You might have heard reports this week about a solar storm this week. This is part of the new solar cycle (Solar Cycle 24) that I’ve written about several times. I want to periodically touch on this subject as the solar activity is going to increase over the next few years, and if the solar activity (geomagnetic storms, not sunspots) is severe enough, it will have an effect on GPS accuracy and tracking. Here’s the scoop on this week’s solar activity.
First of all, I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m working on a new solar activity notification system specifically designed for GPS users. The problem is that people see reports in the mainstream media about solar activity and they automatically assume that it’s going to affect their GPS. Not all solar storms affect GPS; in fact only very specific ones (geomagnetic storms) of sufficient strength will affect GPS operations. I’m working on a notification system that will be tailored to both GPS L1 and GPS L1/L2 users (they are affected differently) so GPS users can have a reliable and specific source of information on solar activity without having to wade through the mainstream media noise.
Stay tuned for details this fall in this newsletter to learn more about my notification system and how to and access it. If you’ve ever used some of the GPS hardware/software products I helped design, you know my top priority is to make it easy to use and understandable.
This week’s event was probably the strongest geomagnetic storm of this solar cycle and of recent years (edit: actually, the storm in early April 2010 was a little stronger), maybe since late 2006. It will create some beautiful “northern lights,” but as strong as that may seem, it still wasn’t strong enough to elicit even a “cautionary” warning to GPS users (neither GPS L1 nor GPS L1/L2).
NASA video of sun’s activity on August 2, 2010
The last geomagnetic storm that adversely affected GPS users was in December 2006. It affected some GPS users for 10-15 minutes. For such a short time, most users would not notice or they might attribute it to a local system malfunction. By the time they investigate and reset the system, the event has passed and the user is back in operation. It was barely noticeable, if at all.
On the other hand, a severe geomagnetic storm such as the one that occurred in October 2003 can last for days and wreak havoc on precision GPS receivers. During extreme geomagnetic storms like that one, GPS accuracy suffers a lot, especially with GPS L1 users. During that event, simulations from the University of Calgary showed that WAAS maximum horizontal error (95th percentile) reached 25 meters while single baseline DGPS maximum horizontal error (95th percentile) reached 18 meters.
Dual-frequency users aren’t affected as much by extreme events but aren’t immune. Extreme events such as October 2003 can cause a loss of phase lock, especially with L2 on receivers that utilizing codeless and semicodeless techniques, which are virtually all of the dual-frequency GPS receivers on the market as of today.
For GPS users, nothing can be done to mitigate the effects of a strong geomagnetic storm. The next best step is to try to predict when they will occur so GPS users know what to expect. Fortunately, these storms are not common and scientists can reasonably predict when an event will occur.
There are some good websites to reference when checking up on solar activity. A great place for Europeans to do this is at the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium’s website. The U.S. National Weather Service also operates the Space Weather Prediction Center. The Australian Space Weather Agency operates a Space Weather Prediction Center, too. Also, note that for those users along the equator and at higher latitudes, your area is more susceptible to stronger geomagnetic storm activity.
The websites listed above are chock full of information and predictive systems on space weather. In fact, I believe it’s too much information for most GPS users to efficiently interpret. The goal with my new initiative is to provide GPS users with a quick summary so they are able to make informed decisions in a few seconds. Again, stay tuned this fall for the rollout.
Conference/Webinar Presentations
Between webinars and conferences, I’ve put together a fair number of Powerpoint presentations. I’m in the process of uploading many of them, some dating back years, to our website. Currently, I’ve uploaded ones that date back to April 2010. I hope you enjoy them.
The following presentations have all been converted to PDF format and are copyrighted. Feel free to incorporate them (or parts of them) into your documents if you like, just please remember to attribute each page you use to my name, Eric Gakstatter, and GPS World/Geospatial Solutions.
2010 (July San Diego, California) ESRI Surveying and Engineering GIS Summit luncheon keynote presentation: Get It Surveyed (GIS).
2010 (June, Seattle, Washington) Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting: Mapping and Surveying with SBAS+GPS.
2010 (June, Portland, Oregon) Webinar: GIS Mapping for Forestry, Agriculture, and Other Natural Resource Professionals.
Note that for the following webinar, you can also download an audio portion of the webinar free of charge by clicking here.
2010 (April, Phoenix, Arizona) GITA Annual Conference: How the Evolution of GPS is Transforming Surveying and Mapping (along with Pamela Fromhertz of NGS).
Part 1 – GNSS Mapping/Surveying Technology Update
2010 (April, Phoenix, Arizona) GITA Annual Conference: How the Evolution of GPS is Transforming Surveying and Mapping (along with Pamela Fromhertz of NGS).
Part 2 – Machine Control Using GNSS
2010 (April, Phoenix, Arizona) GITA Annual Conference: How the Evolution of GPS is Transforming Surveying and Mapping (along with Pamela Fromhertz of NGS).
Part 3 – Sub-Meter Mapping Using GPS
2010 (April, Phoenix, Arizona) GITA Annual Conference: How the Evolution of GPS is Transforming Surveying and Mapping (along with Pamela Fromhertz of NGS).
We now definitively declare “curtain up!” on the second act of the human and technological drama, Interoperable Global Navigation Satellite Systems, by many authors, directors, and actors, upon the global stage. It happened on August 2 with removal of the message 0 (“Do Not Use in aviation”), by the European Satellite Services Provider, from the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) signal. It enables EGNOS use for en-route and lateral guidance approaches.
The first act of our drama, of course, saw the U.S. GPS achieve operational capability, not to mention enthusiastic worldwide reception and application. We might have declared the second act open upon GLONASS operability, intermittent though that has been — but GLONASS is not (yet) interoperable with GPS. We might have marked its beginning in 2003, when the European Council of Transport Ministers approved the Galileo program, or in 2006, when Galileo launched its first satellite and broadcast its first signal in space. But no useable navigation message has yet emanated.
The EGNOS signal is essentially a corrected GPS signal. Still, its certification for use in aviation embodies an international, interoperable navigation signal from space.
(Legalistic note: “After an operational period of three months [following August 2], the EC will declare the Safety of life (SoL) service available to the aviation community, enabling the publication of precision approach procedures with vertical and lateral navigation guidance (APV) based on EGNOS. At that time, European air navigation service providers will be in position to implement satellite-based precision approaches . . . .)
Chairman Mao said “The march of 10,000 li begins with a single step.” We have taken more than a few steps, though still at the beginning of our journey. Curtain’s up, vistas are wide. Let’s keep moving.
In a few weeks, we will again observe the tragic anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. This will mark nearly a full decade since that terrible day that changed the lives of people around the world, forever. Many will remember. Many will mourn. Many will work to ensure that such an event never again threatens any nation. That is a good thing.
Few outside the position, navigation, and timing (PNT) community will also recall that the day before the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government released a landmark document that described the vulnerabilities of services provided by GPS to disruption, whether by attack or inadvertent interference. The Department of Transportation Volpe Center’s GPS vulnerability assessment recommended that services utilizing GPS-provided PNT seek alternative sources of these services. What decisions and actions have the findings and recommendations of this report promoted? The answer is most disturbing.
The U.S. government has sealed the fate of Loran-C and kept the decision on an enhanced Loran system (eLoran) in limbo for more than 10 years. The government has spent hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars studying the problem over and over again and either ignoring or classifying the results. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a direct outcome of the 9/11 attacks, has done nothing to address the need for a national backup other than study and re-study the problem and disregard the findings and warnings of world-class PNT experts.
On the positive side, a recent paper from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) attempts to address the problem by proposing to investigate alternative PNT (APNT). While the FAA does this under its Title 49 responsibility and authority to ensure the safety, security, and efficiency of our National Airspace System (NAS), and the alternatives it is looking at are certainly aviation-centric, it is admirable that somewhere in this government someone is finally moving forward to define and implement a real, operational PNT alternative to GNSS and its augmentations. [An abridgement of the FAA paper appeared in the July GPS World; the full paper is available here.]
I applaud the FAA’s actions and only hope that bureaucrats and bureaucratic processes don’t penalize it for its efforts.
But the question remains: When will a decision on the U.S. national PNT backup be made? The urgency of this issue can be highlighted by posing some simple questions about another current threat to the U.S. infrastructure and economy.
To what extent are GNSS-provided PNT services being used to identify the amount and movement of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico? What level of information exactness/integrity would be lost if GNSS-provided PNT services were not available?
To what extent are GNSS-provided PNT services being utilized by cleanup crews and other impact-mitigation services? How would the efficiency of the cleanup/mitigation activities be impeded if GNSS-provided services were not available?
Finally, what is the opportunity cost of not having a national PNT backup? Why has this decision been so hard to make? One would intuit that it has encountered political obstacles, not scientific ones. What are they, exactly?
While the FAA is doing what it must to ensure a safe, secure, and efficient national airspace, what about the rest of us? The boaters, the truckers, the farmers, the power transmission people, the telecom providers, the cell-phone users? The list goes on and on.
It has been nine years. Why is this so hard?
As we take time on September 11 to remember where we were when we heard the news, to mourn those lost, and to do, each in our our way, something to ensure that such a thing never happens again, we should also take time on September 10 to thank the folks at the Volpe Center for their important efforts. And we should try, each in our own way, to do something to ensure that the effects of a loss of GNSS-provided services will be once and for all properly mitigated.
The masked engineer harbors strong convictions, matched by a desire to hold onto a day job.
I had the honor of attending Colonel David Maddens’ retirement luncheon at the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) on Los Angeles Air Force Base (LAAFB) on June 16, and it was quite an event. Just prior to it, I asked Dave if he would like to conduct an exit interview after he took a short vacation with his family. He agreed it would be a good idea and a way to say some things he has wanted to say for awhile.
During the retirement luncheon, various people and organizations presented Dave with mementos of his time at the GPS Wing; I stopped counting at approximately 50 different presentations. This is an indication of the high regard in which Dave is held by those with whom he works on a daily basis. The military shadowbox he was presented (see photo), which is a typical military farewell presentation, had the following inscription, which is certainly not typical, and sums up the way those who work with Dave feel about him as a commander and as a person.
SHADOWBOX presented to Col. Madden on his retirement. The quote reads, in part,“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
Dave was officially retired the next day by Colonel (USAF, retired) Bradford Parkinson. Dr. Parkinson was the first GPS Joint Program Office Director, in the early 1970s. He recently reviewed those early days and those responsible for the success of GPS with a two part series in the pages of GPS World.
Interview
Don Jewell (DJ): Dave, after almost four years first as the Vice Commander and then for the last three years the commander of the GPS Wing, of what are you most proud?
Colonel David Madden (DM): Overall, the GPS Wing has made significant progress over the years moving critical space system developments and acquisitions forward. The GPS Wing continues to lead with a “back-to-basics” foundation of rigorous system engineering, incorporated strategies like parallel risk reduction and capability insertion efforts, incremental delivery of timely and valuable capabilities to warfighters and civil users, and best business practices with solid cost estimates and contract incentives. Our new GPS III space vehicle, Next Generation Control Segment, and our GPS Modernized User Equipment programs incorporate our latest thinking of these innovations, and pave the path as a model for future acquisitions: low risk and high confidene associated with program execution (cost, schedule and technical performance).
The GPSW Team has had many specific accomplishments over the last four years. I would like to highlight just a few.
Space Segment. In the space segment, we accomplished a major milestone in GPS history with the launch of the final GPS IIR-M satellite in Aug 2009. GPS IIR-21 (M) marked a critical milestone in the GPS modernization program that was initiated in early 2000. The GPS IIR/IIR-M satellites are the cornerstone of the GPS constellation, and I expect them to perform well into the future. We’ve completed the development, testing and launch operations of the first GPS IIF Space Vehicle. The GPS IIF is the “Dawn of a New Era” of GPS services, providing new and improved capabilities that will continue to support not only the warfighter but commercial and civil users around the globe. IIF vehicles two and three will be delivered by early 2011, and two of the remaining nine fixed-priced vehicles are already proceeding down the Boeing Pulse Line.
Another noteworthy accomplishment was the award of the GPS III spacecraft contract. The GPS III will be developed in three increments with each increment to include more capabilities based on technical maturity. We successfully completed the GPS IIIA satellite Preliminary Design Review (PDR) in May 2009 and the GPS IIIA Critical Design Review (CDR) is scheduled for August 2010, two months ahead of schedule, which completes the detailed design and lays the foundation for fabrication. GPS IIIA is a back-to-basics spacecraft program with a strong focus on systems engineering, mission success, and acquisition excellence.
Ground Segment. In the GPS ground control segment, great lengths were taken to ensure the successful replacement of the decades-old command and control (C2) system with the new Architecture Evolution Plan (AEP) software, to improve GPS operator interfaces while providing a test capability for the new signals on the modernized satellites and to improve launch, anomaly, and disposal (LADO) operations. This new software will also provide robust security improvements to include “over-the-air” distribution (OTAD) of encryption keys to properly equipped military users.
I would also like to mention the successful award of the Next Generation Control Segment (OCX) back-to basics contract. The current acquisition strategy for fielding the OCX consists of four increments (commonly referred to as Blocks). The recently awarded OCX contract consists of Blocks one and two [while] Blocks three and four will be follow-on contracts that align with the future GPS IIIB and GPS IIIC spacecraft capabilities.
Colonel (USAF, retired) Bradford Parkinson congratulates Colonel Dave Madden on his fruitful career and retirement.
User Segment. In the GPS user equipment segment, we are actively working the development of a new generation of military user equipment to take advantage of the modernized M-Code [military only] signals. Currently we are conducting technical demonstrations and risk reduction for our next generation Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE) and defining a creative acquisition strategy.
USD-AT&L (the undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics) signed an acquisition decision memorandum (ADM) on May 24, 2010, approving a material development decision for MGUE: the formal entry point for MGUE into the acquisition process. Currently, our three Military User Equipment (MUE) contractors are testing and delivering prototype cards this summer; government testing follows.
The foundation of our MGUE acquisition strategy is an incremental approach that leverages technology developed under the MUE program to move into engineering and manufacturing development of the first MGUE receivers as soon as possible. The strategy will be submitted to the Pentagon this summer after SMC coordination and PEO Space approval.
Our business strategy over the long term is to develop common GPS modules (CGMs) as the core engine for all DoD user equipment. We will develop CGMs incrementally as well, to support the form factors for the air, maritime, and ground domains. By early fall, we will have a final technical requirements document (TRD) for the MGUE form factors and CGM. We expect an RFP release in Feb 2011, and a Milestone A in May 2011. By early FY12, we should be on contract for Increment One of MGUE.
System Sustainment. From a systems sustainment standpoint, our GPS Wing detachment located at Peterson AFB has exceeded all expectation associated with ground (softwa
re and remote sites), user, and satellite systems sustainment. Even with all the system upgrades over the past year our sustainment team has kept the operational system performance well above the requirement: Read, no capability impact to civil or military users.
In fact, performance (availability, accuracy, and integrity) has been significantly improved over the last four years. Finally, they are normalizing sustainment of the current user equipment (DAGR-Defense Advanced GPS Receiver, MAGR-2K-Miniaturized Airborne GPS Receiver Version 2, and ADAP-Advanced Digital Antenna Production program) by transitioning sustainment responsibility to Air Force Material Command, specifically the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center depot at Robins AFB, Georgia.
Partnerships. The GPS Wing has established a close working relationship with Air Force Space Command Headquarters at Peterson AFB, Colorado for overall system operations, sustainment, and development responsibility; the 45th Space Wing (launch operations teams at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida), the 50th Space Wing (Overall System Operators at Schreiver AFB in Colorado), the Launch and Range Systems Wing (Los Angeles, California acquisition organization with responsibility for getting our GPS satellites successfully to orbit), the United Launch Alliance, the many government agencies (FAA, DOT, DOE, NSA, NGA, NASA, and so on), OSD organizations (PA&E, NII, AT&L, DOT&E), and our dedicated and professional prime contractors and major subcontractors to successfully sustain and enhance GPS mission capabilities — providing the highest overall daily system availability and the most robust GPS on-orbit constellation ever for war fighters and civil users worldwide. The constellation is healthier than it has ever been, and with the launch of the first IIF satellite and the on-track development of GPS IIIA, we are poised to maintain GPS as the gold standard for positioning, navigation, and timing well into the future.
The People. Finally and most importantly, I am proud of the men and women that make up the GPS Wing. They have molded many players (Aerospace, MITRE, service reps, international officers, government and civil agencies, SE&I and SETA (support) contractors, and U.S. Air Force military and civilians) into a finely tuned machine that is always focused on the number one priority: mission success. At the same time they have made the Wing a fun place to work. The GPS Wing members have made significant contributions to the quality of life in the GPSW, on LAAFB (Los Angeles Air Force Base), and the local community. Whether it was the great Company Grade Officer Association activities, tasty Tuesdays, the BBQs by the base gym, the holiday parties, the POW/MIA (Prisoner of War/Missing in Action) Run, the yearly toy contributions to the Marine Corp Toys for Tots program, regular food drives to support the Redondo Beach community, the yearly car show, the GPS Partnership Council, GPS University, or the many visits to local schools (just to name a few activities), they are truly a class act of which I was honored to be a small part.
DJ: Dave, how would you most like to be remembered?
DM: As the “AGER” guy. The one who put the enterprise back together, which will lead to better synchronization among the segments and ultimately deliver future warfighting capability to the U.S. and Allied forces. Senior AF, DoD, and Congressional leadership now look at GPSW execution as a enterprise rather than a collection of individual ACAT 1D (Acquisition Category 1D) programs. This has allowed the modernization program to move forward, significantly reducing the numbers of reviews, documents, and decision complexity.
DJ: Dave can you explain just where we are today in the ongoing GPS-IIF saga? Are we on track and on schedule to have IIF-1 activated sometime in late August? Will there be a second IIF launch this calendar year? Does Boeing finally have it all together?
DM: Don, I’m actually glad you asked the question that way, because it gives me an opportunity to address it squarely. It is completely fair to call the GPS IIF program a saga because of how long it took us to get to our first launch. But it is also important to ensure the credit and blame gets spread properly. The program did suffer from the sins of acquisition reform in the 1990s — on the government side and the industry side —- as well as major requirements changes years after program initiation. In hindsight, I’d have to say that we collectively failed again in the mid 2000s when we were overly optimistic about the time and funding needed for the challenges we would face in recovering from TSPR (Total System Performance Responsibility). On the flip side, during my tenure here I’ve had great support from my senior leadership — and from their Boeing counterparts — for taking the time necessary to ensure we have a quality program. We kept our eye on mission assurance and fixed quite a few end-of-life risks. We might not have had that luxury if the constellation weren’t so robust over the past few years.
In the end, the proof is in the on-orbit performance. So far, I’m proud to say that the checkout of SVN-62 has been proceeding very smoothly. My guys and Boeing have a great working relationship with the crews up at the 50th Space Wing, so the bird is in good hands. I expect we’ll find a few things we want to tweak before making the satellite available to users. Most space programs do that with the first satellite of a kind. In the end, the users will have a satellite that adds real benefit to the constellation performance.
Right now the teams are still pushing hard to get SV-2 ready to launch. There are still a few hurdles to clear, and the leadership needs to evaluate whether or not the constellation really needs another GPS IIF just yet or can it wait until next summer. I would love to watch another one go up this year, but it just won’t be the same watching from the sidelines!
DJ: I know it won’t be the same, Dave, but it should still be exciting. Now how about an update on the OCX program and how it is progressing?
DM: The OCX program is off to a great start. We awarded the contract to Raytheon in February 2010 and kicked off the integrated baseline review (IBR) in March. We are currently working side-by-side with Raytheon to solidify the program management baseline so we can jointly manage the program in a back-to-basics manner. Phase B software development for controlling modernized features is underway and builds on Phase A products, which we demonstrated with a prototype in December 2008. I have tremendous confidence that the OCX program will deliver promised capabilities on time to support modernized GPS.
DJ: Can you give us an update on where we are with the GPS IIIA program? Have you been successful in maintaining the no-changes mandate?
DM: GPS IIIA has maintained a stringent, back-to-basics approach since program inception. This has included significant investment in early systems engineering, and strict requirements discipline. To date, no new requirements have been levied on the GPS IIIA. Any new requirements for consideration are being addressed in future blocks as planned. The program is currently on track, and is forecasting the completion of Critical Design Review 60 days ahead of the baseline schedule.
DJ: We have satellites on orbit today that will reach their mean mission duration without broadcasting all resident signals or using all capabilities? Is there a plan to address this issue?
DM: Although there is some concern that the IIR-M satellites may reach their end of life before the L2C capability has been deployed, or that the IIF satellites may reach their end of life before L5 has gone operational, the concern is not justified by our reliability predictions and our current program plans. Current plans are for OCX Block 1 to provide L2C support, which is projected in the August 2015 timeframe, whereas the IIR-M satellites are expected to live well into the 2020 timeframe. Likewise, OCX Block 2 will provide L5 support in the 2016 timeframe, and our IIF satellites are expected to live into the 2025 timeframe. Therefore the likelihood that IIR-M or IIF satellites will be decommissioned before L2C or L5 have become operational, respectively, is very low.
Over the last couple of years, lots of discussion has gone into the integration issue, but I am not really sure what providing fully integrated GPS capability really means. What I do know is the user needs all three segments (satellite, ground command and control, and user equipment) to fully utilize new system capability. I also know that system integration comes in two forms. First and foremost from a technical design standpoint. This allows individual segments to be delivered independently but with high confidence the system will operate when all three elements arrive. This gives flexibility to the dynamics associated with budgets, policy decisions, requirements changes, unexpected technical hurdles, launch availability, and weapon platform availability for integration and testing (just to name a few variables). Rest assured the GPS enterprise is integrated at the technical level. However, it’s the second form of integration that gets all the attention: having all segments delivered in a reasonable proximity to each other. Not to make excuses, but as it relates to GPS, this is just hard to accomplish because it involves a span of control and accountability that is almost infinite. Many in the community recognize this reality, which has allowed the Air Force to set appropriate and realistic expectations so real capability can be delivered.
That being said, there are prudent things that can and are being done to speed the deployment of capability and set appropriate expectations. The most significant has been to broadcast the M-Code, L2C, and soon L5 signals from space to allow civil and military user equipment manufacturers to begin development and testing of their next generation of receivers. This gives industry a jump while the U.S. Air Force continues to develop the C2 capability and the next-generation signal monitoring capability (required to ensure signal in space performance integrity). Also, building the modernization programs with a strong mission assurance foundation is a major step forward. We understand the lessons learned that established the baseline for the current Block II systems delivery; the Block III systems are built on a solid acquisition strategy of reduced risk and increase execution confidence.
DJ: What do you see as one of the biggest GPS enterprise challenges, and what are some of your thoughts on the way ahead?
DM: That’s easy, Don: ensuring global PNT services are not interrupted as the United States continues to modernize GPS. If we don’t continue to develop a more robust means of ensuring user equipment compatibility, even a small number of non-system-compatible receivers (military or civilian) can significantly delay the delivery of critical modernized capability for everyone. Let me explain and provide some thoughts.
Since its initial design in the early 1970s, GPS has evolved in both capability and complexity. In the early days, systems engineering across the space, control, and user segments was relatively straightforward. The GPS Joint Program Office developed all military user equipment, and was able to rigorously ensure all specifications were verified prior to fielding. Over the past 20 years, however, GPS has become ubiquitous throughout the Department of Defense, with tailored satellite navigation solutions developed and acquired by dozens of program offices to support hundreds of unique requirements. Meanwhile, commercial GPS is one of the foundations of the Information Age, with GPS receivers produced in quantities approaching half a billion devices per year. The model of simply providing policies, standards, and interface control documents without providing a means to certify receiver compliance is becoming more challenging due to the continued growth in both military and civil applications for PNT, the competitive nature associated with user system applications and performance, and the increased complexity of GPS. Furthermore, it is especially difficult fielding upgrades to an established system like GPS while maintaining backwards compatibility with previously fielded equipment. These challenges are further exacerbated by difficulties associated with synchronizing the lengthy timelines associated with fielding ground-segment, satellite, and user equipment upgrades.
Recent highly isolated incidents, involving civilian and military receiver and other manufacturers, have highlighted the significant impact a very small number of receivers experiencing compatibility issues can have on the entire enterprise of worldwide users. In addition, a number of cases associated with improper receiver integration into major weapon systems have delayed system fielding as well not allowed the weapon system to best optimize GPS to the overall weapon systems performance.
Therefore, it is my opinion, to ensure worldwide PNT services are not interrupted as we continue to modernize the GPS, a more robust means of ensuring compatibility needs to be explored. (I would like to stop and make a note here: by “we” I mean all the DoD and civil agency stakeholders.) This means we need to not only continue to release “building codes” but we need to develop a capability to be more involved in the development, integration, and testing of new military and possibly civil user equipment.
We have recently taken a number of big steps in this direction.
First, we are currently significantly increasing the number of civil and military GPS receivers in our government testing labs. This will enable us to run tests against a wider variety of receivers, to gain higher confidence before we deploy system upgrades.
Second, we recognize that we need to ensure that our signal specifications, for both military and civil users, are as clear as we can make them. User-community representatives are already encouraged to be full participants in appropriate interface-control working groups. We further recognize that there is no substitute for thorough testing, and hence fully appreciate the importance of deploying signal-in-space capabilities as early as possible, on predictable schedules, so user equipment can be field-tested prior to market release or operational deployment.
Third, we are developing new upgrade fielding methodology whereby when we deploy system upgrades, we will take a more methodical approach and, whenever possible, field upgrades to smaller segments of receivers to prove compatibility without exposing all operational assets simultaneously. We will also apply a new software sustainment model to future military GPS user equipment, to ensure that inevitable system changes are systematically and rigorously executed with minimal impact on DOD programs.
Finally, we are investigating the establishment of something similar to an underwriters laboratory service to help support military programs with integrating GPS into their weapon systems during development. The teams associated with such lab services would support program design reviews as well as help develop the validation criteria for overall system acceptance. In addition, we are also starting discussions with key GPS civil receiver developers on how we might be able to provide a similar service to commercial receiver developers (potential fee-for-service type model).
Don, I highly recommend we continue to develop the four efforts I just mentioned but also dedicate significant time to critical thinking events to ensure we have minimized the risk of a widespread receiver issue, delays in delivering modernized capabilities, or sub-optimized weapon system performance. Manufacturers of equipment adversely affected by recent GPS upgrades have significantly stepped up their interactions with the GPS program office to resolve the compatibility issue and are playing a major role in providing an upgrade to their affected receivers to correct the issue. To date, no operational weapon systems have had to be grounded or civil capability degraded. I encourage the GPS community to treat recent events as a call to arms. GPS has become a critical national and international utility but it is much more complex than the electric or telephone services. How military or civil GPS receivers are designed, developed, and integrated into systems has a significant impact on the overall performance or lack of performance of the system. Don’t let recent events be a lesson not learned; let’s lead and solve the risk before it becomes an issue.
DJ: These are all excellent ideas, Dave, and many of them we have discussed in the past as concepts. It sounds like many of them are now a work in progress, but since you won’t be around to shepherd them into fruition, just what sort of prudent advice would you give Colonel Bernie Gruber as he assumes command of the GPS Wing?
DM: First and foremost, listen to your people — we have a great team! They are skilled professionals who really care about GPS. Second, keep the MGUE program focused and moving forward.
DJ: I certainly hope at a minimum that Bernie listens to your advice on MGUE. Now, Dave, when will the GPS Wing transition back to a Joint Program office, and what affect will this have on the military personnel working GPS? Will this re-designation be detrimental to their careers and future plans for the JPO? Will it lessen the GPS Wing’s/JPO’s influence in the GPS community and with other services?
DM: Don, we are scheduled to complete the transition and stand-up as the GPS Directorate on October 1, 2010. The Center is having one inactivation ceremony for all the Wings in SMC on September 8. The transition will be seamless and have a minimal effect on our military personnel. Our senior leadership is working on ensuring our materiel leader positions have group or squadron commander equivalency and will also be command-screened and boarded. There will not be very much difference within the Wing on a day-to-day basis. For the most part, the work, responsibility, and accountability will remain intact. The re-designation will have very little detriment upon the careers of the officers within the Wing. The officers’ records will show a transition and re-designation to explain the change, and that it is no cause of their own. As far as future plans for the organization, the strength of the leadership here in the Wing will still be in place and will be just as effective as it is now to lead each individual in our organization and to move forward and progress in GPS capabilities into the next era. Other services will still look to us to continue to forge advancements in GPS satellites so that our influence in the world’s GPS community will remain the standard: stronger than ever. Our organization will continue to acquire and sustain global navigation, positioning and timing services for our war fighters and civil users. We’ll still be the Green Monsters everyone knows and loves!
DJ: What message would you like to leave with our readers as you move on from GPS to the milsatcom community?
DM: GPS is in great hands. I look forward to the challenges ahead.
DJ: Any final comments, Dave?
DM: It has truly been a pleasure leading the GPS Team — my best job in 30 years of service. And you, Don, have also been a welcome friend.
GPS improves the quality of life for everyone on the planet. It saves lives both on the battlefield and in our cities and towns across the globe. The U.S Air Force and Air Force Space Command have been the diligent stewards of GPS since program inception in the 1970s and continue its commitment to this critical component of our national infrastructure. The current GPS constellation has the most satellites and the greatest capability ever. We are committed to maintaining our current level of service, as well as striving to improve service and capability through ongoing modernization efforts. The Air Force will continue to pursue an achievable path maintaining GPS as the premier provider of positioning, navigation and timing for military and civilian users around the world.
DJ: Dave, everyone at GPS World wishes you the best of luck in your future endeavors, and thank you for your honesty and candid responses to our inquiries through the years. You were the leader the GPS Wing needed for the last three plus years and you have left a legacy of which you can be justly proud. And in my opinion if the GPS Wing, Directorate or JPO thinks they have seen the last of Dave Madden, they should think again. Best of luck in milsatcom.
I attended (and presented at) the 2010 ESRI Surveying and Engineering GIS Summit (SEGS) last week, as well as the ESRI International User Conference (UC). I’m telling you, if you’ve never been to the SEGS and UC, just treat yourself one time. Make a mini-vacation out of it. San Diego is a beautiful place to visit. The weather is always moderate with low humidity and warm temperature. It was a little cooler this year than years past, but still absolutely beautiful with tons of sigh-seeing. My wife has accompanied me for the past few years and she always enjoys herself and finds something new every year.
I believe that if you just go just one time, your vision of surveying, engineering, construction and GIS will change forever. I know it sounds like an advertisement from ESRI, but I think my pitch is even better than theirs :-). Seriously though, there are so many people presenting so many different ideas, and they are all related to the kind of geographic data you work with on a regular basis.
But, like anything else, it’s not all good. There are some drawbacks, so I’ve come up with my Good, Bad, Ugly list with respect to the conference. I think its pretty objective.
The Good
The single largest gathering (13,000+) of GIS, surveyors and engineers in the world (although one could argue that Europe’s INTERGEO might be larger).
A pre-conference (SEGS) that is designed specifically to cater to the land surveying and engineering folks.
Ideas and technology are presented that you will not find anywhere else.
The opportunity to network and collaborate with a large number of peers that you will not find anywhere else.
In 2011, the national ACSM (American Congress on Surveying and Mapping) conference will be combined with the SEGS.
San Diego is a beautiful city with beautiful weather and lots to do within walking distance of the convention center.
The Bad
Since it’s a vendor-specific conference, ESRI competitors such as Autodesk, Intergraph, etc., are not invited. In fact, if you tick them off, they might not invite you back next year.
A lot of time away from work during prime field season (July).
You could be overloaded if you aren’t prepared for the barrage of information and technology.
The Ugly
The whole experience isn’t cheap. The conference registration is expensive and San Diego is an expensive place to visit.
The San Diego airport is horrible, but at least it’s a very short ride to the convention center.
The Surveying and Engineering GIS Summit (SEGS) is held the weekend prior to the massive User Conference (13,000+ people).
I’ve heard rumblings about this for quite awhile. Here are my thoughts.
The ACSM national conference is dying and needed to do something drastic. This year, it co-located with the GITA (Geospatial Infrastructure Technology Association) national conference in Phoenix, Arizona, back in April. I attended that conference, too. Even though I was disappointed in the lack of coordination between the ACSM and GITA technical programs in Phoenix, the technical content was very good. Attendance, on the other hand, was horrible. It wasn’t sustainable from a business standpoint.
Because the annual ACSM conference was on a quick road to nowhere; it had to make a move to team up with another conference. Who?
The GITA conference dissed ACSM (or maybe the other way around) and is flying solo next year in Dallas, Texas. I think the attendance at the GITA conference will be a disaster. They already have a GITA Oil & Gas conference in Houston.
Another partner choice would be ASPRS, but for some reason, ACSM and ASPRS can’t figure out how to put something together even though the conferences were at the same time this year. Someone’s ego probably got bruised.
Partner with Autodesk? No way. Autodesk is a $2 billion behemoth. They don’t need or have the time to deal with ACSM.
That leaves the ESRI SEGS. Attendance-wise, the SEGS has been flat, or even lost ground. It needed a boost. Bringing in ACSM was a smart move, essentially increasing its attendance from 300 to 1,200. For ACSM, it wasn’t the ideal choice, but it was the only choice. It couldn’t afford another solo event in some off-beat city. The bottom line is that conferences need a healthy number of exhibitors and commercial sponsors in order to be financially viable. For companies to be interested there needs to be a healthy number of attendees. It’s a vicious circle. If attendance wanes, then exhibitors and commercial sponsors start to pull out.
Even though there is some pretty good upside for ACSM and ACSM membership in combining the conferences, I think the general ACSM membership will suffer. The primary reason is because it’s stuck in San Diego for the next three years. The U.S. Mid-Westerners and U.S. East Coaster’s will hesitate to make the trip due to the distance and expense of the conference, especially with the poor U.S. economy. I think what you’ll see are the state association conferences becoming stronger as they have been in the last few years. I wish, somehow, that some of the energy and excitement from the ESRI conferences could make their way to the state conferences.
I may sound wishy-washy, but in the final analysis, I think this is a good move. For ACSM, it was the only move and for ESRI, a feather in their cap. It’s interesting to note that even though it’s a three-year agreement, either can opt out annually.
On to the technical part of the SEGS conference
I blogged about the SEGS while I was in San Diego. Click here to view my summary.
A few of points I’d like to quickly emphasize:
Crowd-sourced data. There’s a lot of buzz about this, and rightfully so. SEGS keynote speaker Nancy von Meyer commented on crowd-sourced data and the challenge of “authenticating” it. Crowd-sourced, or third-part,y data is coming in a big way. You can choose to ignore it, but the smart people will take the time to understand it and use it when appropriate.
On a related point, a Community Basemap initiative was announced at the ESRI UC Plenary. The idea is that you contribute to the “community basemap” and, in return, you receive a better basemap than you started with. Granted, you have the same “data authentication” issues as crowd-sourced data, but if you understand it, there is value.
Imagery (e.g. ,satellite images, aerial photography). From following t
he satellite imagery vendors, I’ve known that imagery is progressing. Its quality (pixel resolution) and availability is improving. But, I’ll admit that I was taken back a bit when Lawrie Jordan, founder of ERDAS (he later sold to Leica) said this is the most exciting time in his 40-year career in imagery. He said that in less than five years, every square inch of the Earth will be constantly imaged by satellites. Now, ground truth accuracy is another story…
On Sunday, I made the keynote presentation during lunch. The title of my presentation was Get It Surveyed (GIS). The title was said tongue-in-cheek of course. There were many directions I could have gone, but I decided on three topics.
A GIS isn’t driven by spatial data accuracy.
GNSS technology in the next 10 years is going to advance significantly faster than the past 10 years.
The land surveyor’s role in the next 10 years is going to change significantly more than the past 10 years.
You may take offense to some of the details in #3, and I’m sure some of you did. I assure you, my intent was not to offend, but rather stimulate thought and consideration. Some comments I received after my presentation.
“You said what I’ve wanted to say, but can’t because my RPLS colleagues would kill me” (heard a version this from several people, two of whom are very prominent in the RPLS community).
“You are spot-on” (heard some version of this several times).
“Don’t forget about those who specialize in boundary surveys.”
“Your timeline of 10 years is too conservative; it will be more like five.”
A criticism I heard (not directly, but through the grapevine), was from someone who was particularly incensed by my presentation. I’m sure there were several people with this attitude. No doubt these criticisms are in reference to my thesis about land surveyors’ practices evolving and/or my comment that most RPLS’s aren’t qualified to manage a GIS. The criticism doesn’t surprise me. I’d be surprised (and probably disappointed) if it didn’t evoke any. Change doesn’t come easy and some will choose to give up rather than change.
No matter if you were at the live presentation or not, I’d love you hear your comments on it. You can download it by clicking here.
Lastly, during the Q&A after my presentation, I was caught flat-footed with a question about GIS licensure. I sort of stumbled and then stated that the technology is moving too rapidly and the bureaucracy of licensure couldn’t keep up. It didn’t take long for me to realize, and others to point out, that it wasn’t a very intelligent answer. Several people approached me afterwards and were able to express their opinions more eloquently and clearly. For what it’s worth, not one of them was in favor of GIS licensure. I will dedicate another article to this subject.
In closing, following are some photos I took at the SEGS. I hope you enjoy them.
Interesting slide from ESRI’s Brent Jones showing the attendance breakdown at the SEGS
Countries represented at the SEGS
Panel Discussion lead by ACSM’s Curt Sumner (Nancy von Meyer – VP Fairview Industries, David Cowen – NGA Committee Member, Wayne Harrison – President NSPS)
Thought-provoking slide from Brent Jones
Another thought-provoking slide from Brent
Opportunities for surveyors in GIS according to Brent Jones
The Elephant Charge (“Dust, Sweat, and Gears”), an annual off-road motorsport charity event, brings together competitors, their families, and supporters for a wilderness weekend of GPS-driven fun and frenzy in the Zambian bush. I’m for fun, but I always wince when I see folks tearing up habitat in the name of saving it.
Elephant Charge 2010 seeks to raise funds and awareness for local conservation in Zambia, specifically for two hides, or wildlife observation posts, in Lusaka National Park along with funding for the South Luangwa, Lower Zambezi and Kafue National Parks private-sector conservation efforts. Organizers hope to attract more than 300 campers over the weekend of October 23–25 and as many day observers and participants, en route to a fundraising goal of $35,000.
Focus of the weekend is an event for car and motorbike teams that requires stamina, sweat, driving, and navigation skills through the Zambian bush. Maps showing the location and GPS coordinates of nine checkpoints are issued to teams on the evening before the race. To win, a team must complete the nine-checkpoint course in the shortest distance among competitors. Each team finds it own route between the checkpoints, in any order, through valleys, over ridges, and up (or down) escarpments. The goal of short distance explicitly encourages teams to go off-road in their vehicles. Bush roads are cut to each checkpoint and marked on the issued maps, however they never give the shortest distance.
The blog piece you are reading is armchair bushwhacking at best, and it’s hard for me to preach at a distance to Zambians on how to use, exploit, preserve, or tear up their own turf. Of course it’s heartening to see GPS enlisted in conservation and education efforts. I just wish they weren’t harming habitat — by cutting bush roads and further encouraging racers to rip off through the vegetation — in order to help preserve it.
Alternatively, for a terrific vicarious experience of the Africa savannahs and bush without leaving home, read either Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller, set in Rhodesia, Zambia, and Malawi, or Sand Rivers by Peter Mathiessen, set in Tanzania. “The crack of the dry grass, the intense heat, the startling beauty of the birds, the fleeting glimpse of wary wildlife . . .”
One of the first industrial uses of GPS came in survey and seismic exploration for offshore oil, as evidenced by the cover story of this magazine’s September 1992 issue. A salient passage from that 18-year-old “Quality Control For Differential GPS in Offshore Oil and Gas Exploration” article:
“Users are in danger of being mesmerized by the apparent simplicty of the technology and abandoning quality-control principles . . . . The key to routine operations is rigorous real-time quality control.” Eerily, among the companies acknowledged for support of that article was BP Exploration.
Oil companies early-adopted GPS and private satellite differential correction services, and remain enthusiastic users today, for monitoring of and navigation around deep-sea rigs. The March 2010 cover story shows how this field continues to forge ahead, now as early adopters of multi-GNSS technology.
Positioning, navigation, and timing had nothing to do with the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, but some important lessons float there for our learning. They concern engineering principles — principally in not forsaking them.
The full Deepwater Horizon story has yet to emerge, but it seems abundantly clear that corner-cutting and downright elimination of basic practices led to the disaster. When a natural aberration occurred, it blew right through several weakened backup systems and safety guards, ones that were withdrawn or restricted only days earlier, to shave costs and time.
Beancounting and other modern business practices have undermined vital enginering principles — rigorous mathematical analysis, based firmly in the laws of physics, situational and historical experience, and what may seem to be overcautious safety margins — not just in the Gulf, but everywhere we look, including our own GNSS backyard. Control of technical programs in both private and public sectors now rests in the hands of non-technical people who owe highest allegiance to the almighty dollar. CPAs trump engineering Ph.D.s. If a disaster hasn’t happened (yet), there’s no need to guard against it, they believe.
Has anybody here seen my old friend Loran-C?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He guided ships and airplanes,
But it seems the budget’s slashing-prone.
You know, I just looked around, and he’s gone.
Our readers respond to the cover features in the April, May, and June issues: the two-part special the “Origins of GPS” and Richard Langley’s look at “GPS by the Numbers.”
Source: GPS World
Spilker and Parkinson: from GPS Origins to L5
Thank you so much, Brad, for the recognition you gave me in your history of GPS origins in the May and June issues.
I keep in my sometimes near photographic memory the numerous hours and trips we made over these many years, especially in the early days when you were Joint Program Director of GPS, the meetings we had with Bob Cooper and the Navy admirals. You
offered me the opportunity of a lifetime to contribute a little.
The one thing that you did not mention because of modesty is your ability to put together a team of Air Force officers so outstanding that I have not seen a comparable group anywhere else.
There is at least one other contribution worthy of inclusion, later in the program. One day during a board meeting at Stanford Telecom, I pointed out to Bill Perry that Congress had just zeroed out the GPS budget. He immediately got on the phone to the chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee. Sam Nunn was chair for the Senate, and after much work and many calls, talked them into reversing that decision.
I have often thought that had the two parallel Navy Timation and Air Force 621B programs not been folded together as a single joint program, neither program would have survived.
On another subject, I think there is still work to be done on precision interoperability of multiple GNSS. How does it relate to “bounded inaccuracy” and integrity and precision positioning and carrier-phase precision?
Finally, many probably do not know it, and I have not received any recognition for it, but the work I did in designing the GPS L5 signal was performed as a gift to the U.S. Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration, and our country, with no compensation of any kind including my travel to the ION conference where I gave the award-wining L5 paper with AJ Van Dierendonck.
[See J. J. Spilker and A. J. Van Dierendonck, “Proposed New Civil GPS Signal at 1176.45 MHz,” Proceedings of ION GPS-99, Institute of Navigation, and an earlier, similar paper at the June 1999 ION Annual Meeting. — Ed. ]
Source: GPS World
I only mention it now because of the successful Block IIF launch. I ask nothing in return, and only hope it is of some value to our country and the world.
— Jim Spilker, Jr.
Half Moon Bay, California
Brad Parkinson replies:
Thanks to both you and AJ. It will be an outstanding addition to civil (and I hope military) options. Thanks also, of course, to the groups that ironed out the myriad of important details.
You also deserve credit for the initial work on split spectrum. Recall we suggested it for the civil signal to attain separation, and it was immediately endorsed and selected as the basis for the military L(M) signal.
— Brad Parkinson
Palo Alto, California
Selling GPS
Reading your two-part history of GPS origins recalled another story about those early years, and an influential Air Force officer.
Major General George Keegan was one of the most interesting people I met in my 35 years of Air Force civil service. Primarily an intelligence officer, he was considered one of the leading authorities on the Soviet Union, had been military attaché in the American Embassy in Moscow, and had just been given interim assignment as Director of Plans and Programs, HQ Air Force Logistics Command. He probably did not know anything about logistics, but he had a large staff to help him.
It was soon evident that he liked to come out to California, ostensibly to see his troops there (my office). What he really wanted was to go to the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, the first non-profit brains factory set up in 1946 to guide the military services. RAND had a group of retired generals and admirals who war-gamed all sorts of scenarios to test various plans and to critique experiences leading to recommendations for changes. This was stimulating and valuable to him.
I was in charge of arranging his visits, and he was highly interested in the programs underway and especially in development at the Space and Missiles Systems Organization, where I worked. I would arrange briefings for him and occasionally drive him to our offices outside Norton Air Force Base near San Bernardino where the ballistic missile programs were developed.
We were collocated with the SAMSO Development Plans shop on the 4th floor of the Aerospace Corporation headquarters building when he called to set up a visit. He asked me what he had not been briefed on. I thought of one program, then called 621B, and told him it was a study area with a lot of promise. He asked me to set it up.
The “Program” was one lieutenant colonel in an office up the hall from us. He was managing several contracts to explore and develop the concepts for operation and conceptualize the hardware for development of what is widely known now as GPS.
The lieutenant colonel, whose name is lost to me, was not enthusiastic about briefing Gen. Keegan. I told him he was going to be on the Air Staff, he had security clearances for everything, and he would be smart to accommodate him. He agreed, but obviously reluctantly.
When General Keegan arrived, the lieutenant colonel started to describe the program as then projected. Gen. Keegan was obviously excited at what he was hearing, and he started throwing questions.
As a little background, knowing where you are precisely and being able to use that information is one of mankind’s oldest problems, and for the military forces, it is of the highest value. Among the many guidance systems in the inventory were Loran, OMEGA, TACAN, and many others. The annual costs to develop, maintain, improve, and operate these ran into hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars, and all of them operated with severe limitations.
General Keegan asked, if 621B were developed and deployed successfully, would it supplant and obviate the need for Loran? He got an extremely reluctant answer, yes. Would it replace TACAN? Same answer. OMEGA? Same answer.
I remember him sitting there staring at a very discomfited lieutenant colonel. He said, if I recall his words correctly, “Colonel, you don’t know what you have here. I don’t think you realize its importance. I will just have to sell it for you.” Later, when the General had left, the lieutenant colonel asked me if he was kidding. I replied that, from what I knew of him, he meant what he said.
Fast forward now about two years. General Keegan was the Intelligence Chief, HQ U.S. Air Force. Program 621B had progressed, had several people in the development planning process, and was ready to expand greatly if funding were provided by the Department of Defense. It was in competition with many other Air Force, Navy, and Army programs, and there wa
s no assurance that all would be approved.
At that time, possibly even today, there was an annual Department of Defense conference to allocate funds called the Defense Systems Acquisition Review Committee, or DSARC. Each agency presented its case. The 621B program chief was there (I now recall him to be Col. Parkinson, from reading the article), and he came to see us after the meeting in Washington. He was euphoric, and he wanted to know who General George Keegan was. I told him of the briefing I had arranged with his predecessor several years ago, and what Keegan had said. He said General Keegan had come through in spades.
This is second-hand reporting, but what happened was that before the DSARC began, General Keegan, who was not a member, asked the chairman for permission to address the group. What he said was something like this:
“Perhaps once in your lives, if you are extremely fortunate, you may have the opportunity to influence a development that may truly benefit your country. Today you have an opportunity to foster a program that will not only be of enormous value to all the armed services, but provide the answer to one of man’s oldest problems. Program 621B will give the military capabilities that will surpass anything ever imagined, and give the civilian world a spinoff of obvious immediate value and unlimited future potential. Whatever else is approved today, this program should be considered vital.”
The program director said General Keegan’s remarks were delivered with passion, and when he had finished and left their room, everyone looked at each other. He said their presentation was made easy — they were asked a lot of questions, and they had the opportunity to fully describe the timing, the impact, and the significance.
The result was they were not only fully funded, but they were told that if they could use more funds later, to let them know. He said after that speech, there was no question in anyone’s mind that there would be a wide open road for their program.
One of the rewards of my job in those years was being aware of and sometimes, in some way, involved in many fascinating events and programs. In this case, I inadvertently set in motion a chain of circumstances that, in a small way, may have facilitated the development of one of the most rewarding developments that came from the space and missile programs of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.
I did not sell GPS, but, unknowingly, I helped.
— Don Hallwerck
Long Beach, California
Source: GPS World
Let Me Count the Waves
I read your publication with great delight but little understanding — with the possible exception of Mr. Langley’s contributions, especially “GPS by the Numbers” in the April issue. Fiddling with my calculator years ago, I quickly found pi to eight digits using 355/113. Do you suppose Mr. Langley has a better simple m/n?
— John Woodcock
Bellevue, Washington
Richard Langley replies:
Thanks for your message and kind words about GPS World. Fraction approximations to pi is an interesting topic, one that I didn’t have much room to write about in the numbers article. Your use of 355/113 as a good approximation for pi is one that has been known for awhile. It was first discovered by the Chinese mathematician, Zu Chongzhi in 480 A.D. It is good to seven digits. You need more than an 8-digit calculator to show this, though. Type 355/113 into the Google searchbox to get an answer to 9 digits and you’ll see that only the first 7 are valid. It’s somewhat more complicated, but the fraction 103993/33102 gives pi to 10 digits. These fractions can be derived from the continued fraction representation of pi. For a discussion of that and many other interesting facts about pi, see Wikipedia.
I have received the latest issue of GPS World. What a remarkable accomplishment! An outstanding example of sustainability, commitment, impact, and excellence! The Innovation column has constantly been a source of inspiration and ideas for all, not least GNSS students around the world.
If ever you have the chance to collate them in one single pdf file and put it on your website or/and that of GPS World, this would be a most valuable contribution and worth more than many books on the subject I can think of!
Congratulations, and may we see you on the front page for the 300th column!
— Gerard Lachapelle
University of Calgary, Canada
Just read your “Numbers” article. I enjoyed it very much, especially because I am writing java code for an SDR-GPS-receiver I am building. As a starter I am trying to decode Kai Borre’s data file. I just finished implementing parallel code search using FFT. Gives remarkable insight in DSP. I am a retired engineer and radio amateur PA1KDG. Keep on writing and I’ll keep on reading — promise.
— Kees de Groot
Wageningen, The Netherlands
Richard Langley replies:
Many thanks for your message and interest in the GPS World Innovation column. Coincidentally, one of my students has just finished up a Ph.D. project on designing a strategy for implementing a SDR-GPS receiver and presented his results in April. Good luck with your project.
I started my relationship with GNSS and Moore’s Law in 1985, writing software for GPS tracking loops on the Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft program at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University for the U.S. Air Force. The project’s purpose was to navigate a large jet to accurately fly a pattern to drop buoys into the ocean. That receiver had seven circuit boards (six trackers and one navigator) mounted on a VME backplane in a 19-inch rack mount in the back of a C-130, and was about the size and weight of suitcase.
In 1988, I helped design and build a single-board Swordfish receiver at Stanford Telecom that went into a two-man portable pseudolite for Trident missile testing. This was considerably smaller and lighter: about the size and weight of a desktop computer. Moore’s law — which, by the way, states that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years — helped mostly by allowing much better CPUs and memories so we could put it all on a single board. I actually carried this beast off a landing ship tank (LST) onto a small island in the South Pacific called Kwajalein.
With Moore’s law in full swing in 1990, I moved to the commercial sector at Trimble Navigation and worked on the NavTrac, a lunchbox-sized complete GPS receiver for marine navigation, and then onward to timing receivers and eventually credit-card-sized modules. It became clear that Moore’s Law was a great friend of GNSS and was going to enable a whole new slew of applications by moving from the board level to the chip level.
I went to SiRF Technology, Inc., very soon after it was founded in 1995, to help develop the first commercially successful GPS chipset, the SiRFstarI (see photo).
Photo: SiRF Technology, Inc.Photo: SiRF Technology, Inc.
SiRFstarI-based module, both sides, with representative AA battery to scale.
You can see that this module still had separate chips for the CPU, flash, SRAM, GPS correlator chip, the GPS RF ASIC, and a lot of other components.
Last year, we introduced the SiRFStarIV architecture and the GSP4e chip. The module made from this chip has the same basic functionality (RF in, position out) but at a much higher performance level in terms of sensitivity, time to first fix, accuracy, and much lower power consumption. The photo at right shows a 4e module. Also note how few external components are required.
SiRF 4e module. A hearing-aid battery shows scale and represents the relative power requirements of this module. Photo: SiRF Technology, Inc.
To really understand the impact of Moore’s law on GNSS today, we have to break down the impact on the various parts of the receiver. The measurement of each section (area, power, or bytes) was then normalized to a starting point of 100 in 1995. The time span of 14 years is about seven Moore’s law doublings (every 2 years), producing an expected decrease of 1/128. We can see that the power and digital silicon area have tracked very well over that time period. However, it is also apparent that RF has not even come down by half in that time frame (although it has swallowed a lot of external components as seen in the pictures) — and the code size (ROM + RAM) has grown by 2.5 times.
This has turned Moore’s law into a bit of a foe in the current timeframe, as the costs associated with silicon products are clearly known to customers (die size is easy to measure) and has driven the prices for GPS receiver downwards accordingly. However, as one can see, more and more software is needed to enable the new features and functions, and with dropping prices due to decreased silicon size, it becomes harder and harder to pay to feed all the hungry engineers here at CSR. This is the crossroad at which our segment of the industry has arrived: how do we continue to add innovation and still make a profit selling silicon when Moore’s Law is not helping anymore? I am not sure I know the answer yet, but we have a lot of good ideas that we are working on.
Most of these ideas come from expanding the notion of location determination to extend beyond using just GPS and its currently available augmentations. Adding support for other GNSS constellations requires more hardware; the amount is highly dependent on which constellation(s) we are talking about. GLONASS, because of its different frequency, requires more RF silicon, requiring more total area because the existing area is not shrinking as fast. Galileo and COMPASS will require more digital area for their complex coding schemes, but these can be more easily handled with shrinking process geometry. All will require significant software effort to bring in new acquisition schemes, tracking loops, and navigation algorithms.
But location determination will not be a GNSS-only problem for much longer. Hybrid navigation using other signals of opportunity and MEMS sensors will play a large role in expanding the ability to provide accurate location to consumers wherever they go. The integration of these technologies into a coherent location determination system is a large software effort, and one that CSR has been working on for years in automotive applications.
Clearly, the need for accurate location continues to grow in consumer devices. At CSR we feel we are in the best position to deliver that, with or without help from Moore’s law.
Greg Turetzky is senior marketing director for SiRF Technology Inc., a member of the CSR Group of companies.
I received some interesting e-mails and saw some web comments regarding my newsletter column a couple of weeks ago titled “What’s Going to Happen When High-Accuracy GPS is Cheap?” The comments ranged from “I don’t believe it’s going to happen” to “We’d better adapt to the changes in technology.”
One comment in particular had me thinking about the title of the original article. Looking back, perhaps I should have used the word “precision” instead of “accuracy” in the title of the article. Accuracy is a tricky subject and a subjective term. What’s accurate to one person may not be to another. Also, you may be precisely correct, but not very accurate at all.
The point of the commentor was that high-precision GPS equipment in the hands of the general public will create many problems. There’s no doubt that will happen. Is there going to be a new type of service that surveyors can market to in order to clean up the problems that are created? Probably, and quite possibly only a small percentage of today’s surveyors will be qualified to do this type of work. One’s ability to understand and work with spatial data will be critical in helping organizations solve geospatial data problems. Thus, the importance of data management knowledge and skills I’ve mentioned before.
Geodesy is going to play a big role in the future, regardless if you don’t believe in GPS precision becoming as cheap as I believe. One can’t argue that precision and accuracy are improving, and with that will come geodetic problems with legacy data that need to be solved. Just imagine an electric utility company with its entire distribution system in a GIS (or CAD) that’s been ammended many times over a 30-year period. Imagine the disparate data sources and wildly varying data accuracy in such a system.
Let’s look at two of the other comments I received. Please note I’ve paraphrased, and sometimes combined, comments for the sake of brevity:
“They thought EDMs, total stations and online GIS were going to change surveying too, but they really didn’t.”
EDM’s and total stations are complicated and complex instruments (not to say that GPS receivers aren’t). About 10 years ago when my eldest son was nine, I taught him how to map using RTK. Granted, he was a classic “button-pusher,” having no idea what the technology was doing, but he knew which buttons to push to map a soccer field. I taught him to do this in less than 15 minutes. There’s no way I could have taught him to map a soccer field using an EDM or a total station in that amount of time, even if I had a full day. The first difference between GPS and other mapping instruments: it’s very easy to learn and use.
This subject reminds me of a photo sent to me from Indonesia many years ago. A guy I knew was training a massive number of Indonesian (200+) foresters on how to use handheld GPS/GIS data collectors. They had little or no previous experience with GPS. He had an auditorium set up with a large projection screen. In one of his Powerpoint slides, he had a photo of a chimpanzee sitting next to a GPS receiver. His point was, of course, that anyone can be taught to map using a GPS receiver. At that time, equipment and software wasn’t as easy to use as it is today. For starters, one had to post-process GPS data to improve accuracy, but even then the point he was making was clear. The ending exercise for the class was to locate three $100 bills stashed separately somewhere in Jakarta using only GPS coordinates provided. I thought that was an ingenius way of keeping the class attentive.
Anyway, back to the topic.
There are several reasons one can’t view future high-precision GPS L1/L5 receivers the same as EDMs, total stations, or any other automated measurement tool. GPS is simply different and will have a much greater impact on the way surveyors and their clients work.
GPS receivers are orders of magnitude easier to use and more productive than any other surveying measurement tool in history.
GPS is a mainstream consumer electronic technology that is spurring a lot of innovation.
With L5, GPS technology will be very precise (horizontal and vertical) and very inexpensive.
For these reasons, I think you can view GPS L1/L5 receivers as game-changing and industry-altering technology. The combination of ease-of-use and low-cost will put high-precision GPS in the hands of everyone from the garbage collector to the policeman mapping accident scenes. That wasn’t the case with EDMs, total stations, or any other measurement technology.
“Consumer-grade GPS receivers and survey-grade GPS receivers are not the same quality and never will be.”
This isn’t the case according to several GNSS receiver designers I’ve spoken to. There’s no reason a “consumer-grade” L1/L5 GPS receiver can’t achieve cm-level precision (horizontally and vertically) with a good quality antenna. Of course, it will need a source of correction, but in the 5-10 year window, RTK corrections will be more available and less expensive than they are today. The RTK corrections will likely be free so the only expense will be the wireless data plan.
There will be dozens, maybe hundreds of GPS chipsets designed for L1/L5. Many will be open systems where companies will be able to load their own firmware into the receiver to add specific features (e.g., more robust ambiguity resolution for surveying). The baseline L1/L5 GPS receiver may be only a few hundred dollars, but a customized version for specific applications will have a premium of a few hundred, or maybe $1,000+. For example, a GPS L1/L5 receiver that also includes Galileo signal and is customized for machine control with specific features might be $1,500. Commercial users will pay that premium. They already justify paying tens of thousands of dollars for the same performance today. The difference is that a low price point will attract a much larger audience.
There’s no doubt that there will be boutique, niche GPS L1/L5 receivers that will be able to garner a premium price, but surely the days of many thousands of dollars for high-precision GPS receiver are heading to an end.
This is not the end of land surveying. I didn’t claim it before and I don’t claim it now. That idea is ludicrous. But, you have to ask yourself how much time you spend on projects that will be affected by this technology.
If 75% of your work is boundary surveys, perhaps you won’t be concerned as much as the company that generates 75% of its revenue from construction work or topographic surveys.
If 75% of your work is mortgage surveys, you’ve got more to worry about than high-precision GPS. :-)
My point is that change is inevitable and that people who have the attitude that this is just another Chicken Little call (the sky is falling!) will be in for a rude awakening when the rubber hits the road. We can have a friendly debate about when this will happen, but there’s absolutely no doubt that it will.
Free Webinar on June 24
On June 24, Geospatial Solutions will be conducting a free 60-minute webinar, moderated by me, on “GIS Mapping for Forestry, Agriculture, and Other Natural Resource Professionals.” I will discuss GIS mapping software tools/concepts/techniques as well as GIS mapping hardware such as GPS receivers, digital cameras, and laser rangefinders. Although focused on natural resources, it will be relevant for all pe
ople interested in GIS mapping, which could be utility companies, municipalities, transportation organizations, etc. Sign up now by clicking here and submit questions in advance.
Last week, as you may have heard given the multiple launch delays, the United Launch Alliance (a Lockheed and Boeing joint venture), under contract with the U.S. Air Force, successfully rocketed a new GPS satellite into orbit.
The GPS satellite launched into orbit last week wasn’t just any other GPS satellite. It was the first of a new generation of GPS satellites that are going to change the way surveying, engineering and construction data is collected and processed in the future. Its new features are going to profoundly transform surveying, engineering and construction. I’m not exaggerating.
Before you stop reading because you think you’ve read this already in my other newsletter, Geospatial Solutions Weekly released earlier this week, hang in there because although some of it is the same, I’ve added some surveying-specific comments.
First of all, it’s important to understand that this is going to happen. It’s not a matter of if, but rather when. What I mean is the price of high-accuracy GPS is going to be very inexpensive, both horizontal and vertical, and it’s going to dramatically affect your business.
Here’s why.
The new L5 signal will eventually (when it’s being broadcast from enough satellites – more on that later) significantly transform GPS receivers in two ways:
It will result in high-accuracy GPS receivers being much cheaper and smaller.
It will make collecting high-accuracy GPS data much more convenient for the average person.
Let’s examine in more detail.
Why will high-accuracy GPS receivers be cheaper and smaller?
Today’s GPS dual-frequency receivers (L1/L2) can achieve a high level of accuracy (1 cm) in a short period of time, as little as a few seconds. But, they are expensive. An entry-level GPS dual-frequency receiver is a few thousand U.S. dollars. The primary reason is because there is a limited number of companies that design GPS dual-frequency receivers for surveying, maybe a dozen or so. Why is there a limited number of manufacturers? The answer is because the original L2 was not an open signal. In the 1980s, some very smart engineers figured out how to utilize L2 (designed for military use only) in commercial receivers. When they developed those techniques, the companies were smart enough to patent them. There are so many patents in place that it makes it very difficult for a new designer to enter the traditional GPS dual-frequency market, whether it’s surveying, machine control, GIS, or whatever.
Unlike the original L2, L5 is an open signal. Its specification is published for anyone to use. No license fee. No receiver tax. Nothing.
Without any patent blocks, any company in the world is free to develop a GPS dual-frequency (L1/L5) receiver that would be just as accurate, and arguably more accurate, than today’s L1/L2 GPS dual-frequency receivers.
Looking back on the history of electronics, within and outside the GPS industry, we know that increased competition usually results in lower prices to the consumer and improved product quality.
Take, for example, GPS L1 receiver chips used in personal navigation devices and mobile phones. Those chips are available today for less than $3 each. Fifteen years ago, much less powerful GPS L1 receivers were $200 each and 10 times larger.
Mark my words: you will see a similar trend with high accuracy GPS dual-frequency receivers. GPS dual-frequency receivers will be sold at prices you can’t imagine today, allowing surveyors, engineers, contractors, GIS folks, biologists, ecologists, etc. (and an educated general public) to collect high-accuracy data (horizontal and vertical) very inexpensively.
The only thing holding this trend back is the availability of L5. It needs to be broadcast by about 24 GPS satellites. That’s going to happen somewhere between 2018 and 2020. Of course, GPS designers will be working on their receivers long before that.
Why will collecting high-accuracy GPS data be much more convenient for the average person?
First of all, the cost of high-accuracy GPS dual-frequency receivers will plummet significantly due to the open L5 signal. This will spur a fantastic amount of innovation and competition among a large number of receiver designers, especially in the consumer electronics market. Surveyors, engineer, contractors, GIS folks, etc. will benefit greatly from the consumer electronics industry because the high volumes in the consumer market will further spur innovation and cost reduction.
Oddly enough, at that time, the most expensive part of a high-accuracy GPS receiver may be the antenna. The consumer electronics market won’t accept the type of high-accuracy GPS antenna we need (too big/bulky), so the limited number of antennas means you’ll pay a higher price, maybe a $100, maybe $200.
If you have a minute, you might want to browse this article by Dr. Frank van Diggelen. Essentially, he says that consumer GPS receivers in your mobile phone, PND, etc. can be as accurate as a GPS receivers built for high-accuracy surveying. The reason they aren’t, he says, is due largely to the inferior antenna being used in mobile phones, PNDs, etc. Now, I’m not saying I buy everything he’s writing, but he’s a lot smarter than I am with regards to GPS, and I do have enough experience to know that antennas can make a big difference in receiver performance.
What you’ll see, eventually, is GPS dual-frequency (L1/L5) receiver technology in consumer electronics, which means high-accuracy positioning at consumer prices. Take it a step further and one can make the statement that high-accuracy positioning will be in the hands of the consumer. A knowledgeable consumer will be able to take a low-cost, high-accuracy GPS dual-frequency receiver and collect (or have others collect) an amazing amount of valuable data (think high-accuracy vertical) that would otherwise be too expensive to collect using today’s technology.
That is where we are headed, guaranteed.
Wildcards
Other GNSS
The time-frame estimation I made above (2018-2020) for a full (24-satellite) constellation of GPS satellites broadcasting L5 is based solely on the activities of the U.S. government. Keep in mind that the U.S. government can’t exceed the 2020 deadline because December 31, 2020, is when the U.S. Air Force says it will stop supporting legacy GPS L1/L2 dual-frequency receivers. So, the end of 2020 is the worst-case scenario.
Of course, the U.S. isn’t the only country working on GNSS. Europe’s Galileo system also utilizes L1 and L5. It’s possible that in the 2014 timeframe, the U.S. could have a dozen GPS satellites broadcasting L1/L5 and Galileo could have a dozen Galileo satellites broadcasting L1/L5. Because the U.S. and Europe have been working so closely together to ensure GPS and Galileo work together seamlessly, having 12 Galileo satellites broadcasting L1/L5 is the same as GPS broadcasting L1/L5.
China is also working on a GNSS called Compass/BeiDou. Although China is very tight-lipped with its intentions, it’s possible China could launch some satellites in orbit that may contribute to an L1/L5 solution, but China is a serious wildcard.
L2C
Some of you may be wondering why I haven’t included GPS L2C in the discussion. L2C is an open GPS signal much like L5. There are currently seven GPS satellites broadcasting L2
C. Not including Galileo, there will be 24 GPS satellites broadcasting L2C before there are 24 GPS satellites broadcasting L5. In fact, some designers may decide to develop L1/L2C receivers. However, Galileo isn’t supporting L2 so while there will probably be triple-frequency receivers (L1/L2C/L5), my guess is that the standard will be L1/L5, because the third frequency isn’t going to buy you much.
Conclusion
No other conclusion can be drawn but that in the future, as soon as 2014 and as late as 2020, high-accuracy GPS receivers (cm-level in both horizontal and vertical) will be in the hands of anyone with a few hundred dollars to spend. This will be consumers as well as surveyors, engineers, contractors, GIS folks, and many other folks who see value in spatial data. They will have easy access to a fantastic new tool that will allow them to collect high-accuracy, horizontal and vertical data, at a very low cost and very conveniently. I keep referring to vertical accuracy because accurate vertical data is much more expensive to acquire with the technology that exists today, GPS and otherwise. Not so in the future. When one really thinks about the value of accurate low-cost vertical data, the numbers of applications are mind-boggling and will certainly send all disciplines that use spatial data in a new direction.
Perhaps no discipline will be more affected by this technology advancement than surveying. If you’re retiring in five years, you can probably get away with not thinking about this. But, if you’ve got more than that left in your career, you really need to consider what direction you want to go.
The bad news is that you have to change. Change is stressful, especially at mid-career, but you don’t have a choice if you want to enjoy a career in surveying. Technology is transforming surveying. You know it because you’ve been feeling the squeeze. You’ve seen that engineers and contractors have acquired technology tools to bring some activities in-house. Machine control is an obvious one. In just a few years, you likely won’t be doing the same sorts of tasks you’re doing today. There will be much more emphasis on data management and data analysis than on data collection (less field time, more office time). Of course, there will still be a need for people in the field, but that’s not where the professional wage is going to be earned. Those in the field will only have jobs, not careers. The well-paying careers will be in the office (either home office or business office or mobile office).
The good news is that there’s more opportunity than ever before. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had people from different organizations (public and private) ask me if I knew someone who could help solve their geospatial problem. Sometimes, it’s a problem combining data sets. Sometimes, it’s a problem interpreting the data they have as well as finding or collecting new data. Guess what? They aren’t looking in the telephone book (yellow pages) to find someone to help solve their problem. In fact, in some cases they don’t even care if you live in the same country as they do. True, you may have to travel to their office, but they don’t care as long as you solve their problems. I realize this may be a strange concept to many of you, but the Internet has made the world a lot smaller than it used to be. Your clients don’t have to be located within 200 miles of your office. You can have clients in different counties, states, provinces, and even countries! When you start letting go of the idea that your clients need to be geographically close to you, suddenly your business prospects start to look bright. When you limit your ten-person company to clients located within 100 miles in rural Alabama in this economy, you’re going to starve. When you release that limit and start thinking and acting regionally, statewide, nationwide, or worldwide, all of the sudden there’s a lot more opportunity to keep your employees working.
One important note
In order to take advantage of the opportunities I mentioned above, you have to expand your knowledgebase. There’s no choice. It’s either that or you’re bagging groceries at Walmart. Technology is changing and its forcing changes in your business, so you must adapt to those changes. Recently, I wrote about a technical session at the ACSM/GITA conference I attended called the Surveying Body of Knowledge (SBoK). Although I may have some differences with some of the SBoK committee member’s intentions, the concept is right. SBoK does a good job of defining the different disciplines in which surveyors can diversify. Briefly, the five areas are:
Land development (construction/planning/development)
The idea is that if one discipline is weak, such as positioning, in the current economy, then you could shift your business in another direction where you are qualified, such as GIS or imaging. You certainly don’t need to be qualified in all five disciplines, but having three or four in your pocket gives you a lot of flexibility when the economy is as weak as it is now.
Thanks, and see you next time.
Free Webinar on June 24th
On June 24 (was originally scheduled for June 22), I will be conducting a free 60-minute webinar on “GIS Mapping for Forestry, Agriculture, and Other Natural Resource Professionals.” I will discuss GIS mapping software tools/concepts/techniques as well as GIS mapping hardware such as GPS receivers, digital cameras, and laser rangefinders. Although focused on natural resources, it will be relevant for all people interested in GIS mapping, which could be utility companies, municipalities, transportation organizations, etc. Sign up now by clicking here and submit questions in advance.
The European Commission rang up the other day, concerned that a recent column contained misperceptions about the Galileo Open Service Signal-in-Space Interface Control Document (ICD). I replied that if misperception exists, it is shared by at least some in industry. Though the EC has abandoned a plan to charge for licenses, its requirement for a free license and continued talk of patents on the Galileo signal dampen industry enthusiasm for making Galileo receivers, at least in North America.
Herewith, some Brussels counterpoint. “In the previous [ICD] there were some patents characterizing the signal, that could not be commercially exploited. The new publication completely removes these. We now propose a licensing agreement that aims to eliminate any barrier in the wide exploitation of the asset. Both licenses [research and manufacture] are based on non-discrimination. There is no exclusive basis, and they are absolutely free of charge. Furthermore, there is no geographical limitation.
“Regarding the duration of the license, we are assuming 10 years. We believe this is a proper timeframe, considering the lifecycle investment of this sector. A patent can be enforced for 20 years. The patents that we own are already about five or six years old. If you add 10 years, you almost get to the end.
“We ask companies to provide us with information on the use of these patents: whether they are used for high-precision receivers, for testing purposes, and so on. We ask for an update on a yearly basis, for information on the intended use. The only purpose is to have a good grip on the marketing, to guarantee a traceability of market needs, to interpret its evolution in a fast-changing context, and therefore enable the Commission to closely follow and support customer needs. In case a manufacturer will develop some patent on top of our patents, they have to notify us. That is, I believe, standard practice.
“It is not our intention to create barriers to access of this signal. Manufacturers have nothing to fear from providing basic information in these licenses. We want to foster innovation and promote competition.
“It might seem we are a team of lawyers creating problems where there should not be any. I am an aerospace engineer, not a lawyer.
“[Complaints] could be more a point of perception. In concrete terms, we are not much different [than GPS]. We want to keep track of what we are giving away for free. We want the widest possible access to the signals. If there are any doubts, we invite manufacturers to contact us directly to work out any misunderstandings.”
The EC was sincerely surprised to learn of discontent with the process and the patents, and hopes to have further dialog with all manufacturers.
I was puzzled by the patents: why were they taken in the first place? It’s as if you had drawn a line in the sand, from which you now feel unable to back away, even though you might like to, and it’s clearly the best idea. The EC maintains these date from the public-private partnership effort, where intelllectual property rights were (IPR) were for the private sector a non-negligible form of revenue. Since funding has shifted to public money, “the situation has changed, and we have modified our approach.”
The Elephant Charge (“Dust, Sweat, and Gears”), an annual off-road motorsport charity event, brings together competitors, their families, and supporters for a wilderness weekend of GPS-driven fun and frenzy in the Zambian bush. I’m for fun, but I always wince when I see folks tearing up habitat in the name of saving it.
