviation,” said Adams, executive vice president of business development.
Aspen Avionics is a leader in manufacturing glass cockpit displays for general aviation. Founded 10 years ago, more than 9,000 Aspen cockpit systems have been installed worldwide. Aspen Avionics is globally recognized for providing the general aviation marketplace with innovative and affordable products including its Evolution Flight Display System and Connected Panel — the first certified wireless technology that communicates with onboard avionics systems.
Founded in 2008, Accord Technology’s expertise lies in design, manufacture and support of GPS, with Satellite Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) such as the USA’s Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), receivers and sensors for OEMs for all aerospace segments, on manned and unmanned platforms. Its NexNav GPS SBAS WAAS multiple-solutions product line revolves around three key receivers: NexNav Mini, NexNav MAX and the recently introduced NexNav Micro.
Screenshot from GSA video. See full GSA Flight Event 2015 video below.
News from the European GNSS Agency
Since its certification for civil aviation in 2011, EGNOS — the European satellite-based augmentation system — has been making flights in Europe safer, greener and more efficient. To celebrate this achievement and further promote EGNOS, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) in collaboration with the European Commission, invited the media and European aviation stakeholders for a unique EGNOS Flight Event in Toulouse, France, May 6-7.
Today, more than 140 airports in 15 countries across Europe benefit from EGNOS — with many more preparing for implementation. 171 LPV (localizer performance with vertical guidance) and 86 BARO approaches are already certified for use.
To highlight this impact, the EGNOS Flight Event, organized in collaboration with the European Commission, ESSP, ATR and Airbus, brought together aviation media and other sector stakeholders for a comprehensive briefing and demonstration of EGNOS, how it works and its significant benefits for the aviation sector. Along with flight demonstrations, the event assembled a unique array of EGNOS-experienced players — from pilots to operators, service providers and air traffic managers – to discuss how EGNOS is reshaping the future of air transportation in Europe.
Across-the-Board Benefits
Commercial, business and general aviation are all key market segments for EGNOS. For example, business and general aviation operators need to get to meetings as quickly and efficiently as possible, often requiring landing at smaller airports where Instrument Landing System (ILS) or other expensive ground-based navigation aids are simply not feasible. Thus, the implementation of EGNOS-based procedures at these airports significantly improves accessibility. “EGNOS, Europe’s first satellite navigation system, already has a good success story to tell,” says GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides. “EGNOS delivers continuous integrity protection in compliance with ICAO standards, allowing Cat I approaches with over 99 % availability. Today, 142 airports across Europe are benefitting from EGNOS — and the number is growing steadily.”
According to GSA Head of Market Development Gian Gherardo Calini, the Agency has the capacity to support airports and operators wanting to benefit from EGNOS. For example, this year the Agency has allotted €6 million to co-fund projects to implement EGNOS in aviation. A similar amount had also been allocated in 2014.
Airborne with EGNOS
Demonstrations of EGNOS included a briefing on EGNOS for rotorcraft and with the presentation of the GARDEN project. The project is using EGNOS to enable increased safety and better access for helicopters, for example, enabling air ambulances to access city centre hospitals. Participants were also given a first-hand look at EGNOS implementation in the cockpit of an Airbus H175 rotorcraft.
EGNOS in action was demonstrated by a series of flights using EGNOS for landing procedures with an ATR 42-600 turboprop, which was equipped with additional avionics in the main cabin so invited media could witness the technology at work. The flight demonstration took off from the Blagnac Airport in Toulouse, the venue for the EGNOS event, for a 15 minute circuit around Toulouse beforedemonstrating an EGNOS LPV approach and landing.
EGNOS for A350
A highlight on the tarmac was the Airbus A350WXB. Participants were given a tour of this new, state-of-the-art wide-bodied airliner — including a simulation of an EGNOS-enabled LPV landing in the cockpit. Airbus test pilot Jean-Christophe Lair described the A350’s new Satellite-based Landing System (SLS) that works with Satellite Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) such as EGNOS. This is the first time such a system has been installed on a wide body airliner and will be supplied as a standard feature to customers.
According to Lair, EGNOS is fully integrated into a common, harmonised landing system interface on the A350 – the SLS. This allows the pilot to fly precision approaches like an ILS with geometrical vertical guidance down to 200 feet. This new navigation system will provide Airbus operators a wider range of solutions to optimise operations and increase accessibility without any compromise to safety.
EGNOS Expansion
The potential for expansion of EGNOS/SBAS is huge both in terms of global coverage and potential for use in Europe.
GSA Head of EGNOS Exploitation, Jean-Marc Piéplu, outlined the future upgrade of the system from the current Version 2 to EGNOS Version 3. “Version three will feature new capabilities, including dual frequency and dual-constellation with both GPS and Galileo,” he said.
This extension could potentially widen EGNOS/SBAS global coverage for aviation to over 90%. When asked about the timescale for this extension of coverage, Piéplu indicated that if the political will was there to implement, then this could be accomplished in 10 years as there were no outstanding technical issues.
According to International Council of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Association (IAOPA) Senior Vice President Martin Robinson, there is a huge potential for growth in Europe. Currently there are 4,649 aerodromes in Europe and some 50,000 general aviation aircraft operating. Compared to the US, only a fraction of these are SBAS enabled. In the US, the larger uptake of WAAS is due to a deliberate government-led industrial policy.
“Europe still lags behind the United States and there’s definitely room for growth,” said Robinson. “EGNOS will help to provide greater access to aerodromes throughout Europe and improve safety — but we need to be quicker if we are to realize these benefits sooner.”
Fleetmatics Group PLC, a global provider of mobile workforce solutions for service-based businesses of all sizes delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS), has entered into a master subscription services agreement with DIRECTV to enhance tracking, driver safety and on-time arrivals for its fleet of vehicles that are making service calls.
Fleetmatics says its REVEAL is a powerful yet simple-to-use fleet management solution designed to drive cost savings and improve productivity for mobile workforces. Fleetmatics REVEAL+ enables enterprise customers with larger fleets, such as DIRECTV, to manage complex organizational structures and large numbers of users, as well as to deliver actionable executive level business intelligence across the entire enterprise.
“Fleetmatics’ advanced tracking system offers the ideal mobile workforce solution for DIRECTV’s field-based operations,” said David Baker, senior vice president of Field Services for DIRECTV. “This partnership will help our business operate more efficiently while continuing to deliver on our promise of industry-leading customer service.”
“With more than 6,200 new subscriptions, we look forward to delivering actionable business intelligence to DIRECTV,” said Jill Ward, president and CEO of Fleetmatics. “By arming thousands of DIRECTV vehicles with the most powerful telematics solution for the enterprise, we’re helping the company drive cost efficiencies and increase field service worker productivity.”
DIRECTV is a provider of digital television entertainment services to more than 39 million customers in the U.S. and Latin America.
exactEarth Ltd. and Harris Corporation have formed an alliance to provide a new level of Satellite Automatic Identification System (AIS) data service that will deliver real-time global coverage for maritime vessel tracking. The new service will leverage the persistent global coverage and real-time connectivity of the Iridium NEXT constellation through the implementation of 58 hosted payloads covering the Maritime VHF frequency band.
Harris is a space, geospatial and remote sensing company, and exactEarth is a provider of AIS data services.
Compatibility testing of the hosted payload with the Iridium satellites has been completed. The first launch is scheduled for early 2016, with the completed constellation expected in 2017. The new service will provide customers with the fastest, most accurate vessel information available. With revisit times and latency under one minute, the service expansion represents a leap forward in the ability for both Harris and exactEarth to offer global ship tracking and maritime information solutions, the companies said in a statement.
The alliance leverages exactEarth’s proven and patented signal de-collision detection technology and Harris’ expertise in satellite hosted payloads, advanced radio frequency technology and antenna solutions. Harris becomes the exclusive provider to the US government of AIS products and services produced under the alliance, including exactEarth’s exactAIS product portfolio, while exactEarth continues to serve all other global markets.
“This alliance will expand our IntelliEarth family of innovative solutions, which leverage Harris’ world-class remote sensing capabilities to help customers around the globe make smarter operational and business decisions,” said Bill Gattle, vice president and general manager, National Programs, Harris Government Communications Systems. “Harris is committed to exploring new technologies and partnering with world-leading organizations to provide our customers with the greatest value.”
“As the recognized Satellite AIS industry leader, this announcement further strengthens our commitment to provide best-in-class maritime intelligence solutions to our customers worldwide,” said Peter Mabson, Ppresident of exactEarth. “We are thrilled to be able to offer the shortest revisit times and lowest latency for developing true maritime domain awareness. This partnership with Harris will allow us to significantly expand the range of advanced value-added services and information solutions that we can bring to the global maritime market.”
BMW driver interface concept for how INRIX On-Street Parking might be integrated into navigation systems in BMW Connected Drive vehicles. Color coded bars indicate probability of open street parking ranging from green (lots of spaces) to red (not likely to have an open space).
Everyone who has ever been frustrated circling the block in search of parking has wished for a solution that could quickly lead them to that elusive spot. INRIX is launching a new service aimed at addressing this problem by helping drivers quickly find on-street parking. BMW will be the first automaker to include the service for its cars, in its ConnectedDrive autos.
INRIX On-Street Parking answers key questions for drivers including:
Where can I park?With availability updated hourly, quickly identify streets with the best chances of finding a parking spot.
How much will parking cost? Information on pricing, parking/permit restrictions, policy rules (free vs. paid times/days).
Is there a garage or lot nearby? When on-street parking is unavailable, drivers can be directed to one of more than 80,000 off-street parking locations in Europe and North America. The service provides pricing and availability information, ability to compare locations by distance and price as well as locate the nearest entrance.
“As we continue to connect cars to smarter cities, INRIX On-Street Parking fills a critical gap that addresses the growing challenge of traffic and parking in our cities worldwide,” said Bryan Mistele, President and CEO, INRIX. “And looking ahead to a time when autonomous cars are a reality, this service enables vehicles that drive themselves to park themselves now as well.”
Visualization showing INRIX On-Street parking occupancy by block for key neighborhoods in downtown San Francisco. Color coded bars indicate probability of open street parking ranging from green (lots of spaces) to red (not likely to have an open space).
Initially available in Seattle; Vancouver, B.C.; San Francisco; Amsterdam; Cologne and Copenhagen, the service will expand to cover 23 cities by the end of the year.
Experts estimate up to 30 percent of traffic in congested urban areas where street parking is in high demand results from drivers looking for parking. A global survey of commuters in 20 international cities found that nearly 6 out of 10 drivers have abandoned their search for a parking space at least once, and drivers often spend an average of nearly 20 minutes in pursuit of a coveted spot. Further, an analysis by Frost & Sullivan found that drivers waste an average of 55 hours per year searching for parking, costing consumers and local economies nearly $600 million in wasted time and fuel.
Smarter Parking Information
With more than half of the world’s population living in our largest cities, transportation agencies are increasingly turning to intelligent parking solutions to better manage parking inventory and improve urban mobility. INRIX On-Street Parking provides cities with a scalable, cost-effective and immediate way to manage parking inventory as well as improve traffic in urban areas, INRIX said.
On-Street Parking to cities includes:
Real-time Information. Goes beyond one-time snapshots of parking availability, allowing cities to see how parking inventory changes based on time of day, day of week, price and during special events or holidays.
Less reliance on road-side counters and costly sensors. Offers a faster, more cost-effective way for cities to manage parking. The service goes beyond current smart parking technologies because it also works on roads without smart meters or sensors and outside of hours requiring payment.
Better insight for urban planning. With a comprehensive understanding of parking inventory usage citywide, urban planners can gain insights that help them improve parking conditions and locations, and better locate special purpose lanes for bicycles and public transit on city streets.
Calibrate demand pricing models. Provides insight into how pricing fluctuations impact demand in real-time. Cities can optimize pricing to maximize use of available inventory citywide.
Automakers, mobile app providers and public sector agencies interested in learning more can register for a Webinar scheduled for June 17 at 8 a.m. EDT where INRIX will outline use cases, technical specifications and benefits in greater detail.
