Aircraft position as obtained by Galileo-only receiver during Netherlands flight.
The European Space Agency’s Galileo satellites have achieved their first aerial fix of longitude, latitude and altitude, enabling the inflight tracking of a test aircraft. ESA’s four Galileo satellites in orbit have supported months of positioning tests on the ground across Europe since the first fix in March.
Now the first aerial tracking using Galileo has taken place, marking the first time that Europe has been able to determine the position of an aircraft using only its own independent navigation system. The milestone took place on a Fairchild Metro-II above Gilze-Rijen Air Force Base in the Netherlands at 12:38 GMT on November 12. It was part of an aerial campaign overseen jointly by ESA and the National Aerospace Laboratory of the Netherlands, NLR, with the support of Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, and LVNL, the Dutch Air Navigation Service Provider.
A pair of Galileo test receivers was used aboard the aircraft, the same kind employed for Galileo testing in the field and in labs across Europe. They were connected to an aeronautical-certified triple-frequency Galileo-ready antenna mounted on top of the aircraft.
Fairchild Metro-II aircraft used for Galileo airborne testing.
Tests were scheduled during periods when all four Galileo satellites were visible in the sky – four being the minimum needed for positioning fixes. The receivers fixed the plane’s position and, as well as determining key variables such as the position, velocity and timing accuracy; time to first fix; signal-to-noise ratio; range error; and range–rate error.
Testing covered both Galileo’s publicly available Open Service and the more precise, encrypted Public Regulated Service, whose availability is limited to governmental entities.
Flights covered all major phases: take off, straight and level flight with constant speed, orbit, straight and level flight with alternating speeds, turns with a maximum bank angle of 60º, pull-ups and push-overs, approaches and landings.
They also allowed positioning to be carried out during a wide variety of conditions, such as vibrations, speeds up to 456 km/h, accelerations up to 2 ghorizontal and 0.5–1.5 gvertical, and rapid jerks. The maximum altitude reached during the flights were 3000 m.
NLR’s Fairchild Metro-II has previously performed initial European GPS testing in the 1980s, and the first tests of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, EGNOS, which sharpens GPS accuracy and monitors its reliability over Europe for high-accuracy or even safety-of-life uses.
The definition and development of Galileo’s in-orbit validation phase were carried out by ESA and co-funded by ESA and the EU.
The Full Operational Capability phase is managed and fully funded by the European Commission. The Commission and ESA have signed a delegation agreement by which ESA acts as design and procurement agent on behalf of the Commission.
First GNSS-SDR Galileo standalone position fix using the four available satellites (Position obtained at the CTTC headquarters on 2013-Nov-10 15:52:14 UTC).
For the first time, position fixes in real time using signals from Galileo have been achieved with an open source software receiver. The milestone was achieved by a research team from the Statistical Inference Department at the Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC), which manages the development of the open source project GNSS-SDR.
Professional, full-featured receivers are expensive, and even in those cases the users have limited access (if any) to know exactly how position and time information were computed, CTTC said. In addition, these receivers exhibit very few upgrading capabilities. A software receiver allows all kind of modifications and inspections. “GNSS-SDR unleashes the full potential of the signals and, best of all, it is open and for free,” said Carles Fernández-Prades, GNSS-SDR project manager and Head of the Communications Systems Division at CTTC.
GNSS-SDR 2D ENU coordinates precision for the Galileo position fix.
A GNSS software receiver is a computer program that performs all the signal processing from raw satellite signals to the computation of position, velocity and time, just as is done by the GPS chips that are embedded in smartphones and other devices with satellite-based positioning capabilities. The key difference relies on the great flexibility in the design, upgradability and the experimentation possibilities that the software version allows, in opposition to integrated circuits, true black boxes with inputs and outputs but with no accessible information about what is going on inside of them.
“With GNSS-SDR, researchers and technology enthusiasts can easily change the implementation of a certain functional block and assess the impact of that change on the whole receiver performance,” said Pau Closas, GNSS-SDR scientific advisor and Head of the Statistical Inference Department at CTTC. “This paves the way to innovative mass-market, industrial and scientific applications that could make use of Galileo signals but require non-standard features which are not present in mass-market receivers nor in costly professional equipment.”
The first Galileo-based positioning fix, obtained by Javier Arribas using a general purpose GNSS antenna and a RF front-end connected to a commodity PC running GNSS-SDR represents an important milestone in the research on GNSS receiver design. “Next steps will be devoted to provide outputs in standard formats that will allow the application of geodesic-grade tools for extremely precise positioning (on the order of centimeters) and higher degrees of reliability,” Arribas said.
GNSS-SDR is the first open source solution that offers this possibility, CTTC said. The source code released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) secures practical usability, inspection, and continuous improvement by the research community, allowing the discussion based on tangible code and the analysis of results obtained with real signals. The source code is complemented by a development ecosystem, consisting of a website, as well as a revision control system, instructions for users and developers, and communication tools.
With GNSS-SDR, researchers from CTTC (with the aid of an open community created around the project, such as the students participating in the Google Summer of Code program in 2012 and 2013 Luis Esteve, Mara Branzanti, Daniel Fehr and Marc Molina) are offering a tool that fosters the use of GPS and Galileo signals in unexpected new ways, making possible applications with unforeseen benefits in a wide range of fields, such as geodesy, robotics, unmanned vehicles and safety-related systems.
Esri announced the release of ArcGIS for Electric and ArcGIS for Gas—ready-to-use maps and apps designed for utilities. Both are freely available to Esri customers. Developers and utility experts at Esri spent years studying industry needs and trends to come up with solutions that help utilities quickly respond to outages and engage with customers.
“It’s never been easier to geoenable your utility,” said Bill Meehan, Esri’s director of utility solutions. “ArcGIS for Electric and ArcGIS for Gas will help utilities get much more value from their data. More than that, this is a chance for utilities to truly revolutionize their business.”
ArcGIS for Electric includes damage assessment and streetlight problem apps, along with a public outage viewer to help utilities communicate with customers during an outage. ArcGIS for Gas includes damage assessment apps and an exposed pipe collector app. Both applications also help Esri customers get started quickly with ArcGIS Online, where they can create and share interactive maps and apps. They can also access ready-to-use content, apps, and templates available for the web, smartphones, and tablets.
The first Galileo Full Operational Capability satellite emerges from the Phenix test chamber after five weeks of thermal–vacuum testing.
ESA’s newest Galileo satellite has emerged from five weeks of simulated space conditions. On Friday, a hatch slid open to end its thermal-vacuum test, a milestone on the way to orbit.
The satellite was placed in the 4.5-meter-diameter Phenix chamber in ESA’s ESTEC Test Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, in late October. Once inside, the air was pumped out to create a space-quality vacuum. The temperature extremes were also reproduced, with the six copper walls of the thermal tent cooled by liquid nitrogen down to -180°C.
A second Galileo has been undergoing the same rigors at the site, along with a vibration and shock test to reproduce separation from the launcher. Thermal-vacuum testing on the second model will begin early next year. The two satellites will be launched on a Soyuz rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana midway through this coming year. They are the first two Full Operational Capability (FOC) satellites, following on from the first four already in orbit.
The next Galileo is expected to arrive at ESTEC in March, with further satellites following every seven weeks or so. A total of 22 FOC satellites are being built by OHB in Germany, with navigation payloads being delivered from Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. in the UK.
Supergeo announced that SuperSurv for iOS V0.99 is now available on the App Store for trial.
According to the announcement, SuperSurv, the mobile GIS application designed for field survey, integrates with GIS and GPS technologies to provide functions like Map Display, Query, Measure, etc, and supports point, line and polygon data collection and offline data editing. In addition to the Android edition, SuperSurv is now available for iOS users to collect spatial data.
SuperSurv for iOS V0.99 trial is now available on the App Store. OpenStreetMap can be employed as the basemap in SuperSurv to help filed surveyors collect point, line and polygon feature and the attribute data. The collected data can be saved in vector layers (SHP format) and exported through iTunes to be applied in various GIS programs.
SuperSurv for iOS full version will contain the functions, like Waypoint, GPS Track, Measure Function, Query, and reading and editing the services published by SuperGIS Server 3.1a. The full function is planned to be launched in the beginning of 2014. To learn more about SuperSurv for iOS, please download the trial on App Store.
Supergeo announced that SuperSurv for iOS V0.99 is now available on the App Store for trial.
According to the announcement, SuperSurv, the mobile GIS application designed for field survey, integrates with GIS and GPS technologies to provide functions like Map Display, Query, Measure, etc, and supports point, line and polygon data collection and offline data editing. In addition to the Android edition, SuperSurv is now available for iOS users to collect spatial data.
SuperSurv for iOS V0.99 trial is now available on the App Store. OpenStreetMap can be employed as the basemap in SuperSurv to help filed surveyors collect point, line and polygon feature and the attribute data. The collected data can be saved in vector layers (SHP format) and exported through iTunes to be applied in various GIS programs.
SuperSurv for iOS full version will contain the functions, like Waypoint, GPS Track, Measure Function, Query, and reading and editing the services published by SuperGIS Server 3.1a. The full function is planned to be launched in the beginning of 2014. To learn more about SuperSurv for iOS, please download the trial on App Store.
November 29, 2013, marks the 210th anniversary of the birth of Christian Doppler. His work laid down the fundamental concepts that enabled researchers at Johns Hopkins University in the United States to make observations on the signals of Sputnik I during the International Geophysical Year of 1957. From those observations more than 60 years ago, we can trace the development of GNSS as we know it today. The very genesis of GNSS drew on the combined science, technology, and innovation from Europe, the United States, and Russia. Today, GNSS is a truly global technology that has changed for the better the lives of an estimated one billion people.
2013 also saw a major milestone in the global history of GNSS with the announcement by the European Space Agency (ESA) that the Galileo system had generated its first position fix using operational space vehicles. Here at Trimble we have for some time been providing user equipment that is ready for the modernized, multiple-constellation environment emerging in the coming years. It is still exciting to see the plans of the GNSS operators gradually become a reality, whether it is the ongoing deployment of Galileo and BeiDou or the modernization of GPS and GLONASS. There is no doubt that GNSS users worldwide will benefit significantly from these new developments, and it is natural to expect that we will see continued user-driven adoption and integration of these systems in the year ahead, together with new applications and services that make full use of the expanding GNSS capabilities.
Global Addiction to Accuracy
We have come to expect — if not demand — that technologies continuously evolve to become faster, smaller, and more cost-effective, while also providing expanded functionality and benefits. For GNSS, this expectation includes increased accuracy and precision for a growing proportion of the total user base, together with a desire to determine location in more places or, ultimately, ubiquitously.
From a technological perspective, the trend to increased accuracy is moving beyond local or regional land- or satellite-based differential augmentation toward global networks and services. New technologies such as Trimble RTX use data from a global network of GNSS stations together with global connectivity and communications to facilitate precise point positioning without the need to connect to local or regional reference station networks. Such capabilities simplify the user’s experience with precise positioning, while at the same time vastly expanding the areas on Earth where such positioning can be quickly and conveniently carried out.
Over the past decades, high-precision GNSS positioning has been adopted by increasingly larger numbers of users in the context of end-to-end work-process solutions in industries from agriculture to construction, surveying and mapping, energy, mining, utilities, transportation, and government, to name but a few. With assets, workers, and work sites spread over large geographic areas, these industries and operations have transformed how their work is done through the use of systems that incorporate real-time location information. While we should expect adoption and advancement in these areas to continue due to the compelling economic, safety, and environmental benefits provided, we should also expect to see increasing adoption of high-precision GNSS positioning in new applications such as intelligent transportation and within some proportion of the consumer user base. Accuracy is, after all, addictive.
Availability, Too. Along with accuracy, availability of position is also proving to be addictive; once we come to depend on location-enabled systems in our professional and personal lives, our needs and expectations will naturally tend toward that of continuous availability at all times and regardless of location. Although new constellations with more satellites and new, stronger signals help in this regard, augmentation of GNSS plays a key role on the path to more robust ubiquity. From a Trimble perspective, many of our new product launches during the past year incorporated deep integration of multiple measurement technologies. New systems combine GNSS with inertial measurement units, gyros, tilt sensors, seismometers, optical measurement, imaging systems, lasers, and other sensors or technologies, all enabling location and movement determination (increasingly in three dimensions) of more objects in more places — including, in some cases, even inside buildings. Looking to the future,we can expect the appetite for ubiquitous positioning to continue unabated.
Multiple sensors are also used to collect non-geographic information. Increasingly, innovation is taking place at the intersection and aggregation of many different types of data, providing new insights and enabling more informed, more timely, and more insightful decisions across almost every facet of human activity. GNSS is rapidly expanding its role as an enabling technology in this regard. While we know that delivering consistently accurate positions is a decidedly nontrivial achievement, those positions are often just one component of increasingly large and complex endeavors. In fact, much of the innovation today lies in applications that enable new, more efficient approaches to work and enterprise management, and in the creation of new and powerful analytics from aggregated data.
Global Utility, Global Business
2013 marks another important anniversary: GPS officially reached Initial Operating Capability twenty years ago on December 8, 1993. In his 2011 State of the Union address, U.S. President Barack Obama cited GPS, along with the Internet, as key examples of how government-funded fundamental research can stimulate innovation and create whole new industries. The combination of those two technologies has transformed our lives in ways even the early visionaries may not have imagined. The U.S. government has contributed to the global success of GPS in ways beyond technological innovation. Following the 1983 Korean Airlines 007 disaster (caused in part by inaccurate navigation), President Reagan declared that GPS should be free and available to all, providing a stable policy foundation upon which successive U.S. administrations have continued to build, increasingly recognizing the importance of civilian GPS applications.
Importantly, the United States strengthened this open-access policy framework by publishing the Interface Control Document for GPS, which enabled entrepreneurs and innovators anywhere in the world to bring to life their ideas about how this new technology in space could be used on Earth. For the most part, other governments have followed U.S. leadership in announcing predictable policy access to worldwide satellite positioning and timing availability, allowing innovation to take place wherever it may. In the process it spawned a truly global industry.
Technology alone has not achieved the global impact of GNSS. Rather, it is the combination of technology, a transparent, stable policy environment conducive to global innovation and adoption, and the economics of a global market that together have led to so many people today enjoying the benefits that GNSS provides. Such alignment is equally important for the future: just as GNSS from the beginning built upon knowledge and achievement from around the world, its full international potential will be best realized through global, user-driven innovation, vibrant international entrepreneurship, and robust open markets. Given that we are still far from reaching that full potential, there is good reason for us all to have great expectations of GNSS operators, the industry, and the user community in 2014 and beyond.
Peter O. Large joined Trimble in 1996 and has served as a vice president and a member of the executive committee since 2010. He holds a BSc (Hons) in surveying and mapping science from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and an M.S. in management from Stanford University.
By Marco Falcone, System Manager for the European Space Agency in the Galileo Project Office
Following the second Galileo launch in October 2012, leading to four operational satellites in orbit, a progressive chain of events has taken place in 2013 encompassing all Galileo Services, starting from the first position fix on March 12 (Figure 1), when navigation message continuous broadcast began.
Galileo System Time (GST) to Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) dissemination to timing users started on April 16 and since then has been maintained within 5 nanoseconds (Figure 2).
GPS to Galileo Time Offset (GGTO) dissemination started on April 22, favoring the use of our satellites for combined positioning with the GPS constellation. GGTO accuracy is well within 7 nanoseconds.
The first implementation of the Galileo Terrestrial Reference Frame (GTRF), aligned to the IGb08, an update of IGS08 (International Terrestrial Reference Frame 2008), has been available since May 27, including all deployed Galileo Sensor Stations sites.
The capability to disseminate Commercial Service data in the navigation message was demonstrated on June 25.
In July, several European Union Member States achieved the first position fix using Public Regulated Service (PRS) receivers as part of the EC-ESA joint PRS Participants To IOV (PPTI) campaigns, demonstrating PRS positioning and access control.
The first search-and-rescue (SAR) localizations using the operational mid-Earth orbit Local User Terminal (MEO LUT) in Maspalomas was exercised July 9, and the first dissemination of the acknowledgement via return link to users in distress was tested in October.
The majority of performance verification tests has been successfully completed as part of the In Orbit Validation (IOV) experimentation campaign completed at the end of October 2013, demonstrating the achievement of the Galileo system’s expected performance. The average positioning accuracy for E1/E5a dual-frequency Open Service users is already around 8 meters horizontally and 10 meters vertically. This is an impressive result considering the small number of Galileo satellites in orbit and the limited ground infrastructure so far.
Figure 1. Galileo first position fix (source: Timing and Geodesy Validation Facility).
But the single most important message from the In Orbit Validation campaign is that Galileo works, and it works well.
The experience gained and lessons learned during the IOV period, especially in the domain of ground operations, have been very useful and will be addressed as a priority in the next phase, as part of the planned new versions of the Ground Control Segment and Ground Mission Segment.
The launches in 2014 of the new FOC satellites manufactured by OHB will further increase the availability of positioning and timing accuracy to users.
Complementary system validation campaigns will be carried out next year, moving towards commercial receiver technology for all categories of users, with particular focus on the mass market and the Public Regulated Service. Following the letter issued by the European GNSS Agency to Galileo chipset manufacturers in July 2013, an opportunity has been given to interested companies to take part in a test campaign to support the early introduction of Galileo in commercially available receivers. The campaign will be carried out next year, focusing on the compatibility of the devices with the reception of Galileo Open Service signals and their combined use with GPS and GLONASS. A number of mass-market chipset manufacturers and professional receiver manufacturers have already expressed their interest in participating in the campaign.
Figure 2. GST and UTC prediction error (source: FOC WP1 System Engineering Technical Assistance).
Marco Falcone is system manager for the European Space Agency in the Galileo Project Office in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. He has been mission manager for the GIOVE-A and –B satellites, the precursors of the Galileo operational satellite constellation. Nowadays, his main task is to validate the overall Galileo system and to ensure that it fulfils in operations the required performance starting from the first four satellites of the In Orbit Validation Phase throughout the full deployment of the constellation. He received his Master’s degree in computer science from the University of Pisa, Italy and his Master’s degree in space systems engineering from the University of Delft, the Netherlands.
By Chengqi Ran, Director General of the China Satellite Navigation Office
By adhering to the principles of independence, openness, compatibility, and gradualness, China has steadily pushed forward the deployment of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), following a planned three-step strategy. In 2000, BeiDou Navigation Satellite Demonstration System was completed. By December 2012, five geostationary orbit (GEO) satellites, five inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) satellites, and four medium-Earth orbit (MEO) satellites had been launched, forming the constellation, and formally beginning service provision to the Asia-Pacific region.
The important contribution of BDS for Chinese and global users is well-recognized. It will provide services to global users by around 2020.
System Deployment
Moving forward in 2014, additional satellites will be launched to form the next constellation, while regional service performances will be advanced and expanded to worldwide scope. Approximately 40 satellites in total will have been launched by about 2020.
Current System Performance
Single-frequency horizontal, vertical, and three-dimensional positioning accuracy has been achieved at levels better than 10 meters, 10 meters, and 14 meters, respectively. Timing accuracy is better than 50 nanoseconds. Velocity accuracy is better than 0.2 meters per second. Carrier-phase differential accuracy is about 2–3 centimeters. During the past year, BDS has been continuously improved and enhanced, while its service performances in some regions dramatically surpassed the indicators given earlier.
Application Promotion
The application of BDS has played an important role in China, especially in advancing science and technology. Chinese scientists and engineers have intelligently and enthusiastically embraced China’s independent navigation satellite system and have made great progress in research and development of navigation satellite technologies, as well as new breakthroughs in the production of navigation chips, antennas, terminals, and integrated services.
In 2012, the total output value of China’s satellite navigation and location-based service (LBS) industries reached 81 billion renminbi (RMB, equivalent to $13.2 billion), which amounts to 8 percent of the global sector. At the end of 2012, BDS civil user terminals totaled 230,000 units, and BDS-related industrial output value was close to 4 billion RMB ($652 million), which is about 5 percent of the national output.
A series of policies aimed at strengthening the application of satellite navigation are under formulation in China, and the Mid- and Long-Term Development Plan for the National Satellite Navigation Industry has been issued. Satellite navigation has become one of the emerging industries with strategic importance. BDS is propelling China’s satellite navigation and LBS industries into a new era.
Distribution of visible in-orbit BeiDou satellites.
International Cooperation
China upholds and adheres to the concept of “BeiDou is of China, and also of the world,” advocating compatibility and interoperability among navigation satellite systems, and endeavoring to stimulate global widespread use of navigation satellite systems. To enable users to enjoy more reliable and ensured satellite navigation services, BDS has joined in international GNSS monitoring and assessment cooperation, making use of global monitoring stations, sharing international monitoring statistics, implementing joint assessment studies, and striving to offer trustworthy monitoring and assessment data and products to users.
To achieve BDS’ envisioned coverage area more quickly, the BeiDou+ Application Demonstration and Experience Campaign (BADEC) has been initiated. “BeiDou’s tour to the Asian-Pacific region” and “BeiDou’s tour to the ASEAN” have been kicked off to accelerate application promotion of navigation satellite systems in many countries. To popularize satellite navigation technologies, particularly enhancing its recognition and application in developing countries, BDS has provided academic education, short-term training, and thematic lectures with support from International GNSS Exchange and Training Center.
China also holds the annual China Satellite Navigation Conference, actively participates in international exchange activities on satellite navigation, and engages in academic exchanges, high-level forums, and popularization of knowledge.
Future Outlook
BDS is also committed to:
establishing navigation-satellite augmentation systems in the Asia-Pacific region and worldwide, developing better service performances, to provide decimeter-level accuracy in real time and centimeter-level accuracy after post-processing;
setting up satellite-navigation products-quality testing certification centers;
speeding up formulation of standards and intellectual property rights;
joining international organizations such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), International Maritime Organization (IMO), and Third-Generation mobile communication standard Partnership Project (3GPP);
strengthening compatibility and interoperability with the other navigation satellite systems;
promoting BDS/GNSS applications in transportation, energy, power, finance, telecommunication, disaster reduction and relief, and so on, to realize the BDS objective of serving the world and benefiting mankind.
BDS will fully exploit the unique advantages of navigation, communication, and augmentation integration, enhance its short message service (SMS), and providing faster positioning and timing capabilities. BDS will also effectively integrate satellite- and ground-based augmentation systems, and insist on implementations of compatibility and interoperability among multi-GNSS, to enable its organic integration with mobile communication, LBS, and the Internet, and provide better quality, more reliable and efficient services to eco-social development, public security, and individual users.
Chengqi Ran is the director general of the China Satellite Navigation Office and press spokesman of BeiDou Navigation Satellite System. He graduated from Tsinghua University with a Master’s degree in industrial engineering, and previously was director of the General Technology Department in the China Satellite Navigation Project Center.
By Denis Lyskov, Deputy Head of the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos
The fundamentals of Russian government policy in satellite navigation are defined in Presidential Decree #638 of May 17, 2007, and specify that:
GLONASS services are provided globally and free of any user fees;
GLONASS is used as a basis of the National Positioning, Navigation and Timing System.
To efficiently implement the government policy in satellite navigation, in March 2012 the Government approved the dedicated Federal Program focused on GLONASS sustainment, development, and expansion of applications. This program covers activities aimed at:
improving the accuracy and integrity of navigation;
ensuring conditions for guaranteed positioning, navigation, and timing solutions in restricted visibility, interference, and jamming environments;
enhancing current application efficiency and broadening application domains.
This year, the extensive efforts aimed at development of new generation GLONASS satellites, augmentations, and performance monitoring facilities were taken. The results obtained help to define the main directions of GLONASS development for the upcoming years.
Space Segment
The new navigation satellite will ensure navigation services for all categories of users using current frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) signals in L1 and L2 as well as new code-division multiple-access (CDMA) signals in L1, L2, and L3 bands. The full set of GLONASS signals will be transmitted using two separate phased antenna arrays — one for FDMA signals, and the other for CDMA signals. Introduction of new signals broadens the possibilities of improving the GLONASS orbital constellation configuration, structure and composition of navigation message data, as well as accuracy, reliability, and integrity of navigation solutions in various conditions. The constellation sustainment plan includes the launch of GLONASS-M-55 satellite in 2014. This satellite, similar to GLONASS-K-11 launched in February 2011, will carry an L3 navigation payload and transmit a CDMA signal in L3.
The L3 CDMA signal will also be transmitted from seven more GLONASS-M satellites planned for launch in 2014–2015.
The implementation of a GLONASS modernization program will produce a more than four-fold improvement of accuracy. This will be made by means of:
ground control segment upgrade;
introduction of a new on-board atomic frequency standard, based on different technologies;
introduction of advanced technologies of satellite control, based on intersatellite links in radio frequency and optical bands;
transition to PZ-90.11 Geodetic Reference System aligned to the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) at the millimeter level;
synchronization of the GLONASS time scale with Coordinated Universal Time UTC (SU, for Soviet Union) at the level of less than 2 nanoseconds while keeping the UTC (SU) own long-term stability at 10-17.
Augmentations
Augmentations play an important role in improving GLONASS performance. With the launch of Luch-5V into an orbital position of 95° E in 2014, the first phase of the System of Differential Correction and Monitoring (SDCM) constellation deployment will be completed. SDCM will provide satellite-based augmentation services (SBAS) in L1 (1575.42 MHz). Simultaneously, the deployment in the Far East of the Russian Federation of uploading and monitoring facilities for Luch-5A positioned at 167° E will be completed. Special attention is being paid to ensuring compatibility of Luch-5B satellite (16° E) and Inmarsat-3F2 satellite (15.5° W) carrying a European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) payload.
The future transition to using heavier satellites carrying L1/L5 transponders will present an important stage of SDCM development. The first launch of such satellites is tentatively planned for 2018.
With the purpose of improving the quality of SDCM services, the ground network consisting of several dozen sites will be deployed over the Russian territory, and more stations will be deployed along the Russian border to improve the accuracy of generating the vertical ionospheric delay map.
Apart from SBAS technology development, a system for ensuring Precise Point Positioning (PPP)service is planned for development. PPP service will be provided using geostationary Earth-orbit (GEO) satellites transmitting in L1/L3 GLONASS bands. The L1/L3 transponders are planned to be installed on board future GEO satellites. Considering the common parameters (carrier frequency, pseudorandom noise pulse rate, data rate) of PPP and GLONASS’ own signals, the informative capacity of the former is an order of magnitude greater to ensure rapid broadcast of high-precision orbits and clocks.
For PPP technology development, the global network of measuring facilities is of extreme importance. The global network ensures global monitoring of navigation signals and generation of initial data for high-precision determination and prediction of orbits and clocks.
International Cooperation
Cooperation with GNSS providers focuses on protecting the spectrum allocated to radionavigation satellite service, pursuing compatibility and interoperability of GLONASS and SDCM with other GNSSs and augmentations, creating an international GNSS monitoring system.
One of the priority directions of international scientific cooperation is the cooperation with the International GNSS Service through the exchange of measurement information between its members. At the same time, GLONASS measuring and monitoring facilities will receive and monitor all open navigation signals of all GNSSs.
A lot of attention is paid to enhancing GLONASS awareness. Since 2009, the International School on Satellite Navigation has been held annually in the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation has been preparing to host the United Nations Workshop on the Applications of Global Satellite Navigation Systems.
Denis Lyskov is state-secretary, deputy head of the Federal Space Agency of Russia (Roscosmos). He started his carrier in the Russian space industry after graduation from the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1996. He has been working in Roscosmos for the last two years and supervising the GLONASS program since June 2013.
By Colonel William T. “Bill” Cooley, U.S. Air Force, Director, Global Positioning System
The cliché “time flies when you’re having fun” accurately describes how quickly the past six months have passed for me. In a program as challenging, rewarding, and mission-critical as GPS, it is full-speed ahead all the time. As the GPS director, I am acutely aware of the importance of time — particularly high-accuracy time. Since declaring initial operational capability in December 1993, the extremely precise time service delivered by GPS has enabled numerous technological advances around the globe. While extremely proud of the accomplishments over the past 20 years, I look forward to the next 20 years, as GPS brings on new signals and continues to deliver on its promise of a worldwide free positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) service. This article elaborates on the GPS Directorate commitment, along with the 2nd Space Operations Squadron (2 SOPS), to provide unparalleled space-based PNT accuracy, availability, and reliability to the civil community.
The first commitment, arguably the most important for users everywhere, is the commitment to high accuracy for space-based PNT. After speaking at the ION GNSS+ conference and meeting many of you in Nashville this September, I realized that some users remain worried that selective availability (SA) — the intentional degradation of public GPS signals — could return and negatively impact GPS signal quality. SA was discontinued in May 2000 to provide an increased level of accuracy to all users around the globe. Since that time, the U.S. government has adopted a policy to no longer use SA and, furthermore, in 2007 removed that function from the upcoming GPS III satellites. The GPS Performance Standard for the Standard Positioning Service reflects our commitment to accuracy by ensuring the signal-in-space (SIS) user range error remains low: better than 4-meter accuracy. Figure 1 shows the record-setting SIS accuracy and how GPS meets and far exceeds this guarantee: consistently better than 1-meter accuracy! The 2 SOPS operators who command and control the GPS satellites do a masterful job ensuring global PNT accuracy is as good as it can be.
Figure 1. Standard Positioning Service signal-in-space performance.
The quality of these services, however, does not permit the GPS enterprise to rest in the comfort of past success. We are dedicated to updating and modernizing the program.
The second commitment I’d like to highlight includes the GPS pledge for constellation sustainment and service availability. This is a guarantee to maintain a constellation of at least 24 satellites continuously broadcasting the GPS signals, providing a low dilution-of-precision value around the globe. Current efforts to meet this commitment range from replenishing unhealthy satellites to deploying improved, modernized satellites and corresponding ground support. For example, the GPS IIF satellites are rapidly becoming an integral part of the GPS constellation. With four IIFs on-orbit and a fifth soon to be launched, the constellation continues to exceed the 24-satellite requirement.
The third commitment — to modernize the GPS constellation with new signals — is best illustrated by, but not limited to, the modernized GPS IIF and GPS III satellites that are beginning to populate the constellation. In addition to four GPS IIF satellites now on orbit, the remaining GPS IIFs are either ready for launch or in final testing.
Down the road, GPS III satellites are completing development and progressing through early production. They will add the fourth civil signal, L1C, for civil users worldwide. Earlier this year, the GPS III program shipped the GPS non-flight satellite testbed (an engineering development unit) to Cape Canaveral; it successfully communicated with the next-generation operational control system (OCX), essentially as it would for launch and on-orbit check and control of functional GPS III satellites. The operational portion of the GPS ground segment, OCX Block 1 is on track to begin operations in 2016, modernizing the control segment by providing mission operation control of all legacy signals, as well as L2C and L5; later, OCX Block 2 will support L1C.
GPS civil users will soon be able to take advantage of the L2C and L5 signals that broadcast the modernized civil navigation message (CNAV); this will effectively eliminate the need to access the L1 and L2 P(Y) signals through codeless or semi-codeless techniques. These codes permit civil users to access dual-frequency solutions for precision applications (using dual-frequency enables ionospheric corrections for highly accurate PNT solutions). Compared to the L1 C/A signal, L2C features faster signal acquisition, enhanced reliability, and greater operating range. L5 will provide for increased safety-of-life applications with broadcast power even greater than L1 C/A and L2C combined, increased bandwidth, and advanced signal design. Regardless of the early availability of L2C and L5, semi-codeless users will be able to access P(Y) code — unhindered and unaffected by fully tested and vetted flex-power operations — until the end of 2020. Overall, these modernization efforts emphasize a commitment that availability surpasses simply putting satellites on orbit.
Finally, the GPS Directorate is committed to providing a high-quality service that is highly reliable. We achieve this by fielding first-rate satellites, conducting extensive test campaigns before deploying new capabilities or launching new satellites, and working closely with the operators at 2 SOPS, ensuring our constellation delivers top-quality PNT signals. An example of diligent testing is the recent live-sky test of the CNAV message on all GPS IIR-M and IIF satellites this past June. An example of a modernization feature that will enhance reliability is the capability of GPS III satellites to autonomously monitor the atomic clocks that drive the signal, thereby protecting users from clock instability and resulting signal errors.
Our demonstrated commitment to deliver accurate, available, and reliable space-based PNT allows innovators around the world to invest confidently in the creation of a multitude of GPS and GPS-enabled technologies that shape the way we live. GPS and its related technologies go far beyond letting you find the deli down the street and “checking in” to let your friends know what you’re up to on Facebook; it tracks financial transactions, enables precision farming, and allows accurate real-time updates on natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis with capabilities that organizations like the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the International GNSS Service provide using GPS. The GPS Directorate is keenly aware that innovators invest their time and talent because they know they can depend on GPS availability. Our commitments are not just “feel-good” words; they are our mission and promise to the world.
I am very proud of the men and women in the GPS Directorate and thrilled to be part of this great team as the new GPS program director. The commitments listed here provide a glimpse into the services provided by the GPS enterprise. I am excited about bringing modernized signals to the world, but more excited to learn how the PNT community will use these signals to develop new innovative and useful applications. The world is easier to navigate because of GPS and GPS-enabled technologies, all of which rely on services the GPS enterprise provides: accuracy, availability, and reliability. We are committed to delivering these services as we modernize and improve the enterprise to continue GPS as the gold standard of space-based PNT.
Colonel William L. cooley is Director, Global Positioning Systems (GPS) Directorate, Space and Missile Systems Center, Air Force Space Command, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California.
The tech press and broad public media have both made much ado about a November market report from the European GNSS Agency (GSA). Most accounts have focused on a GSA prediction of an installed base of 7 billion GNSS-enabled devices worldwide by 2022, and nearly every account has replicated the GSA math to trumpet “almost one for every person on the planet.”
Oh Hosanna. We (will) have reached holy ground at last.
Other than asserting that this bonanza “has the potential to deliver additional significant benefits, not measured in this report, especially in terms of time and fuel savings, as well as efficiency gains,” neither the GSA itself nor any pundit’s account of the report that I have seen ventures to speculate on how this might actually change daily human life. Hopefully ‘twill not be on the order of how cell phones have affected society, communication, and interaction; read tweeting and social-network stress. But knowing what little we do about human nature, this possibility is not at all to be discounted.
Allow me to walk the plank out into left field long enough to quote from a 2009 NBC News Science report titled “Is Twitter evil?” “Researchers probing the workings of the brain have found that it takes longer for feelings of social compassion and admiration to register on our neural circuits — and they worry that the rapid-fire effect of texting and tweeting could have ‘potentially negative consequences’ for our moral fiber.”
Could total, global, continuous, pervasive location-awareness in the palm of everyone’s hand possibly lead down a similar path? I’m sure that cell-phone enthusiasts also promised vast, billionish-plus benefits, with absolutely no downside, three decades ago.
If I can pry myself back from Nostradamus mutterings — and I am sure you are glad that I have now done so — the GNSS Market Report Issue 3 contains a great deal of data worth considering.
Said document foresees compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) for “GNSS core” and “GNSS-enabled” revenues increasing by 9 percent through 2016 and 5 percent through 2020, to attain €350 billion ($478 billion) per year. Of the 2022 total, GNSS core revenues will comprise about €100 billion (US$137 billion).
To further differentiate “core” and “enabled,” this from the report’s early Market Definitions section:
“This market report primarily considers the core GNSS market. For multi-function devices, such as smartphones, the core market includes the value of GNSS functionality only (rather than the full device price) and service revenues directly attributable to GNSS functionality (e.g. data downloaded by smartphones to use Location-Based Services).
“For multi-function devices, a correction factor is taken into account, for example:
• GNSS-enabled smartphone: only the value of GNSS chipsets is counted, estimated at 1% of the price.
• Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs): 100% of retail value since GNSS is the key enabler.
• Aviation: the value of the GNSS receiver inside the Flight Management System is taken into account.
• Precision agriculture system: the retail value of the GNSS receivers, maps, and navigation software is counted.
“The Executive Summary also presents results for the enabled market. The enabled market represents the services and devices enabled by GNSS, and includes the core market. For the enabled market, the entire retail value of the smartphone is included.”
The 72-page report breaks out market segments, focusing in turn on: location-based services (LBS), road, aviation, rail, maritime, agriculture, and surveying. The weight of the report, as you might guess by the necessity of reaching that 7 billion figure, falls primarily on LBS, a heading that for the GSA encompasses “smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, laptops, fitness and people-tracking devices, and mobile-data revenues.”
What’s good for the mass market must surely be good for satellite makers and operators around the world, as they attempt the jump from one to many systems. That’s the underlying but unstated premise of the report. “Multi-constellation receivers become widely available on the market” trumpets the Executive Summary headline on page 8. In what is certainly the money pitch for the Prague-based, European Union-funded agency, “Galileo is recognised as a valuable element in multi-constellation systems, and it is already present in more than 30% of receiver models, well ahead of its full operational capability.”
Nevertheless, GLONASS is the second GNSS constellation choice of receiver manufacturers after GPS.
For BeiDou, the researchers will only venture that “Several equipment manufacturers, particularly those based in Asia-Pacific, have started to offer BeiDou-enabled models.”
More than 70 percent of models on the market are GPS-SBAS capable (SBAS comprising WAAS, EGNOS, and MSAS) and this penetration will grow further.
In a final provocative note (neither final nor provocative from the GSA’s point of view, although I confess it causes me a vague unease), the four-fold increase in the number of GNSS devices will be “largely driven by increased penetration in regions outside Europe and North America.”
Production of the report relied on “advanced forecasting techniques together with a validation process with market experts.”
Lest you feel unfairly treated by my curmudgeonly take, here is some actual data generated by and taken from the report.
Global GNSS Market Size, from GNSS Market Report 2013 Issue 3Installed Base of GNSS Devices by Region, from GNSS Market Report 2013 Issue 3GNSS capability in receivers, from GNSS Market Report 2013 Issue 3
