Lockheed Martin’s GPS III clean room in Littleton, Colorado.
By Col. Steven Whitney Director, Global Positioning Systems Directorate
This year saw the GPS enterprise take big strides towards completing major acquisition and development milestones and overcoming significant program challenges.
As we close out the year, the GPS Directorate stands poised to launch the first GPS III satellite in 2018.
The GPS III prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, successfully placed GPS III Space Vehicle (SV) 01 into storage in late February. Following a comprehensive engineering review, SV-01 was determined to be Available For Launch in September.
Road to Launch. The GPS Directorate also kicked off its inaugural Road to Launch campaign this year, and the satellite recently completed a final factory mission readiness test in November. Just as importantly, production is in full swing on the remaining nine satellites with the SV-02 Available For Launch declaration expected early in 2018.
The GPS Directorate was also hard at work preparing the request for proposal (RPF) for a follow-on production contract that will add up to 22 additional GPS III satellites. As the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) finalizes requirements for the program, we stand ready to release the RFP by the end of the year.
OCX. While the Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX) continued to be a focal point for the DoD, the program has made progress in 2017 following a program restructuring. OCX completed the first integrated live-satellite launch rehearsal with GPS III in August.
A fitting capstone to the year’s achievement was the long awaited delivery in November of the initial version of OCX, known as the Block 0, to support launch and checkout of GPS III satellites. But while these are encouraging signs, there is still a long road to delivery of the full suite of capabilities in 2022.
The Contingency Operations (COps) program remained on track this year for delivery in 2019 to support interim GPS III operations. The program completed two (out of three) major software builds this year. The U.S. Air Force initiated a companion program, M-Code Early Use (MCEU), to enable limited M-code operations. MCEU is on target to complete its Preliminary Design Review in November 2017.
MGUE. Early this year, our Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE) program achieved acquisition Milestone B, allowing it to enter the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase.
Just as importantly, MGUE successfully completed two major risk-reduction events. First, the U.S. Army successfully demonstrated 81-mm mortar precision-guided munitions integrated with MGUE receiver cards to complete the first ever M-code guide-to-hit tests in March.
The Air Force then demonstrated a prototype MGUE navigation unit integrated into the B-2 bomber in four successful flight tests. These tests are an important step towards anti-jam, anti-spoof GPS capability, ensuring secure, robust protection for the United States and its allies.
So, as we close this year, I am encouraged by our recent successes, but with a clear understanding of the many challenges ahead on the road to GPS modernization. We remain fully committed to meeting our program commitments with transparency.
We just went to press with the December issue of GPS World magazine, its cover story consisting of personal essays from the directing officers and architects of each global satnav system.
You’ll have to wait for your copy to arrive in the mail or the digital edition to land in your inbox to read those articles in full, but I’ll give you a sneak preview here — just enough to springboard my hypothesis that, yes, system operators build great systems, but they are still subject to the whims of their national governments.
And those governments are operating on increasingly divergent agendas that will bring consequences upon the respective GNSS industries.
The plots of the four articles by the effective CEOs of each GNSS are the same: what innovations were accomplished in 2017, and what new features to look for in 2018. But the themes differ. If you reflect at the end of each article, try to read between the lines, divine what message seems most important to the author — then distinctions surface.
In our December pages we hear from:
Col. Steve Whitney
Col. Steven Whitney, Director, Global Positioning Systems Directorate:
“The Air Force is already exploring new, emerging technologies and capabilities to even further advance the robustness of the GPS enterprise, with the vision that GPS will always remain the Gold Standard for the worldwide PNT community.”
Sergey Karutin, GLONASS designer general; Nicolay Testoedov, Director General, SC Information Satellite Systems; and Andrey Tulin, Director General, SC Russian Space Systems:
“The traditional GLONASS conception of signal-in-space accuracy is now being augmented by the user level performance estimation. Due to the fact that the signal propagation environment contributes a lot to the positioning error budget, it is obvious that users need information that would reduce the influence of signal propagation path on the positioning accuracy.”
From left: Sergey Karutin, Nicolay Testoedov and Andrey TulinPaul Verhoef
Paul Verhoef, Director of the Galileo Programme and Navigation-related Activities, European Space Agency:
“The world of mobile-device LBS is going to change in 2018, and it will be due to the availability of Galileo. It will not be the first time the partnership of ESA, the European Commission (EC) and the GSA has made a service available that has changed the nature of the marketplace. “
Changfeng Yang, Chief Architect of BeiDou Navigation Satellite System:
“BDS-related products have gained access to the markets of more than 70 countries and regions, more than 30 of which are along the (land-based) Belt and (maritime) Road (in line with the Belt and Road Initiative). Through joint applications with other compatible navigation satellite systems, BDS provides global users with diversified choices for better application experience.”
Changfeng Yang
I’m not suggesting that the directors of each satnav system are trying to accomplish different things. All share the goal of providing the highest quality product and service. I posit that the hands above these guiding hands, atop the top — that is, the national governments paying for each system and directing the directors — do indeed have different priorities. Accuracy is not all that matters on the international scene, taken as a whole. Sound economies, vigorous markets, vibrant technologies, tradeable-upon intellectual property and highly trained corps of engineers all count for as much.
The respective governments’ priorities, which encompass much more than GNSS but surely have an effect upon it, may produce differing results for industry, markets and users. In that light I would bring to your attention a November 14 op-ed column by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times. I’ll return to this in a moment.
The most marked contrast in the “theme” or GNSS subtext of our December essays appears between the United States on the one hand and Europe and China on the other.
GPS appears focused on maintaining the Gold Standard of signals and on beefing up security, particularly for the military. Innovations such as the L2C signal, drawn up with significant if not predominant civil-sector input, will bring important growth and expansion of capabilities. But aside from that, it appears that industry can be left to itself to take care of innovation once the space signal hits the Earth’s surface.
GLONASS communicates a desire to burnish its reputation for accuracy and relevance. Once pre-eminently second among GNSS, it need to bootstrap itself back into competition to secure its increasingly tenuous toeholds in foreign markets.
Galileo and BeiDou project clear messages of working closely with industry sectors to encourage and intensify use. For the governments of Europe and China, GNSS is an economic tool, not merely a political one.
Now for Friedman’s thoughts on the international scene, quickly excerpted in their most relevant glimpses on the GNSS landscape:
“We’re going through a change in the “climate” of globalization: from an interconnected world to an interdependent one; from a world of walls, where you build your wealth by hoarding resources, to a world of webs, where you thrive by connecting your citizens to the most flows of ideas, trade, innovation and education.”
[….]
“In response to a more interdependent world, China is deepening its trade ties to all the fast-growing Asian markets around it through its “One Belt, One Road” project.”
[….]
“China has embarked on a plan called “Made in China 2025” that’s plowing government funds and research into commercializing 10 strategic industries while creating regulations and swiping intellectual property from abroad to make them all grow faster. These industries include electric vehicles, new materials, artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, biopharmacy, quantum computing, 5G mobile communications, and robotics.”
The European Union is actively and aggressively pursuing many projects and mandates similar to those underway in China.
The U.S., not so much. Not even near. In an environment in which it currently imports engineers to fill yawning vacancies in its high-tech work force, how long before it is reduced to importing technology as well, and at what cost?
Hope to See You There. In early of 2018, I will attend both events below, and look forward to talking with as many readers as possible at each event.
Join a full day of expert presentations and discussions on the opportunities and challenges (technical, commercial, ethical and legal) associated with developing fully autonomous systems that are cognizant and trustworthy for safety-critical applications. Free; sponsored by the Institute of Navigation. Speakers from the National Science Foundation, Department of Transportation, Air Force Research Laboratory, Top Flight Technologies, University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Clara University, The Ohio State University and more.
This three-day international conference focuses on the latest developments in satellite-based navigation, gathering high-ranking speakers from industry, science and governments for a broad overview and differing perspectives. Topics include status and real-world results of Galileo; modernization of GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou; developments of QZSS and NavIC; the need for GNSS authentication; civil use of Galileo Public Regulated Service; legal aspects of GNSS; and autonomy within a single GNSS — still possible?
If you blink or take your eyes off the growing unmanned aerial systems industry, you might get blind-sided — something new and significant seems to happen all the time.
We’ve heard about drones being developed to provide temporary cell-phone service before, but few have been actually used until hurricanes Irma and Maria double-devastated the Caribbean islands.
Package delivery testing in the U.S .by the big mail-order companies is showing promise, but China is already using drones to deliver fruit.
Air-transport fans of the huge Antonov AN-225 might be surprised that the Russian manufacturer has now shown up with a mid-sized UAV
Uber is working towards flying taxis
Despite all this great progress for the industry, idiots are trying to destroy all this positive work by flying drones into passenger aircraft on final approach!
Restoring Cell Coverage in Puerto Rico
We’ve all heard the mess that Puerto Rico has become following hits by, first, hurricane Harvey, and then again, by Maria a few weeks later — never mind the devastation in many of the nearby other Caribbean islands. Restoring even electrical power on Puerto Rico seems to be taking months, and many people are still subsisting on supplies flown in by the U.S. Government.
So, it’s possibly a good thing when we hear about AT&T’s flying COW (Cell On Wings) being deployed in Puerto Rico to provide temporary voice and data coverage.
AT&T’s flying COW (Cell On Wings).
This is the first time an LTE cell site on a drone has been successfully deployed to connect residents after a disaster, and is providing customers with wireless connectivity for around a 40-square-mile-area from 200 feet in the air and is currently deployed in the San Juan area.
Thanks to these and other efforts, nearly 70 percent of the population in Puerto Rico and nearly 95 percent of the population in the U.S. Virgin Islands are once again connected.
Chinese Drone Deliveries
Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, has tested unmanned aerial vehicles to deliver packages over water for the first time — from Putian in the East of mainland China to Meizhou Island. Three drones — each carrying four kilograms of passionfruit — flew into strong headwinds over the 5-km trip to cross the channel to the island in around nine minutes.
Alibaba delivery drone.
The drones were jointly developed by Alibaba’s delivery company Cainiao Network, the company’s rural shopping platform Rural Taobao, and a “domestic technology firm,” and each has capacity to carry 7 kg. Alibaba plans to use drones to deliver high value-added products such as fresh food and medical supplies over water in the future.
Another Chinese e-commerce platform, JD.com, started conducting trial deliveries using drones in 2016. Smaller drones are being used in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, and Suqian, Jiangsu province.
Big Manufacturer, Small Drone
Then we have the manufacturer of the world’s largest aircraft — the Antonov AN-225 Mriya — who has now joined the UAV club with initial test flights of the BPLA tactical UAV.
While the AN-225 is 50 percent heavier than a fully loaded USAF C-5A, the BPLA checks in with a maximum take-off weight of only 200 pounds — still a good size for a UAV.
The BPLA is similar to the Textron Shadow with a twin-boom, inverted-V tail control surface. BPLA is to be used for intelligence-gathering and artillery spotting, with Ukrainian army trials expected to take place in the spring of 2018.
Uber Partners with NASA
Uber has joined an existing industry group working under NASA’s auspices to develop an air traffic control system for drone traffic management — part of NASA’s Space Act Agreement, a consortium of industry players working to ensure “safe and efficient operations” of taxis and other small unmanned aerial systems flying at low altitudes.
With plans to introduce flying taxis as early as 2020, Uber intends to be one of the first with unmanned air vehicles carrying people around and between cities as uberAIR.
Uber previously announced city partnerships to conduct four-person ride-sharing flights in Dallas, Texas, and Dubai, with additional demos coming to Los Angeles in 2020. Uber has signed up Embraer, Mooney, Bell Helicopter and Pipistrel Aircraft to develop new vertical take-off and landing aircraft for this service — electric jet-powered vehicles that are part helicopter, part drone and part fixed-wing aircraft, with multiple rotors capable of both vertical take-off and landing and rapid horizontal flight.
The objective of the agreement with NASA is to solve issues involved in operating hundreds or thousands of driverless aircraft in, over and around cities and busy airports and potentially to enable the system to integrate them into existing air traffic control systems. Uber is building software to manage these flying taxi networks and is working with other manufacturers including Boeing’s Aurora Flight Sciences.
Bad Actor crashes Drone into Boeing 737
Despite all this positive progress for the UAS industry, some rogue operators are still making terrible decisions and risking lives by flying drones in heavily restricted airspace. The basic tenent of operating any drone in the U.S. is to be at least 5 miles away from any airport and to remain below 400 feet above ground.
Having said that, there are exceptions, but they are strictly controlled by the FAA under restricted operating procedures. What’s causing these incidents is either bad actors intending to cause potential loss of life and/or to damage passenger aircraft, or people who are negligent and don’t believe UAV operating regulations should apply to them.
A small drone flew into an Aerolineas Argentinas Boeing 737-800 in mid-October, on final approach to Buenos Aires Jorge Newbery Airport. While the aircraft landed safely, the captain of the aircraft notified the tower that a major incident was averted, after the drone struck just below the window on the commander’s side of the aircraft. Had the drone gone into the engine, it would likely have resulted in engine failure at a critical point in the aircraft’s lower energy operating regime. Loss of the aircraft could have been possible.
There were no injuries, but the aircraft did sustain minor damage and it was taken out of service for inspection and repair. Just taking a passenger aircraft out of the operational rotation for unplanned service alone can cost many thousands of dollars.
The incident is being investigated by the Brazilian National Civil Aviation Administration (ANAC) and the Civil Aviation Accident Investigation Board (JIAAC).
Wrap-up
So, good news for restoring cell coverage using drones; authorized parcel delivery by drone can’t be far away; even the big manufacturers believe in the emerging drone market; and are we closer now for flying taxis and The Jetsons’ view of tomorrow?
However, we must still do more to prevent drone incursions — intentional or otherwise — into places where they are not wanted. Lots of versions of anti-drone or area-denial systems for drones are emerging or are already on the market — let’s get some of these into place to protect commercial aircraft take-off and final approach paths as well as to protect vital and sensitive facilities.
A: During development of dual-frequency GLONASS RTK support for the Piksi Multi GNSS receiver, GNSS signal simulation was used to test corner cases that are infrequent but catastrophic, such as whole constellation failures. We combined this with our custom-built hardware-in-the-loop infrastructure to test nightly on relevant GNSS scenarios, gaining statistical significance through thousands of runs of the receiver. This iterative approach allowed us to develop GLONASS RTK support in a mere five months.
Andreas Warloe, Senior Director, Systems Engineering, Broadcom Limited
A: GNSS signal simulation was used in all stages of our GNSS chip design and development. Simplified single- or multi-satellite simulations were used to verify search and track channel designs, and carefully calibrated simulations were used to characterize receiver losses. Later, full system simulations were used in large-scale regression testing, interference testing and corner case tests. Simulator testing has been critical for supporting new signals that weren’t widely available in the early chip design phases.
A: We use GNSS simulators throughout the design cycle, from prototyping to mass production. The benefits of testing in a reliable, repeatable lab environment became very clear when we needed to exercise co-location of Bluetooth and GNSS in a module. Testing in a controlled signal environment allowed us to keep the GNSS signals constant while adjusting the Bluetooth signal levels, allowing us to verify the robustness of our design over the full temperature and voltage range.
Most of us know about serious games that teach real-world applications.
Flight simulators are the most well-known example. Learning to fly multi-million dollar aircraft is simply too costly and too dangerous to train in the real world. Pilots spend hundreds and thousands of hours in flight simulators going over basics and learning to deal with emergency situations.
Doctors are another profession that spends many hours doing simulated procedures.
The military is another.
So are police and emergency responders.
The risks are too great in those professions for real-world training. Immersive training in virtual, simulated environments is the only way to become fully proficient.
The term serious games describes a type of game-based learning, but serious games don’t have to be associated only with jobs that are high cost and high risk. Other examples of fields using serious games include fleet logistics operations, air traffic control, shipping port operations, unmanned aerial systems and driver training.
In all of those games, GIS is a crucial component because it allows game-based learning to transition from the virtual world to the real world.
Back to the Classroom
What was became what is because someone asked what if.
“What if,” two words the dogmatists abhor and the idealists herald. The idealists (aka visionaries and dreamers) drive change at an ever-increasing pace. There is never a respite.
I am admittedly a dreamer, but only in my waking hours. From midnight to sunrise I am very much a conservative (aka dogmatist and traditionalist), lest in my sleep I am overtaken by a swifter, stronger, more technically savvy idealist and awaken a dinosaur: Tewelowsaurus Rexus.
So it is in this age of disruption, an economic stalwart in one quarter and a bearish pariah in the next. The archeological rubble of traditional industries piles up.
The education system is such a behemoth, sluggish and dying, unable to compete with emerging technologies and immersive learning. Education RIP — another victim of the internet. But it is more than the battle of brick and mortar versus e-commerce. This extinction is happening because of style over substance.
Traditional schools simply are not attracting the generations of students who grew up in an increasingly connected digital age. What’s in it for me? Is now, what’s here, relates to me? We screamed when we were young and going through the system, but the alternatives were not there. Now, the alternatives are fascinating, engaging and wondrous. Students and the curious line up, wanting to participate.
To understand the difference between the two schools of thought, let’s consider a traditional subject: algebra — a favorite of millions of students year after year. Perhaps you too recall the joys of X over Y and the endless hours enraptured in sheer delight solving for “why,” as in why in tarnation does anyone need to know this?
If you were like me, then you too believed the title mathematician was synonymous with masochist, except that these instruments of mental torture were leaked to the government and, through public schools, were inflicted on innocent children posing as students.
But I digress. Probably due to latent psychosis: Post Algebraic Stress Disorder (PASD). It doesn’t have to be that way, except dogma dictates that our successors suffer the same.
A GIS Classroom Tale
The following example illustrates what a typical game-based learning environment might look like.
Professor Hamill, wearing a sports blazer over a dark blue T-shirt that reads “Data, the new bacon” and a comfortable pair of jeans, stands in front of the class. The Earth slowly rotates behind him on a large, multi-panel screen. It is the students’ second year of their Geospatial Science curriculum.
The professor addresses the students warmly and asks if anyone knows Xnite21? He explains it is his online gamertag and his GitHub user name. Most of the students, being coders and gamers with a background or an interest in GIS, immediately identify and begin calling out their own callsigns.
After a brief open discussion about favorite games and name familiarity, Professor Hamill explains their first assignment. They will be mapping all the trees in the campus commons — a typical task for an Applied GIS class, but this time is different.
The class is going to be using game-based learning. Each student is issued augmented reality (AR) glasses and a GPS-enabled tablet loaded with geospatial software. The students form into five six-person teams, each assigned a color. Each team has to geospatially tag unmarked trees by collecting attributes about the types and estimating height and diameter.
Looking through the AR glasses, if a tree has been tagged a translucent, colored column, the height and diameter taken from the attribute table will appear around the tree in the color of the team that captured it. When a total of all the tagged trees reaches 120, the assignment (game) is over.
Back in the classroom — converted to a command center — the students focused on a large, multi-panel screen showing the color-coded players as they moved around the campus and color-coded trees as they’re added. The overall score of each team is in the upper right corner. Individual stats on players are in the left.
The green team was ahead by a sizable lead. The red team and white team were fighting for second place, while the purple team trailed behind and the yellow team struggled to get started. The professor knew that he would have to spend some time with the students on the purple and yellow teams. The goal wasn’t to win, but to learn and have fun while doing it. By looking at the individual student’s metrics, the professor could see where the students were having challenges and then teach to improve those areas.
In the above example, the assignment usually takes five to six hours, but the gamification of the task cut the time in half. The students were more engaged, more motivated and had more fun; additionally, they learned leadership and teamwork and how to use the technology more creatively.
Students also develop camaraderie faster, usually beginning with the first assignment. Another added benefit is reduced absences. Students look forward to their assignments, and because they are usually part of a team, they feel a sense of interdependence that helps to motivate them to make it to class.
Because the students were able to finish the assignment faster than their traditional learning counterparts, they were given another assignment. Usually, that would be met with angst. But in game-based learning, as long as the assignment is fun, won’t take an inordinate amount of time, and has a relevant purpose, the students are more than often happy to do it.
After meeting with the class and going over the areas that the professor saw the students having the most difficulty, he sent out the same teams as before. This time they were tasked with sectioning off the student parking lot into five equal areas. Each of the teams were then to collect information on the each of the cars in their area: GPS location, make and model, and estimated value. After collecting the information, the students were then able to calculate the average value of all the vehicles, and thus, an average net worth. They were also able to run geospatial analytics to visually look for patterns and anomalies.
The students did not see the assignment as work so much as a game of discovery about themselves and their school, and appropriately enough how to apply GIS to everyday life.
The knowledge and experience acquired through game-based learning happens at a deeper level. The students are actively engaged in the learning process rather than passively engaged and emotionally charged with higher levels of energy.
Speaking with Giants
Phaedra Boinodiris
Writing this article gave me a great opportunity to interview Phaedra Boinodiris, a 20+ year leader in the game-based learning industry. She led IBM’s first serious gaming venture into a multi-million-dollar business unit. She is an expert in how to use game theory to promote user engagement and motivate students and employees to modify behavior toward more positive outcomes.
Phaedra is the author of the book Serious Games for Business: Using Gamification to Fully Engage Customers, Employees and Partners. Phaedra explained that elements of gaming are typically thought of as points, badges and leaderboards; but in reality, what motivates most people for long-term engagement is autonomy over their own lives, mastery of their craft and having a sense of purpose greater than themselves.
Phaedra also said that gaming is entering the workforce. It is beyond just training and education. Companies are already using game-based systems to engage employees. The return on investment (ROI) to the company is greater employee engagement, better moral, a more appealing workplace and higher retention rates, especially for Millennials and Gen-Xers.
Phaedra went on to say other advantages of game-based systems are the ability to curate user data to learn what motivates them. Knowing what drives a person means the system can hone the user’s experience.
Phaedra explained that game-based systems make data science actionable. She said what fascinates her the most is the intersection of artificial intelligence and play, and the advancements in human-computer interface. There is so much happening right now; it is an exciting time to be in the field.
See Phaedra Boinodiris at the 2014 gSummit in San Francisco speaking on gaming the workforce.
Nathan Elequin
In addition to interviewing Phaedra, I also had the opportunity to interview gamification specialist Nathan Elequin, a graduate research assistant at Syracuse University. Nathan’s primary interest is moving the education system toward a more robust learning experience using game-based design. He authors an online column, EduGames.
According to Nathan, training is most effective when game theory is applied to learning. Gaming is the synthesis of science, skill, behavioral psychology and art, and when done right allows a student to figure out problems on his or her own, ensuring the learning is experienced internally, and thus, to a much deeper level than rote and recall.
GIS in gaming is important because rich gaming environments deal with massive amounts of information, and GIS has already overcome that challenge by creating spatially aware interactions of different types of complex variables to visualize patterns.
In regard to GIS and gaming, Nathan shared that one of the most popular games of the past several years was Pokémon GO, which made national news several times. It is an augmented reality game built on a geospatial platform.
A far better game is Ingress, where players are in one of two teams battling for world domination. The whole world‚ the real world, is the gameboard.
Ingress is a geospatially augmented reality game. It is described as bringing a video game into real life. Seeing the world through the lens of Ingress is to see magical things in the world around us that otherwise would go unseen. It is a fascinating game; you can see the trailer here.
Nathan spoke about a fascinating future using a geospatial-like system described as an objective-based navigation system similar in design to a GPS-based navigation system that takes a person from point A to point B along a course the computer determines based upon available data.
The objective-based system helps steer a person towards their chosen objectives, or goals. The person selects their own objectives. Using an artificial intelligence-based information system similar in design to a GIS allows complicated and massive amounts of data to interact and plot a course of action, helping navigate the person towards their objective.
Let sleeping dogma lie. Awaken the lucid dreamers of tomorrow. We exist on the precipice of potential, and it only takes a few of us to turn what if into what is. Find ways to teach that are more active, more immersive, and more engaging.
If it’s worth learning, then it’s worth spending the extra time to gamify the experience. It’s a win-win for students and teachers. This is a future we need only open our hands and grasp, for it is within our reach.
So, let the games begin.
Encore: The Cutting-Room Floor
Games in School
Returning from her first day back to school her phone rang as she opened the door. The familiar voice of her friend Conner asked in a hopeful voice, “Hi Jill. Want to come over?”
Sadly, after a moment’s pause she had to decline. “I can’t, Conner. I’ve got so much math homework. I can’t believe how much they gave us.”
“I do too, Jill,” said Conner explaining he was in a game-based learning curriculum. “My homework is to finish level 1 called Euclidian Dreams. Some of my friends are over and we are all playing, plus we’re going online later to compete against the rest of the class to see who’ll be the champion tomorrow. I was hoping you could come over, too.”
Jill sighed. In her voice was a tinge of disappointment. “It sounds fun, Conner, but I don’t know how well you’re going to be able to learn algebra playing games.” Jill’s answer sounded more like what his mother or father might’ve replied. Or the more harsh, disgruntled criticism of his grandfather who would’ve added how the world is going to pot playing games instead of studying.
Dejected, Conner hung up with Jill. He knew there was more than just a “no” in Jill’s refusal to come over. It was accusatory, as if she were judging him to be a miscreant because he was in the test program.
Conner went on that evening to have a great time with friends playing the games that were teaching algebra without actually doing math. The game taught algebraic concepts using a storyline, puzzles and challenges. There were characters, of which Euclid was the main one, guiding the journey and revealing insights and clues to find and reach the Elements, Euclid’s treasure.
As Conner progressed through the course, the games incorporated races, battles, adventures, stories, philosophies and mysteries of the ancient mathematicians whom he had to come to know through the games. The great mathematicians became friendly figures as they guided him through games with names such as The Riddle of Archimedes, The Mystery of Cheops, Code of Pythagoras, Plane of Descartes, Newtonian Revelations and the Visions of Einstein.
By the time each level was completed, the formulas didn’t seem like math so much as they appeared to be keys to unlock the secrets of the world around us.
NOTE: The characters in the story are fictitious. The games mentioned in the story are not real, but are based on DragonBox’s educational games.
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Shortly after GPS World’s 2017 Leadership Awards ceremony during ION GNSS+ week, the Institute of Navigation rolled out its own distinguished panel of award recipients at a conference luncheon.
ION’s Satellite Division presented Terry Moore with the Johannes Kepler Award, its highest honor. It is perhaps a bit of editorial license to call Terry Moore “one of our own,” but he has been an advisor to the magazine for lo, these 17 years or more. During that time his technical papers have formed the basis for several feature articles, and he has guided many of his students and colleagues to authorship in these pages.
Director of the Nottingham Geospatial Institute (NGI) at the University of Nottingham, where he has long served as professor and dean, he is also a consultant and advisor to European and UK government organizations and industry. He did extensive work on the introduction and implementation of WGS 84 as the standard reference system for air and marine navigation, developed software tools for coordinate transformations and map projections, and pioneered the use of raw GPS code- and carrier-phase data from low-cost receivers.
He is the founding director of the GNSS Research and Applications Centre of Excellence, which targets knowledge transfer between the NGI and business. He has a long career of volunteer service for both ION and the Royal Institute of Navigation. In this as in other things he exemplifies the best of the scientific community, or of any community for that matter.
Among his articles for the magazine are “Not Just a Fairy Tale: A Hansel and Gretel Approach to Cooperative Vehicle Positioning,” 2014; “Network RTK for Intelligent Vehicles,” 2013; “Aiding Indoor Pedestrian Navigation with Building Heading,” 2011; “Integrating Computer Vision and Inertial Navigation for Pedestrian Navigation,” 2011; “Assessing Network RTK Wireless Delivery,” 2009; “Ubiquitous Positioning: Anyone, Anything: Anytime, Anywhere,” 2007; and “Simulation GPS in Urban Traffic Environments,” 2005.
I was privileged to serve as in-house editor for many if not all of these articles. A learning experience that could have been more so had I applied myself harder. Story of my life.
Nowhere to be found in the curriculum vitae of this Ph.D. in space geodesy are his performance as Commander Bond in “GNSS Murder, Mystery and Mayhem at the Mansion,” where he drank a mean martini, shaken not stirred, nor his regular appearances as vocalist at the NavtechGPS Open Mic Night, most recently dueting on “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights.”
All of us at the magazine join in congratulating Terry on this well-deserved honor!
Over the past two years, I’ve been sharing my view on land surveying over a variety of topics. One of the constant themes I try to maintain is technological improvements and how surveyors need to continue to embrace new applications and equipment.
While I will also argue that we cannot forget our surveying roots (see GPS World, March 2017), we still need to keep an eye on future technologies, means and methods to increase our productivity and profitability as well.
With this idea of peeking at the road ahead, I traveled to Berlin, Germany, to cover Intergeo 2017, an international trade show for everything geospatial.
Held every year at different venues around Germany, Intergeo is the world’s largest conference and exhibition for geodesy, geoinformation and land management. The theme of the conference this year was “We are bringing worlds together,” and based upon the number of vendors, new equipment and applications, and record breaking attendance, it was quite evident they hit their mark.
The numbers were astounding: 580 vendors from 37 countries, 18,000+ visitors from 100+ countries, all packed in six interlinking halls covering more than 325,000 square feet (7.5+ acres). When I spoke with several contemporaries who previously attended Intergeo, all warned me to be ready for the size and scale of the facility, the number of vendors, and the large spaces occupied by the big survey players. Truly thinking this rhetoric was hyperbole, I went with guarded expectations. Boy, was I in for big surprise.
Walking up to the entrance, one could sense immediately the size and enormous presence of this conference. The registration lines were easy and efficient, with plenty of entry gates and attendants to help with any information. When I entered the first hall for my initial visit, the prior warnings about the size and scale were quite true. This conference was three days long, and I knew I was going to need every minute to cover all the bases.
My account here is broken into four sections — one hall per day. Leica, NovAtel, Laser Technology and Septentrio were among the first booths I encountered on day one. Javad, ComNav, Hemisphere and Emlid were in the next hall over, and can be found below “Behind Door Number Two.” Day three found me hobnobbing with CHC Navigation, EOS and Swift Navigation; look for them under “I’ll Take Hall Three for $200, Alex.” I topped off my Intergeo experience interviewing NavCom, Tersus and Trimble in “The Big Finish (Or Is It?)”
ENTERING ANOTHER DIMENSION…
Coming into Hall 1.1, the first thing that catches one’s eye besides the vastness of the entire space is the size and depth of the Hexagon exhibit. Hexagon is the parent company of Leica, NovAtel, and several others, and all were there displaying new products and software for a multitude of geospatial needs.
I was introduced to the new Leica GS18T GNSS RTK rover (Leica Geosystems debuts GNSS RTK rover at Intergeo 2017) with many new upgrades, including being able to measure a point while the unit is not being held plumb. Yes, you read that right; the unit has an inertial measurement unit (IMU) built in that compensates for any rod tilt and corrects the location back to the bottom of the rod. Now it is possible to collect a GNSS location to places and objects no longer thought possible.
This feature has been available with the “J-Tip” from Javad for the past year: now Leica has added the capability to the GS18T.
While the demonstration took care of my skepticism of the unit, it raised different concerns with the field personnel using it. This method of “no bubble” is fine for this unit, but I can envision crews getting sloppy with conventional GNSS and total station prism rods when mixed with this new technology. This will increase the need for proper training and trust that the all rod-based equipment is used in its intended manner and procedure.
NovAtel was on hand with presentation of a full line of GPS receivers, boards and peripherals, including its GAJT line of anti-jamming receivers as well as an “interference” toolkit of analyzing software modules. With the solid product line and software, the company motto of “assured positioning” bodes well for its users.
Laser Technology Inc. has provided many measurement breakthroughs over the past few decades, and its introduction of the TruPoint 200h is no exception (see Laser Technology highlights TruPoint 200h at Intergeo 2017). The company has taken the TruPoint 200 line of measuring devices and expanded its capability with phase shift and pulse diode measurements, which means the unit will determine the most accurate method based upon reflectivity. This is also paired with a data collection and reporting application on your Android smartphone to greatly expand your ability to share your data.
Also at Intergeo introducing a new GNSS receiver was Septentrio, a navigation systems developer from Belgium. Septentrio was showing the Altus NR3, a lightweight multi-constellation receiver aimed at the surveying and mapping community. This new unit boasts an AIM+ system designed to monitor and protect the user’s data from jamming and spoofing so the collected data is confidently accurate.
Carlson displayed its new BRx6 multi-GNSS receiver along with the RT3 tablet data collector. The BRx6 receiver expands the Carlson family of GNSS products to include connection to most RTN systems worldwide as well as the Atlas L-band correction service that is beginning to gain many followers. Paired with the new RT3 tablet, these products continue the look, feel and service that Carlson users have enjoyed for many years.
Sokkia was there with a full complement of surveying and monitoring equipment, with the GCX3 GNSS receiver being the main focus of their new products. This unit sets the bar even higher for light and efficient GNSS receivers as it weighs only 440 grams with the batteries, yet is more capable than many similar systems on the market.
Another new GNSS receiver introduction was from Hi-Target, the iRTK-5. This new model is the one of the first units to have an OLED touchscreen on the receiver. It supports reception from all major GNSS constellations as well as the L-band correction service. Hi-Target prides itself on a new proprietary differential correction technology that analyzes the integrity of data from all sources before providing a position. This model also has a 4G LTE chipset that will communicate with almost all cellular systems worldwide.
One thing that stood out to me that differs greatly from surveying in the U.S. is the proliferation of monuments and monitoring points/devices used by surveyors throughout the world. So, the multitude of vendors offering varying kinds of targets, prisms, and survey point markets should not have shocked me, but it still did. It was quite impressive with the walls of targets and prism assemblies for many different applications along with the tables of nails, tablets, monuments and vault systems used by surveyors worldwide. Among the notables were Rothburcher Systeme and Bohnenstingl, who both offer a complete line of products beyond most surveyor’s imaginations.
The Juniper Systems booth showcased the Mesa2 rugged tablet and the Geode sub-meter GNSS receiver, both designed with efficient mapping collection in mind at an affordable price point, yet rugged enough to take on most environments. They were also highlighting their CT5 rugged smartphone and CT7G rugged tablet as solid products for any surveying and mapping data collection need.
BEHIND DOOR NUMBER TWO
After navigating the first of four conference areas, I wondered if all the remaining halls would be just as impressive. Hall 2 did not disappoint, as the exhibit spaces were just as big and remarkable as the first one.
Already a major entity within the GNSS community, Javad came to Intergeo 2017 to introduce its entry into the UAV market, the Triumph F-1. Unlike other UAVs, this unit was designed starting with the GNSS engines Javad is known for; engineers then built the flying craft around the brains of the system. It utilizes the same DNA of the Triumph-LS receiver along with ease of Javad software, all on a multi-rotor platform with hot-swappable batteries.
Aimed for more agricultural users, ComNav introduced a lightweight GNSS receiver, the T30, and a new software guidance system compatible with most tractor configurations. This system is designed to be more efficient and precise than OEM tractor guidance as well as more customizable for the user.
The company behind the new Atlas L-band correction service, Hemisphere GNSS, also provided introductions to several new products at Intergeo. In addition to several navigation chipsets for OEM use, they also introduced the 321+ GNSS Smart Antenna. This new receiver is multi-frequency and multi-GNSS with an Athena RTK engine and Atlas L-band global corrections to cover most positional needs. With hot-swappable batteries, this unit will run over 12 hours on two sets that are provided.
EMLID may be a newcomer to the GNSS environment but they are making noise by offering new products and technology at price points for more consumers. At Intergeo, they were demonstrating the Reach RS GNSS receiver with RTK capability, the Reach GNSS module for UAV systems and the Edge module, an advanced drone controller with HDMI video input and 5.8 GHz data link. These guys are my sleeper pick for becoming a bigger player in the very near future.
Topcon’s space, which included industry partner Intel included an interactive dome using their “Immersive Point Cloud Workspace” software and 3D point cloud data to give attendees a virtual reality tour of sites previously mapped with Topcon equipment and software. This four-meter dome was a popular stop with visitors, as was the product introductions of their SmoothRide software and the MAGNET Collage desktop mass data processing software. In addition, another product showcased in conjunction with Intel was their UAV systems, led by the Sirius Pro fixed wing vehicle and the Falcon 8 multi-rotor vehicle.
The main presentation from Bentley to the surveying/GNSS community was the increased capability of their ContextCapture software module. With 3D point clouds and virtual reality systems become the norm, Bentley has upped their game with visualization tools and features within this module not found in many point cloud software packages. The biggest improvement is the ability for survey-grade data acquired through laser scanning, LiDAR and photogrammetry to be easily input and manipulated for many different uses. From BIM to roadway corridor modeling and asset management, these improvements are making the utilization of 3D data more seamless.
Something that caught my eye initially as a novelty was TinyMobileRobots, a Danish company producing a small unmanned cart for marking surfaces. They currently have three products: the TinySurveyor, the TinyLineMarker, and the TinyPreMarker. All have GNSS receivers that operate autonomously on a predetermined route and carry a paint can for marking specific points. From marking athletic fields to paint striping, they might be on to something quite unique but very cool.
I’LL TAKE HALL THREE FOR $200, ALEX
Hall 3 brought us to CHC Navigation and their full range of surveying and mapping products. Highlighted during our discussions with them was the M6, i70 and i80 GNSS receivers and the Apache 5 USV boat for hydrographic applications. It was quite evident how large of a company CHC is and how vast their global presence is so don’t be surprised to see them in North America soon.
EOS Positioning Systems is another smaller GNSS receiver producer that is targeting the mapping community with the lower entry pricing and smartphone application interfacing. From the basic L1 receiver for mapping to the multi-constellation, triple-frequency model including Atlas L-band corrections, EOS is providing an easy to use package at an affordable price point.
Another entry in the OEM board/system provider of centimeter-level accuracy systems is Swift Navigation and their Piksi line of products. From agricultural applications to autonomous vehicle positioning, they are providing navigational systems that will guide our future. As the surveying community expands its use of unmanned vehicles, I would not be surprised to see Swift at the forefront of this effort.
Another member of the Hexagon family, the Geomax display was loaded with everything imaginable for measuring and remote sensing. The main introduction for Intergeo 2017 was X-PAD Office Fusion, an all-in-one software package that allows the data from various sources to come together in one place for creating and manipulating 3D models. While I was not familiar with Geomax, it was quite evident that their customer base, while European-centric, was big and quite loyal to the brand.
A newcomer to the surveying world is Pix4D and their photo processing software. Used by many UAV enthusiasts and now surveyors, Pix4D has quickly become one of the largest providers of software for creating orthometric photos that are georeferenced to known coordinate systems and GIS databases. Most of their success has been because of ease of use and affordability versus the leading surveying software packages. They are also industry partners with Esri and DJI, so having big friends in popular places has helped their cause. Look for more great stuff from them for surveying applications in the near future.
THE BIG FINISH
As I entered Hall 4, I began to wonder if I was done with the major attractions and getting into the bit players. I was wrong.
The first stop was Geozone, who was introducing a new receiver, Falcon SF, through a collaboration with NavCom. This new unit features multi-constellation and multi-frequency collection, but also includes Starfire, a global system designed and maintained by NavCom that is a satellite-based correction signal and provides accuracy of 5 CM anywhere in the world. This correction system comes standard with a subscription when you purchase the receiver, which is unheard of in most surveying environments. This is another product I predict that will be making more of a global presence in short time.
Tersus GNSS was at Intergeo to introduce many OEM navigation boards and an RTK system for surveyors and autonomous control systems. The Tersus David RTK system is designed to turn your smartphone into a high accuracy GNSS data collector. This system is highly durable and compact so it will accommodate many different mapping needs.
Another company that has global reach but not much exposure to U.S. business, South Surveying & Mapping Instruments, wouldn’t give an attendee the impression that they are a small player in the surveying world. Their exhibit space was impressive, ranging from simple theodolites to high accuracy robotic total stations, RTK GNSS receivers and fixed-wing/multi-rotor UAVs.
As lidar technology becomes more available and affordable, a stop at the Riegl booth was a must. They were introducing many new products at the Intergeo 2017 show, including the miniVUX-1DL UAV laser scanner for multi-rotor and fixed-wing aircraft. This little beauty weighs under 3 kg and fits on most scalable UAV platforms.
Another fun item on display was the VMX-2HA Dual Scanner Mobile Laser Scanner, which looks like a high-tech octopus on top of your vehicle. This unit collects 2 million measurements per second as well as 9 x 12MP camera images at various angles. As the miniaturization of technology continues, I see RIEGL continuing to lead the lidar segment well into the future.
Just when I thought I was almost done, I realized that there was one major player left that I had not seen: Trimble. They were in the back of Hall 4 across almost the entire width of the conference space. Everything geomatics, remote sensing, and navigation; it was here in one of the biggest exhibition spaces at Intergeo 2017.
All the latest surveying instruments were here, including the R10 GNSS receiver and SX10 scanning total station. The new items for surveying at this show were numerous; the C3 and C5 mechanical total stations with autofocus, Catalyst software with GNSS receiver for smartphones, the T10 rugged tablet for survey and GIS applications, and OEM receiver boards (BD940-INS, BD992-INS and BD990).
Also included within the Trimble space were Nikon and Spectra Precision branded instruments as well as the latest acquisition, Applanix GNSS-aided inertial movement systems. While Trimble has grown considerably in the past decade, it seems as nothing will slow them down. If they continue to introduce great products and technology, I wouldn’t bet against them.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE…
There were three more halls, with two of them being organizations and information booths. Hall 6, however, has grown into a standalone space as “Interaerial Solutions,” Europe’s biggest UAV show. All the main players were in here (including DJI, DroneDeploy and over 150 more) so almost everything imaginable with UAVs can be found here.
During the conference, the adjacent courtyard was utilized for UAV demonstrations and product introductions. It will be interesting to see in the coming years if this segment of measurement and remote sensing will continue to expand with number of vendors/suppliers or if it will get absorbed by many of the bigger players within the geomatics community.
INTERGEO 2017, IN RETROSPECT
The common theme/message through this gathering was digitalization, “smart cities” and the evolution of the occupations that work within these environments. Intergeo is an impressive gathering of likeminded people discussing how to manage the increasing waves of data through technology, analyzation and thought processing.
While I can’t say that these types of gathering do not happen in the U.S., it is not as obvious as the annual assembly of Intergeo in Germany. The surveying community in the United States needs to hold a similar “summit” to help guide the profession toward its future goals. The one thing I have always appreciated about surveying is how it does embrace technology and forward thinking yet must rely on the past to tell us where we have been.
Digitalization is here and cities will get smarter with or without us, so it’s up to us as surveyors to keep looking forward with the times. Global measurement and navigation will be a big part of that, so let’s put our thinking caps on to see what we learn next.
Until next time, guten tag und gute gesundheit.
A big thank you also goes out to my fellow Intergeo members Ryan Gerard, Mike Joyce, and Allison Barwacz for making this a wonderful experience.
Ligado Networks will appear and present at the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Advisory Board’s (PNTAB) meeting on Nov. 15 in Southern California.
Ligado and its predecessors have sought to install high-powered ground transmitters that have been shown to harm and overwhelm GPS signals and receivers in their general vicinity. The controversy has simmered for at least eight years without resolution.
That final resolution will ultimately be taken by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), although congressional participation is also conceivable, since national infrastructure security is involved.
Meeting Locale. The PNTAB meeting will take place Wednesday, November 15, 2017, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; and Thursday, Nov. 16, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the Crowne Plaza Redondo Beach & Marina Hotel, 300 North Harbor Drive, Redondo Beach, California, approximately a half hour’s drive south of Los Angeles International Airport. The meeting will be open to the public up to the seating capacity of the room. Visitors will be requested to sign a visitor’s register.
From June 28, 2017, PNTAB presentation by Brad Parkinson.
The central issue in this long-running fight is the as-yet unknown — though uniformly predicted by the various rounds of testing over the last eight years — effects of Ligado signals on a huge installed industrial and governmental base of GPS receivers, some of which are essential to the nation’s critical infrastructure.
Ligado Networks, the current-day incarnation of once-bankrupt LightSquared, seeks FCC permission to apply the satellite-based frequency licenses it owns to be broadcast from a ground-based network. This would put a powerful nearby signal immediately adjacent to the much weaker, more distantly emanating GPS signals, and by the way, those from other GNSS as well. Tests in 2011 and further testing in 2016 demonstrated these powerful signals interfering with GPS receivers.
Brad Parkinson
The Ligado appearance comes in response to an open letter, posted on Oct. 10 by PNTAB First Vice-Chair Brad Parkinson, inviting Ligado CEO Doug Smith to speak to the Advisory Board. That invitation itself emerged after a season of what have been termed “attack” statements issued in various forums by Ligado, which were in turn stimulated by two early-summer letters:
1. A June 27 letter from the American Geophysical Union, Aerospace Industries Association, American Meteorological Society, Aircraft Owners and Pilot s Association, Airlines for America, General Aviation Manufacturers Association, International Air Transport Association, Iridium Communications, Thales USA and other organizations (totaling 22) to the FCC opposing Ligado’s request.
“The undersigned organizations . . . write to reiterate that the threat of harmful interference from Ligado’s proposed ancillary terrestrial component (“ATC”) service remain real and persistent. Contra ry to the assertions in Ligado’s FCC advocacy and recent media blitz, its proposed terrestrial operations continue to pose a significant interference risk to numerous parties . . . . The risks to these critical services are very real and, consistent with the public interest, cannot be brushed aside.
That letter further notes that “Ligado seeks the ability to sell its spectrum to the highest bidder, underscoring the uncertainty of any prospective value of the services it has on previous occasions suggested it may provide. There is a clear effort by Ligado to downplay the significance of the technical concerns it continues to receive from numerous directions.”
2. A July 5 letter from the PNT Advisory Board to Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work and Deputy Secretary of Transportation Jeffrey A. Rosen, the co-chairs of the National Executive Committee for Space‐based Positioning, strongly opposing the Ligado proposal.
From June 28, 2017, PNTAB presentation by Brad Parkinson.
“The revised [Ligado] proposal to the FCC is fundamentally unchanged from a previous proposal reviewed in 2011. Extensive government testing in 2011 and in 2016, clearly shows that both proposals cause definitive harmful interference to many classes of GPS receivers.”
“All GPS stakeholders should be wary of any incremental approaches to deploying mobile broadband services in the mobile satellite systems (MSS) band. For example, initial services could operate at reduced power levels on a temporary basis to protect only a subset of GPS users, before moving to full — power levels that will cause widespread interference to many other classes of GPS users. Regulatory decisions must be based on the ultimate end-state of any systems proposed for operation in the bands adjacent to GPS, and must protect all classes of GPS users. Unfortunately, the latest industry proposal does not acknowledge the legitimacy of, and the need to protect, dozens of precise applications of great national importance.”
From June 28, 2017, PNTAB presentation by Brad Parkinson.
Round Two. The struggle has been a prolonged one, with many twists and turns, however coalescing into two main periods of activity:
2011-12, when the first round of tests showed then-LightSquared’s proposed network would overload the vast majority of GPS receivers. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tabled the proposal, and the company, holding spectrum licenses whose value could range far into the billions of dollars, filed for bankruptcy.
2016–18. LightSquared emerged from Chapter 11 in 2015 as Ligado Networks, positing a modified network plan, but one whose organizing concept remains unchanged, causing deep and continued alarm over GPS interference. 2017 tests, conducted by a firm and a government organization hired by Ligado, essentially reconfirmed the 2011 results. The tests found that the proposed ground towers would significantly interfere with GPS receivers as far away as 4 to 5 kilometers, “killing them dead” in the words of one expert who reviewed the test data.
Parkinson’s October 10 letter invites Ligado CEO Doug Scott “to provide the committee with clear up-to-date design information. . . . How might the system as now envisioned be deployed? How many ground terminals are needed, for example, and where would they be?”
Previous LightSquared and Ligado presentations have been long on promise but short on details. In fact, sound technical underpinning has not been communicated.
From June 28, 2017, PNTAB presentation by Brad Parkinson.
Parkinson writes “we would therefore encourage you to specifically describe your implementation plan , with a corresponding test plan address ing the issues we have openly raised . We request you specifically focus on those regarding the potential for interfering with any GPS /GNSS services that operate in the protected Space – to – Earth L band (1559 – 1610 MHz) . Included should be all modes of operation and the use of all current and future GNSS sign als. Without these specific technical details and corresponding evaluations, we can only conjecture as to what you are really proposing .”
Later, he affirms “our focus is to provide advice based on deep engineering and related expertise . As you know, interference to GPS/GNSS can adversely affect numerous safety – of – life systems , other vital national assets, and applications comprising over $60 billion of annual U.S. productivity benefits .”
Parkinson and the PNTAB have had better luck securing a Ligado appearance than did GPS World magazine. In August of this year, Ligado’s senior vice president and chief engineer for radio access technologies thrice declined an invitation to give a brief Expert Opinion for the September issue on the question: How can the safety, security, and full utility of GNSS applications be ensured while evolving best, most efficient use of limited, very valuable electromagnetic spectrum?
Just a Refresher. The PNTAB meeting will be held Wednesday, November 15, 2017, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; and Thursday, November 16, 2017, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., at the Crowne Plaza Redondo Beach & Marina Hotel, 300 North Harbor Drive, Redondo Beach, CA, approximately a half hour’s drive south of Los Angeles International Airport. The meeting will be open to the public up to the seating capacity of the room. Visitors will be requested to sign a visitor’s register.
Ligado is by no means the only item on the Committee’s docket, but is very likely to be the pièce de résistance. The full agenda for the meeting includes:
Update on U.S. Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Policy and Global Positioning System (GPS) modernization.
Prioritize current and planned GPS capabilities and services while assessing future PNT architecture alternatives with a focus on affordability.
Examine methods in which to Protect, Toughen, and Augment (PTA) access to GPS/Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) services in key domains for multiple user sectors.
Assess economic impacts of GPS/GNSS on the United States and in select international regions, with a consideration towards effects of potential PNT service disruptions if radio spectrum interference is introduced.
Review the potential benefits, perceived vulnerabilities, and any proposed regulatory constraints to accessing foreign Radio Navigation Satellite Service (RNSS) signals in the United States and subsequent impacts on multi-GNSS receiver markets.
Explore opportunities for enhancing the interoperability of GPS with other emerging international GNSS.
Examine emerging trends and requirements for PNT services in U.S. and international fora through PNT Board technical assessments, including back-up services for terrestrial, maritime, aviation, and space users.
It’s been a couple of months since we ran an update on unmanned aircraft, so there are lots of news items to dust off and maybe look at more closely.
I suppose we’ve all seen those futuristic movies with masses of orderly air traffic traveling rapidly down invisible roads hundreds of feet above cities — maybe the Jetsons first got us thinking about this vision of tomorrow? Well, unmanned flying taxi demos in Dubai certainly caught my attention. Could this be the launch of the first phase of “airborne street traffic”?
Demo UAVs in Dubai, China
The two-seater UAV built by Volocopter demonstrated in Dubai has 18 rotors, and during the five-minute demo for the media, Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed was flown at around 200 meters over sand, rather than over a populated city. There surely could be a number of safety elements yet to be implemented before we see this become operational — but you have to start somewhere.
The Volocopter demo was preceded at the beginning of this year by the appearance of a single-seat Chinese demo vehicle. This smaller eight-rotor drone by EHang took a shot at being a future “over-city” cab.
Urbain Air Project
In the meantime, Airbus and HAX, a start-up investor, are seeking innovators to participate in a four-month program to advance developments in urban-air mobility — innovations which could speed-up development of “flying cars.”
The project is looking for technologies already being developed in:
Urban air transport vehicle technology
UAV sense and avoid technology
Airport runway and landing detection systems
Emergency safety systems for airborne vehicles
Required infrastructure for airborne transport vehicles
Autonomous airborne vehicle technology
Aerial maneuver decision making and support systems
Air traffic management systems
Aerial collision detection and avoidance systems
Battery packaging and management systems for airborne vehicles
Several startups could be funded with at least $100,000 each, and will be asked to spend four months in Shenzhen, China, turning their concepts into prototypes with support from HAX and Airbus engineers.
Safety Standards?
All interesting stuff, but at some stage someone has to take a serious look at the safety standards needed to protect prospective passengers. The existing designs appear to have some flight control redundancy, and there are hints of a possible loss of data-link reversionary mode, but there might be more significant work to be done before any regulatory agency such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were to validate system reliability. But good luck to these innovators and other companies who are working towards implementing this fascinating concept.
At the other end of the drone spectrum, Renishaw Canada recently showed off a drone made of titanium and produced using 3D printing.
The Firefly is a 3D-printed titanium rocket-powered drone that can fly at nearly supersonic speeds, with onboard telemetry and a spring-released wing. The Mach 0.8 drone has been produced by the Renishaw additive manufacturing group for an unnamed North American aerospace company. The drone can apparently house a number of miniaturized sensors for data collection.
Possible applications of this unique high-speed, short-duration drone could include data collection flying into storms and hurricanes, or perhaps for longer distance surveying when launched from a future Mars rover.
Boeing Acquires Aurora Flight
And on the business front, the recent news is that Boeing is in the process of acquiring Aurora Flight Sciences Corp. Adding Aurora as an independent operation alongside Insitu will probably lead to migration of technology between the two Boeing UAS units, which is presumably why Aurora is being acquired.
Aurora has focused on electric propulsion systems and automation and autonomy for robotic operations and UAVs. Aurora has also collaborated with Boeing in the past on rapid prototyping for drones, and structural assemblies for military and commercial applications.
As a unit of the Boeing Company, Aurora technologies for long-endurance aircraft, robotic co-pilots, and autonomous electric multi-rotor UAVs will have a better opportunity to make it to product level, and wider applications should be possible for these unique capabilities.
Based in Manassas, Virginia, with facilities and offices in five other states around the United States — including R&D facilities right next to Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge — Aurora employees more than 550 people. They also have an office in Luzern, Switzerland.
FAA Regulations Revisited
Finally, according to AUVSI, in the year since the FAA released the Part 107 regulations for the operation of small UAS (sUAS), users have requested more than 1,000 waivers to work outside the parameters of these regulations. The Part 107 regulations permit users to request such waivers, provided operations can be shown to be safe. The majority of these waiver requests were to operate at night — whereas the regulations only permit operation within Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) in daylight.
AUVSI argues that certain commercial operations have only been possible through the use of these waivers, and therefore the regulations should be revised to enable normal operations without the need to grant individual waivers on a case-by-case basis. The FAA’s position may be that until such operations can be proven to be safe over time, the agency wants to know who’s exceeding which parameters, and under what conditions — hence the need for individual written applications, so that analysis of safety aspects is possible. Then subsequent monitoring will show that levels of operation may be safely exceeded on a regular basis.
This is how aviation agencies have always managed aviation safety. A UAS operator might demonstrate operational capabilities, show an acceptable safety level, and thereby prove that pushing the envelope is okay. Sometimes it can take time, but with good visibility on both sides, it’s possible that progress could be made reasonably quickly.
Q: What is the GNSS/PNT industry “Issue of the Year”?
Jose Angel Avila Rodriguez, signal and security implementation engineer, European Space Agency
A: The growth of PNT applications has been impressive and will continue. Assurance of PNT will thus gain an ever-increasing role, in both the security and the civil domains.
For GNSS, the key PNT contributor, there is in addition another challenge: its piece in the PNT cake will be contested by newcomers, such as telecom networks. Whether we will continue talking about A-GNSS or instead talk about Assisted 5G, with GNSS in that case taking on the role of signal of opportunity — that will depend on today’s decisions about future GNSS upgrades, the modernized versions of Galileo second generation, GPS III, and Beidou/Compass III, that will be flying around 2040.
Gyles Panther, president and CTO, Tallysman Wireless, Inc.
A: The key issues for PNT going forward, and into the indefinite future, are simply stated: availability and accuracy. Re-deployment of the eLoran infrastructure is a no-brainer. A potentially highly negative step would be the introduction of communication services within the mobile satellite L-band downlink frequency band (1525 MHz to 1559 MHz). Multi-constellational receivers track a much larger number of satellites and better disposed SVs (space vehicles) provide a lower horizontal DOP and hence greater accuracy.
Finally, GNSS needs to be defended against interference both intentional and accidental. Why on earth would we want to damage something that is providing so much utility to mankind?
In April 2016, I introduced readers to useful features of our newly redesigned website at GPS World. This month, I want to again remind readers of all that we offer — features that may not be apparent if you just visit the homepage to read the news.
In our redesign, we endeavored to make the website even easier to use. Part of that effort consolidated some of our most popular features under the More dropdown menu. The little word appears at the far right of the menu row under our logo. Within it is a world of data and information to explore.
For those seeking current and historical data on the satellites in the various GNSS constellations, we have a full Almanac, which we update at least twice a year for the print magazine.
If you want to stay on top of Upcoming GNSS Satellites Launches, we provide a handy table that is updated frequently by the one and only Richard Langley, our GNSS guru. Richard updates the table frequently — whenever new launch dates are announced.
Richard also oversees the numerous and informative Innovation columns, all of which are available under the Innovation tab — right there under More.
Our most current issue can be accessed through the words Digital Edition at the bottom of the page. Or, again under More, go to Magazine Archive for a full collection of every digital issue that reaches back a decade to 2005.
Other great resources under More are our annual Receiver Survey and Antenna Survey. Both of these products are time intensive to produce, pulling together data and specs from almost 100 companies in an effort to provide a full picture of the products available and their capabilities.
Similarly, the Buyers Guide link will take you to a special section on our website, allowing you to search manufacturers by product category and subcategory. Major updates of the Buyers Guide appear in print in June, but the online Buyers Guide is updated by companies year-round.
If your company isn’t in our Buyers Guide, click on the “Add My Listing” link in the top right corner of the Buyers Guide page. It’s free!
It is a beautiful, crisp afternoon, the last of the summer, as I write and as we prepare for next week’s ION GNSS+ conference, where GPS World and sponsors Harris Corporation, Rockwell Collins and Spirent Federal Systems will host the 2017 Leadership Dinner and confer this year’s Leadership Awards in Satellites, Signals, Services and Products.
The engraved glass awards nestle snug in their boxes beside me, the names upon them known only by a few.
However, as you read this, it is early October — and hopefully another beautiful crisp afternoon among autumn’s best — and those glass awards are safe at home with their new owners. Their names are known by all 125 Leadership Dinner attendees, and now by you as well. We will publish their spoken remarks in the December issue. Here now are the basic details.
The voting ballot for the awards was assembled by polling a group of roughly 25 industry VIPs for their nominations, and that same group plus another 40 voted for the final recipients.
The 2017 Leadership Award for Satellites went to Wolfgang Paetsch, director of Navigation for OHB, primarily responsible for the space projects that the company executes for the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union. He was nominated for his leadership in setting up the routine production of the Galileo satellites leading to Galileo constellation deployment, including the quadruple Ariane 5 launch in November 2016. As one voter remarked as he cast his ballot, “The quadruple launch capability is a key enabler for the future.”
The Leadership Award for Signals was conferred upon Christopher Hegarty, director for Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Engineering and Spectrum at The MITRE Corporation, for contributions to the Department of Transportation’s GPS Adjacent Band Compatibility Assessment. Said Compatibility Assessment has been a long and winding road, and has required several sure hands, Chris’ among them, to guide it. We hope to publish something on its outcomes soon.
The Leadership Award for Services was given to Patricia Doherty, director and senior scientist at the Institute for Scientific Research at Boston College, for initiating and leading the Africa GNSS Outreach program since 2009. The program’s mission is to help developing countries derive social and economic benefits from satellite-based positioning, navigation and timing. Each year, around 50 graduate students and faculty from African and other countries attend these GNSS workshops. The faculty reads like a Who’s Who of satnav scientists and teachers, testifying to both Doherty’s formidable recruiting talents and the dedication of this community to knowledge-sharing around the world.
2017 GPS World Leadership Awards.
The Leadership Award for Products was a tri-partite affair, going to colleagues Charles Abraham and Andreas Warloe, vice president of Engineering and senior director of GPS Engineering, respectively, at Broadcom. As the chief designer and the architect of the first dual-frequency L1/L5 E1/E5 GNSS chip for smartphones, they are helping to usher in a new era of high-precision GNSS in mass-market products. See this article for more details on the just-launched product.
The two shared the award with Javier de Salas, director of Software Engineering at Broadcom, for leadership in establishing Galileo-ready receiver products.
A good time was had by all at the Leadership Dinner, which also included the PNT Powerplay Puzzle and Pig-in-a-Poke Live Auction. Details in December!
