Technology Advancement Group (TAG) will be showcasing precision, navigation and timing technology integration solutions at the ION GNSS+ conference, which will be held Sept. 14-15 in Tampa, Fla.
In particular, TAG will display a custom-designed military GNSS survey system that is the U.S. Army program of record for geodetic, construction and airfield surveying.
TAG’s Precise Positioning Service Global Positioning System Survey (PPS GPS-S) system was designed specifically for use by survey teams to have access to centimeter-level GPS survey accuracy with the added benefits of a fully-certified military GPS receiver that is supplemented with a GNSS receiver for real-time kinematic surveying with multi-constellation operations.
The PPS GPS-S system has been specifically designed to address the stringent requirements of military survey missions including geodetic, construction, airfield, and field artillery survey. It gives the military surveyor the tools they need to complete their missions with minimum time-on-station even in the face of GPS signal interference, attempted spoofing, or electronic warfare, the company said.
TAG was recently awarded a $24 million contract by the U.S. Army Geospatial Center for its AN/GSN-16 military survey system.
Core components of the PPS GPS-S system include a base station and two rovers, each integrated with a GNSS antenna with protection against jamming or spoofing, a custom-designed rugged tablet with an internal RF radio that has a 20-km range, and GPS-S accessories for additional functionality. Designed for continuous operation, the PPS GPS-S system includes multiple power options such as dual hot-swappable Li-Ion batteries, 12V battery, DC/DC converter, NATO adapter, and 4-slot Li-Ion charging station.
Powered by Carlson Surv-PC, TAG’s PPS GPS-S system is tailored for military environments that require tactical computer-aided design (CAD) operations. With an intuitive graphical user interface, surveying operations can be conducted in the field allowing for work to be completed in real-time. Accurate geospatial information system (GIS) data capture and a full suite of CAD functions allows survey teams to remain in the field to complete the drawings without the need to return to base.
For ION GNSS+, TAG will be in booth #102 of the exhibit hall in the Tampa Convention Center.
Two of the Survey climbers continue their trek up towards the next base camp, with gear in tow. Much of the climbing was done at night or early morning to take advantage of the frozen ground. (Photo: Blaine Horner, CompassData)
A new, official height for Denali has been measured at 20,310 feet, just 10 feet less than the previous elevation of 20,320 feet which was established using 1950’s era technology.
With this slightly lower elevation, has the tallest mountain in North America shrunk? No, but advances in technology to better measure the elevation at the surface of the Earth have resulted in a more accurate summit height of Alaska’s natural treasure.
The mountain — known as Mt. McKinley since 1917 — was officially renamed Denali this week, a change announced by President Obama on the eve of his trip to Alaska. Denali is an Alaska Native name meaning “The High One” or “The Great One,” and is the name Alaskan have used for decades.
“No place draws more public attention to its exact elevation than the highest peak of a continent. Knowing the height of Denali is precisely 20,310 feet has important value to earth scientists, geographers, airplane pilots, mountaineers and the general public. It is inspiring to think we can measure this magnificent peak with such accuracy,” said Suzette Kimball, USGS acting director. “This is a feeling everyone can share, whether you happen to be an armchair explorer or an experienced mountain climber.”
Blaine Horner of CompassData probing the snow pack at the highest point in North America along with setting up Global Position System equipment for precise summit elevation data. (Photo: Blaine Horner, CompassData)
Denali National Park where the mountain is located, was established in 1917 and annually sees more than 500,000 visitors to the six million acres that now make up the park and preserve. About 1,200 mountaineers attempt to summit the mountain each year; typically about half are successful.
“Park rangers have been excited to work with and learn from their USGS colleagues using the latest technology to determine Denali’s height,” said Denali NP Superintendent Don Striker. “Climbers and other visitors will be fascinated by this process, and I hope our future park rangers see from this firsthand example how a background in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and staying physically active in the outdoors can enable them to do some of America’s coolest jobs.”
To establish a more accurate summit height, the USGS partnered with NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey (NGS), Dewberry, CompassData, (a subcontractor to Dewberry) and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, to conduct a precise GPS measurement of a specific point at the mountain’s peak.
A previous 2013 Denali survey was called into question with an elevation measurement of 20,237 feet. That survey was done by an airborne radar measurement collected using an Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (ifsar) sensor. Ifsar is an extremely effective tool for collecting map data in challenging areas such as Alaska, but it does not provide precise spot or point elevations, especially in very steep terrain.
The climbing team of GPS experts and mountaineers reached the Denali summit in mid-June. Since then, they have been processing, analyzing, and evaluating the raw data to arrive at the final number of 20, 310 feet. Unique circumstances and variables such as the depth of the snowpack and establishing the appropriate surface that coincides with mean sea level had to be taken into account before the new apex elevation could be determined.
Survey equipment was powered on. The Zephyr-2 GPS was connected to the NetR9 with Teflon tape on the threads. One of the primary concerns was that the position equipment would not power on in the cold temperatures. Each had been wrapped in closed cell foam to provide insulation and neither had any problem turning on. (Photo: Blaine Horner, CompassData)
The Summit Survey
The summit team arrived at the top of North America’s highest peak around 3:15 p.m. on June 24. Their first task was to identify the true summit. A small diamond of snow was prominent near the south-face cliff edge and was identified as the highest point of the mountain. A range pole was driven into the snow near the true summit, leveled with the summit, and GPS equipment was installed and powered on.
The team of two returned to 14,000 feet following the summit survey. The equipment was left collecting until the following day when a team from Mountain Trip guiding service removed the receivers. Two days later the CompassData team returned to the summit and removed all remaining equipment.
The entire team safely descended the mountain and arrived at base camp at 7:00 a.m., June 29.
Processing the Data and Determining the New Elevation
To ensure the most accurate elevation number, specialists from CompassData, the University of Alaska Fairbanks and NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey all independently processed the survey data. Once they had preliminary results, a meeting was held to compare those calculations. All findings were consistent and remaining questions focused on how to express the new height. Ultimately, an agreement was reached in terms of the reference surface to be used and the rationale for using the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88) as the vertical datum.
NAVD 88 is the official vertical datum for Alaska in the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS), a system that is defined and maintained by NGS to provide a consistent coordinate system across the entire United States. A new effort underway at NGS to modernize the NSRS by 2022 will incorporate an improved model of where the average sea level, or ‘zero’ elevation, is located; this will result in elevation values being more accurate with respect to mean sea level.
A USGS feature story has more details about the trek, data collection and calculation methods.
A view of Denali from the airplane as the Survey team approached the Kahiltna Glacier to begin their ascent to the mountain’s summit. Photo : Blaine Horner, CompassData)
Reliable, consistent positioning accuracy has always driven new product development in the survey and mapping sector of the GPS/GNSS market. It’s remarkable how quickly the provided accuracy in successive new survey products over the years has increased the required accuracy from users and customers in the field, and consequently the desired accuracy in a feedback loop to the product developers.
In other words, the degree of required accuracy has risen steadily over the three and a half decades since GPS was born. “Accuracy is addictive.” Somebody said that in the second decade of GPS development, that is, sometime in the 1990s. This statement continues to hold true, as true for this industry as Moore’s Law does for computer technology as a whole.
Moore’s Law states that overall processing power for computers will double every two years; as a corollary or an extension, the size of said computers gets cut in half every two years, and the cost (sometimes) also comes down by 50 percent. Moore’s Law in action in the GPS/GNSS industry has driven the product developments that we have consistently seen for many years.
We have seen the gradual tightening of accuracy requirements across all sectors of the positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) community with each passing year and with each new State of the Industry Report. This is the first time we have seen it cross the 1-centimeter line. Not in capability; sub-centimeter capability has been available for some time. But now that level of performance is the minimum acceptable “good enough” for more respondents in the survey and high-precision sector than any lesser degree of accuracy; in fact, greater than all other ranges combined.
To put this into measurable, statistical form, GPS World has just released its fourth annual “State of the GNSS Industry Report.” In the years that we have conducted the survey, the accuracy required for the majority of survey applications has steadily come down. No surprises here.
In 2013, those who said that the majority of this market sector needed accuracy of better than a centimeter amounted to only 8 percent of total respondents.
In 2014, this group rose dramatically to 35 percent, while close to a majority, or 47 percent, held that a range of 1 to 5 centimeters was “good enough.”
Now, in this year of 2015, the majority has shifted clearly to the side of 1 centimeter or better as the new standard of required precision; 51.25 percent held this view. From 8 percent to more than half in just two years — that’s some change!
How accurate is good enough for the majority of this sector?
Fewer people believe that a survey done completely on a computer and driven by remote-sensor data will occur in less than five years. Counter to last year’s expectations, most now think it will take longer than five years to come about.
How soon will a survey be performed entirely from a computer, using high-resolution satellite and/or UAV-collected data, without any instrumented field work?
Those who are addicted to 1-centimeter accuracy form the new majority. Their preferences and their behaviors will rule the positioning world, not just in survey, but across all sectors supplied by GNSS and increasingly by a broad range of PNT technologies: defense, transportation, UAVs, machine control, precision agriculture, and much more. These other sectors will presumably answer likewise — “1 centimeter accuracy, that’s what I need!” in coming years, following the trail blazed by the you high-precision surveying pioneers.
We have crossed the Rubicon. Unlike other obsessive behaviors, there is no going back in our case. This path is a one-way road to to the promised land of always-on, always-true, near-perfect provision of positioning.
How much effort are you devoting to mitigation of GNSS jamming or spoofing?
High-precision receiver maker JAVAD GNSS is expected to make a major announcement at this year’s INTERGEO conference, which takes place Sept. 15-17 in Stuttgart, Germany. JAVAD GNSS will showcase its technology in Hall 6 at Booth: G6.049.
At INTERGEO 2014, JAVAD GNSS introduced its unmanned aerial vehicle, the TRIUMPH-F1. The TRIUMPH-F1 is based on the TRIUMPH-1, JAVAD GNSS’s field-tested high-precision geodetic GNSS receiver with 864 channels to track all current and future GNSS signals.
This year’s new product developments from JAVAD GNSS are not known at this point, but the company has announced on its website the BEAST RTK, with 5-Hz Base Station Transmission. The BEAST RTK provides surveyors with faster fixes under tree canopy and the ability to collect five times as many epochs in a time period. “In my ‘bad spot’ under a tree, I am making it through 10 resets in less than 10 seconds,” said one user, John Evers, PLS.
In the video below, Javad Ashjaee, president and CEO of JAVAD GNSS, and GPS World Editor-in-Chief Alan Cameron discuss the design of the TRIUMPH-F1 at INTERGEO 2014.
With more than 16,000 visitors from 92 countries, INTERGEO — held each year in a different city in Germany — is the world’s leading conference trade fair for geodesy, geoinformation and land management.
Table 1. Preliminary 2013 U.S. GPS economic benefit estimates. (Chart: GPS World, based on data from author)
This article is based on a presentation to the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Advisory Board in June 2015. The study reported on at the meeting was requested by the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing. It demonstrates the widespread use and importance of GPS to the U.S., with estimated benefits in 2013 of about $56 billion, or 0.3% of GDP for a subset of applications. The study is the first part of an effort that is expected to refine and extend this analysis.
By Irv Leveson
Critical to many civilian applications and innovations, GPS brings great economic benefits. These benefits have grown rapidly with the integration of GPS with other technologies and its wider and deeper infusion into applications. New GPS signals and other improvements in the system will further expand and enhance use. The unmistakable conclusion: GPS is everywhere.
Benefits of GPS to the U.S. will increase with the availability of other GNSS systems, even though GPS will constitute a smaller share of global GNSS benefits. The U.S. will continue to provide leadership, standards and innovation in technology and applications with positive domestic feedback.
GPS and other GNSS and enhancements raise productivity; reduce and avoid costs; save time; enable improved and new production processes, products and markets; increase health and well-being; reduce injury and loss of life; improve the environment; and increase security.
The National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT), which is responsible for maintaining U.S. leadership in GNSS, commissioned a study to assign a quantitative value to the broad economic uses of GPS. The purpose is to inform the public, federal decision makers and critical infrastructure owners/operators on the importance of GPS and the need to protect it from disruption. Assessing the economic implications of actions such as preventing or disallowing interference, spectrum reallocation, developing supplementary or backup systems and/or toughening receivers can be informed by value estimates and the data used to derive them. In addition, economic values can contribute to planning for GPS modernization and analysis of budgets. Baseline estimates facilitate comparisons with future developments. GPS benefit estimates will be “ballpark” no matter how sophisticated the methodology because of limits to the availability of information, but in many cases, knowing orders of magnitude is essential in choosing courses of action.
Widespread, Pervasive Impact. The technological environment is one of rapid changes in information and materials technology and integration of technologies at levels ranging from systems on a chip to large-scale systems. GPS is increasingly integrated with other technologies and systems that build on each other to achieve greater outcomes.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security counts GPS as an enabling technology because of its crucial role in 14 of the 16 industries that are classified as part of the nation’s critical infrastructure. It is useful to view GPS’ role as being especially important in “enabling the enablers,” industries that particularly support the rest of the economy and are at the forefront of economic growth. The most notable of these are transportation, communications, power and financial services.
Economic Value versus Impact
Economic value is the addition to the value of the economy from the provision of a good or service, or the introduction of a technology. Benefits are measured relative to what would have been expected if there were no GPS. Direct economic value is the increase in value in using sectors. Total economic value includes increases in value to suppliers and value induced in the rest of the economy.
Direct economic impact, on the other hand, refers to measures of the importance of sectors that are using GPS. Total economic impact is the importance of sectors affected by GPS, whether they are using it or not. Total economic impact of GPS is virtually the size of the whole economy, so it is not very meaningful.
Direct economic impact is measured by value added of using sectors when the purpose is to avoid duplication among sectors that buy from and sell to each other. It may be measured by revenue for a single sector when adding sectors is not involved, so there is no need to avoid duplication.
The distinction between economic value and economic impact is critical. Even if economic impact is measured by value added rather than revenue, the value is not the net addition to the economy from the use of the product or technology. It is only the size of the using sector. See Figure 1.
Figure 1. Measuring GPS economic value and economic impact. (Chart: author)
The GSA Study
The most comprehensive estimates of global GNSS market size come from the European GNSS Agency (GSA), which has released four market reports from 2010 through 2015. The data are measures of economic impact and not economic value. The reports are of great interest because of their comprehensive global look at the sizes of markets and inclusion of forecasts. In contrast, the emphasis in this part of the present study is on current economic value, with U.S. benefits assessed for GPS.
One reason for interest in the GSA reports is that market information and projections often are proprietary and there can be great inconsistency across market research studies. GSA makes use of many confidential studies without revealing which sources contributed to each estimate. It apparently has been allowed to incorporate proprietary information from a number of market research firms since the data is subsumed in GSA’s own estimates and/or presented in graphs for which underlying numbers are not provided — and from which it is often difficult to even roughly extract them.
The 2015 report stated the methodology as: “The underlying forecasting model uses advanced forecasting techniques applied to a wide range of input data, assumptions and scenarios…Where possible, historical values are anchored to actual data.” Results were checked against opinions of market segment experts and market research reports. However, these analyses are not provided in the reports and have not been made available.
A distinction is made between the core market which covers the value of components that provide GNSS functionality in devices and enabled markets which “represent the services and devices enabled by GNSS.” The 2015 report provides global data on both core and enabled market and goes into much more detail on core markets for application sectors. In addition to providing sector information that did not appear previously, the 2015 report presents data on the extent to which each combination of the GNSS constellations was supported by receivers or chipsets offered by suppliers. Additional information on enabled sectors is in earlier reports.
GSA found in its 2015 market report that:
3.6 billion GNSS devices were in use globally in 2014, of which 3.08 billion were smartphones and .26 billion were for road.
North America had about 450 million devices installed (about 80% U.S.).
North America had 1.4 devices per capita in 2014.
North American shipments were 250–300 million in 2013.
Global core revenue was estimated at roughly €62 billion and enabled revenue at €227 billion in 2014. As noted, core revenue includes GNSS device components, software and services, while enabled revenue refers to applications.
Location-based services (LBS) was projected to account for 53.2% of 2013–2023 core revenue growth, and road for 38%.
North American-based companies had sizeable shares of the global GNSS core market in 2012, particularly among component manufacturers. (See Table 2). Their market share among system integrators was highest in aviation.
North American-based companies had a 44% market share of value-added services revenue in 2012.
Table 2. North America-based company shares of Global GNSS core market, 2012. (Chart: author)
Markets and Applications
The pervasiveness of GPS-enabled applications is illustrated by the following statistics:
900 million mobile phones that incorporated GPS were sold globally in 2012.
The U.S. had 188 million smartphone subscribers and 263 million Internet users in 2013.
20% of U.S. mobile phone users get up-to-the-minute traffic or transit information.
The new industry category in the 2012 North American Industrial Classification System: “Internet publishing and broadcasting and web search portals” had U.S. revenue of $87 billion and 181,000 employees in 2012.
Google estimated that its search and advertising tools provided $111 billion in economic activity in the U.S. in 2013.
Deloitte estimated that Facebook enabled $104 billion of economic impact and 1.2 million jobs in North America in 2014.
Google Play and the Apple App Store each had more than 1.2 million apps in 2014.
How GPS Is Used. Uses of GPS include:
In agriculture for auto-steering tractors, combines and sprayers for precise operation, variable rate technology for precise placement of seed, fertilizer and pesticides, and for yield monitoring.
Managing forest health and ecological restoration, reducing fire and other hazards, and harvesting forest products.
In commercial fishing, navigation, finding fishing locations and monitoring fish catch by authorities.
In construction to direct the movement of dozers, excavators, pavers, scrapers, compactors and other heavy equipment and the placement of blades to give precise results.
In open-pit mining to guide loaders, dozers, drills and draglines.
In offshore energy exploration and development, for drilling, installations, pipe laying, diving operations, pipe inspection, repair and abandonment.
In surveying, to greatly reduce costs and to improve quality of products that rely on it.
In aviation, for navigation and monitoring positions of aircraft and for satellite-based augmentation systems (WAAS in the U.S.). GPS is the principal source for navigation for aircraft equipped with Area Navigation (RNAV) or Required Navigation Performance (RNP).
Railroad train pacing systems for cruise control, positive train control to keep track of train location and movement authorities, track defect location, and locating trucks with rail workers.
In marine transportation, for navigation, collision avoidance, communications and situational awareness and for monitoring by offshore authorities.
In vehicles, with handheld and embedded devices for navigation and fleet management.
For precise timing and time synchronization and frequency coordination (syntonization). It is used most notably in broadcasting and communications, including both cell phones and traditional telephone applications and the Internet, so packets arrive at the same time, for power generation and distribution to locate problems, and in financial services for time-stamping transactions.
In first responder services for location, navigation and communications and in emergency warnings and evacuations.
In structural monitoring of dams and bridges.
In environmental monitoring, including vegetation growth and sea-level change.
LBS and GIS
Rapid growth is taking place in location-based services (LBS) and geographic information services (GIS), which include everything from indoor location to many aspects of the Internet of Things and the “sharing economy,” and sophisticated systems for information management, analysis and display.
GPS is used for tracking and inventorying assets ranging from heavy machinery on farms and construction and mining sites, to pipes and other materials, containers in trucking sites and ports, and the location of utilities in the ground. In logistics it facilitates planning of product flow and transport.
The growth of same-day delivery — which takes advantage of Internet, cell phone, and location and navigation technologies enabled by GPS — is a continuation of the growth in just-in-time delivery that has been a phenomenon in manufacturing for several decades. Now it is having a profound effect on wholesale trade, retail trade and transportation.
The size of the LBS and GIS sectors is not defined and measured in a consistent way, and except for vehicle use, there is little information on productivity and saving in costs and time. (See sidebar box.)
LBS and GIS Market Size Estimates
For LBS and GIS, definitions and measures can vary greatly and often are not explicit.
Location-Based Services Market Size Estimates
Frost & Sullivan estimated the global LBS market at €22.8 billion in 2012 and forecast €32.0 billion in 2015.
Market and Markets estimated global LBS revenue at $8.1 billion in 2014.
Berg Insight estimated North American LBS revenue at $835 million in 2012.
(The U.S. can be assumed to spend 20–25% of the world value and about 80% of the North American value.)
Geographic information Systems Market Size Estimates
BCG estimated revenue of the U.S. GIS industry at $73 billion in 2011.
The global GIS market will reach $10.6 billion in 2015, according to a report of Global Industry Analysts in 2013.
The Canadian Geomatics study found private-sector spending of $2.3 billion in 2013. If U.S private spending was the same percentage of GDP, it would be $23.6 billion.
International Trade
Official data show a $2.3 billion U.S. deficit in trade in GPS equipment in 2013. This gives an incomplete and misleading picture of the role of the U.S. and the benefits that result. See Figure 2.
Figure 2. U.S. trade in GPS equipment, 2013 (millions of dollars). (Chart: author)
The trade numbers for GPS equipment do not include revenue for licensing, international payments received by social media and e-commerce companies, or other Internet-based revenue for which the U.S. may have a substantial net trade surplus and which are an important source of revenue and profits of U.S.-based companies.
Imports of GPS equipment software and services enable the U.S. to gain more efficient production in many applications at home and enable the U.S. to export more goods and service that rely on GPS.
Exports of GPS equipment come back to the U.S. as components that benefit U.S. businesses and consumers with more capable products and lower prices. Exports of GPS equipment enable other countries to build on the technologies and contribute to innovation, while imports enable the U.S. to share in foreign innovations. Exports of GPS equipment and associated knowledge also raise incomes in other countries, creating larger markets for U.S. goods and services.
Scope of Benefit Estimates
The U.S. benefit estimates reported here are the result of an initial effort and are not meant to be comprehensive. More work is expected to be done to fill in some of the gaps.
Sectors were chosen based on availability of information to permit relatively robust estimates and importance to the economy or policy issues. These considerations limited the number of sectors for which estimates could be made. Methods were determined based on the nature of available studies and varied among sectors. Only economic benefits were included, with health and safety and environmental benefits left for later research.
Benefits include the value to users above their costs (consumer surplus). Benefits of GPS are compared with alternatives without GPS or an application using it (counterfactuals). Estimates are gross. They are not reduced by the costs of achieving the benefits. Contributions of augmentations are included, since a quantitative basis for separating them is not available.
Estimates were primarily benefits through productivity and cost savings in operations, with savings in input costs included where their magnitudes were clear. Benefits to the rest of the economy are not included. Illustrative allowances were made for the contributions of other technologies and systems to the outcomes examined.
In the case of GPS timing, the estimates were based on the costs avoided by not having to develop an alternative timing source on the assumption that the type of alternative source possible would have evolved from the time GPS became available. The measure does not represent the value of GPS time and synchronization to the nation and to users relative to the absence of a precise time and frequency source.
Government was included in the estimates for construction, surveying, and fleet and non-fleet vehicles. For timing and non-fleet vehicle benefits, two alternative measures are averaged. Sectors with lower quality estimates — rail and maritime transportation — were included because of their importance to the economy. Shares of benefits attributable to GPS were rough assumptions. More robust estimates would require extensive data collection and interviewing in studies greatly exceeding available time and resources.
The primary focus was on productivity improvements, cost savings and cost avoidance, where costs include users’ time. Productivity increases and cost reductions allow more to be produced with the same amount of resources in the sectors utilizing the technology or allow resources to be freed up for other purposes. In that sense, they are equivalent.
When benefits are measured by productivity gains or cost savings, much of consumer surplus (the value to users above what they pay) is implicitly included. Some sources measure value by willingness-to-pay. Willingness-to-pay includes consumer surplus. It also encompasses costs of the purchase and other costs incurred by the user.
Criteria for Selecting Sectors
The potential for making sector estimates of economic benefits was categorized in three basic levels:
confident: based on robust estimates.
indicative: based on one or more less robust estimates.
notional: illustrative, if major contributions of other technologies are not separated and estimates must be based on a plausible percentage of a larger benefit, or if information is not available and estimates must be based on a percentage of market size.
Choices among categories for estimation and estimation methods depended not only on which of the basic criteria are satisfied but also on the following additional criteria:
The importance of the sector to the economy, for example as an enabler of other activities.
The potential use of benefit estimates for the category as an input into analyses of the effects of signal disruption.
Several dozen studies were assessed to determine categories for inclusion and to select studies that can form the basis of estimation. Studies for use in estimation of benefits in a category were chosen according to how well they met the following criteria:
GPS. A test of introduction of GPS or comparison with and without GPS rather than benefits of a broader service.
Coverage. Estimates that cover a major part of the category.
Robustness of estimates, including the type of review the source is likely to have had.
Consistency. If alternative better estimates are not in such a wide range that an average is less meaningful except where explainable by expected sources of variation.
Timeliness. Preference to a recent period being covered by the estimates.
U.S. Economic Benefit Estimates
Preliminary estimates of economic benefits for included U.S. sectors totaled $55.8 billion in 2013. Averaging the alternative estimates, the sum of the benefits in the two vehicle categories is $25 billion, by far the largest of the sectors estimated. Next were agriculture with $13.7 billion, and surveying with $11.6 billion.
Economic benefits are underestimated for several reasons. Some sectors are not included because of lack of information on productivity and cost savings, namely LBS other than vehicle, including asset tracking and locating people; GIS and mapping other than nautical charts, forestry, fisheries, mining, energy exploration and development, land and coastal management, weather, and scientific applications and space.
Parts of others are not included: non-grain agriculture, construction other than earthmoving, GPS in aviation for some Area Navigation (RNAV) Standard Instrument Departure Routes (SIDs) and Standard Arrival Routes STARS) and Required Navigation Performance (RNP), and rail other than positive train control.
Some estimates are conservative. The value of saved time in non-fleet vehicle transportation is based on the recommendation of the Transportation Research Board rather than the much higher value used by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Some types of benefits are not included — specifically, benefits of GPS timing applications above the cost of alternatives, and avoided income loss, property damage and medical costs associated with reduced accidents and improved emergency response.
Increases in benefits between 2003 and 2005 are not estimated.
And, as indicated, non-economic benefits such as those to health, safety, security, reduced loss of life and to the environment are not yet addressed.
Benefits as measured thus far are about 0.3% of GDP in one year. If all of the excluded sources of benefits were quantified, the benefits would be much larger.
Estimating Benefits for Sectors
U.S. economic benefits of GPS for grain farming were estimated for farms with grain sales of $250 million or more. The same method as was applied for earthmoving in construction.
A composite range of percentages of productivity gains and cost savings of 18–25% was determined from various studies. In the case of grain farming, benefits also come from yield increases due to improvements in plant health. The productivity gains used in the calculations incorporated both sources of benefits. Productivity was taken together with market size and an estimate of 68% adoption of technologies taking advantage of GPS to compute initial estimates of benefits. A notional adjustment was then made to exclude the contributions of other technologies and GNSSs. While having the adjustment determined by a group of experts would have been preferred, that was not possible with the time and resource constraints of the study.
Benefits of GPS machine guidance with earthmoving in construction were calculated based on an 8–12% share of construction for earthmoving operations, a benefit of 18–22% and a 20–25% adoption rate, relying on a number of sources.
For surveying, an estimate of market size was constructed based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on numbers of surveyors, cartographers and photogrammetrists in the engineering services industry vs. the rest of the economy, together with revenue data for private surveying and mapping from the Economic Census. This was combined with a composite estimate of productivity gains over conventional surveying of 45–55% and an assumption of 100% adoption.
The benefit values for air transportation were estimated for the study by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) based on effects of WAAS and performance-based navigation (PBN). The rail estimates cover only positive train control, which is in early stages of implementation. Information is highly uncertain, but impacts as of 2013 are small. Maritime benefits were based on updating an earlier estimate of benefits of the private-sector value of nautical charts. The estimates for fleet vehicle-connected telematics were based on savings found in an extensive survey of fleet customers over a five-year period.
Timing benefits were based on the avoided costs from not having to develop an alternative source of timing. Alternatives considered were eLoran and a system of three geostationary satellites. Since there would have been strong pressures to develop an authoritative timing source in the absence of GPS timing, it was assumed that one of the alternatives would have been developed rather than assuming as in other cases that technologies in use when GPS became available would have continued in use.
Two estimates also were made for consumer and other non-fleet vehicle use. One was based on extrapolating results of a study of consumer willingness to pay for navigation services, and the other on time saved by navigation services.
Part of the benefits of LBS other than those that are vehicle-related and for GIS are implicitly included in estimates for sectors that use them.
Data and Research Needs
Additional work would be desirable to extend and refine the GPS economic benefit estimates, quantify safety-of-life and environmental benefits, examine international benefits, assess potential future benefits and consider loss from denial of GPS. Benefits of many new and rapidly growing services are yet to be quantified.
Systematic research is needed to fill in gaps in adoption, productivity and cost savings with comparative before-and-after studies as well as with case studies. Robust studies require major and often multi-year efforts involving targeted data collection, which are rarely done by government or academics for GNSS. Information needs to be much more granular, taking into account specific functions in which GNSS is used (such as plowing, seeding, fertilizing, harvesting), specific GNSS and non-GNSS technologies employed in each function at each site, and extent of their use.
Also, results for GPS might be improved or at least be more acceptable if the contribution of other technologies and GNSSs to measured benefits were assessed by a group of knowledgeable individuals rather than by a single researcher.
Information on market size, penetration and growth from market research firms, which tends to capture recent developments, is based on greatly varying sources and methods, resulting in major gaps and great divergence in estimates, especially in new or rapidly growing areas like LBS and GIS. The North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) and its application in federal data collection such as in the Economic Census lags far behind in recognizing new categories and providing sufficient detail. Lags in data collection and research lead to understatement of the use and benefits of GPS.
Looking to the Future
Future benefits are expected to be even greater because of evolution of technologies, expansion of GNSS systems, creation of new products and markets, and growth and penetration of markets. The possibilities are suggested by the numerous nascent applications that have been emerging. Many will be enabled by expanding GNSS systems, signals and capabilities in conjunction with geographic expansion and increased capabilities in wireless systems.
The progression of platforms is long and growing: mainframes, PCs, mobile phones and other handheld devices, tablets, game controllers, wearables, TVs, home appliances, air and space — including planes, UAVs, satellites, planets, moons, rovers, rockets and spaceships.
The widespread availability of platforms and the growing ability to utilize them promises a long way to go in developing applications and deriving benefits.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks the PNT Advisory Board and Gov. Jim Geringer, liaison from the board to the study; Jason Kim of the Department of Commerce who oversaw the project; Jim Miller of NASA; and the members of the interagency Economic Study Team that advised the effort. Numerous additional people in and out of government provided information and assistance. Responsibility for the content and findings rests with the author.
IRV LEVESON, who has a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University, is an economic and strategy consultant and founder of Leveson Consulting. He has done extensive work on GNSS markets and issues for more than 10 years. He is a member of the Institute of Navigation, the American Economic Association and the National Association for Business Economics.
TerraGo Edge version 3.7, now available, includes new intelligent, responsive forms, as well as GPS and GIS enhancements designed to dramatically improve the speed, quality and efficiency of asset inspections, land surveys and any location-based data-collection project.
TerraGo Edge smart forms can accelerate the data-collection process by automating and accelerating user entries while eliminating unnecessary or redundant steps. Smart forms can be customized to meet the workflow requirements of customers in any industry.
New features in version 3.7 include:
Advanced Form Creation with New Smart Forms
Form groups – new form element to organize multiple related fields
Conditional fields – additional fields appear based on user entry of other fields
Barcode and QR code support – instantly scans codes to eliminate manual entry
Calculated fields – calculated result field based on other form field values
Multiple form attachments – ability to attach two or more forms to a single Note
Handheld Group is offering expansion pack features for its Nautiz X8 rugged field computer. The new functionalities will make the Nautiz X8 more versatile for field workers in a number of market segments, including forestry, surveying, construction, field services, warehouse projects and logistics.
The Nautiz X8 was built to enable efficient and reliable data collection in the toughest of environments. Ultra-rugged with superior processing power, screen size and sunlight visibility, the X8 is used in the GIS, land surveying, public safety, forestry and military sectors.
Handheld now offers three expansion packs for the Nautiz X8:
Nautiz X8 Long Range Bluetooth (LRBT) Expansion Pack features a LRBT u-blox module, which allows long-range communication up to 300 meters. This option is especially well-suited for advanced forestry solutions, surveying and construction work.
Nautiz X8 Barcode Expansion Pack features an imager module (Zebra SE4750SR) with an LED aimer, which allows for competitive scanning performance without sacrificing design, ruggedness or user experience. This option is ideal for workers in field service, warehouse projects and logistics.
Nautiz X8 Basic Expansion Pack is an empty add-on cap for an extension of your choice. It increases the Nautiz X8’s customizability and flexibility for specific customer requirements. It also allows users to install custom accessories under the cap using the proprietary interface.
The new Nautiz X8 expansion packs will be available in September. All cap versions are designed to retain the Nautiz X8 IP67 classification.
“The Nautiz X8 is the world’s best rugged handheld computer, with an outstanding screen and exceptional durability, connectivity, processing power and battery life — without compromising ergonomics or design,” said Jerker Hellström, CEO of Handheld Group. “These new expansions will make it even more versatile, customizable and attractive for field users in a number of industry segments. We take pride in always working with our partners and customers to understand their specific needs and create solutions they actually want and will benefit from.”
The Nautiz X8 has an IP67 ingress protection rating and is protected against dust, sand and water immersion. It also meets MIL-STD-810G military test standards for overall durability and resistance to humidity, shock, vibrations, drops, salt and extreme temperatures.
The Trimble ZX5 can reach smaller, remote environments faster, while providing accurate mapping data.
Trimble’s new ZX5 Multirotor Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) — announced today — is an aerial imaging and workflow solution that captures and processes geo-referenced photo and video data for mapping, agriculture and inspection applications. The Trimble ZX5 complements the UAS portfolio with the ability to reach smaller, remote environments faster, while providing accurate mapping data for improved productivity in the field and back office, Trimble said.
“Unmanned aerial systems are powerful tools that are transforming geospatial-based mapping and inspection applications to positively impact our world,” said Todd Steiner, product marketing director in Trimble’s Geospatial Division. “Adding a multirotor solution to our portfolio provides options for our customers working across multiple environments to collect accurate spatial data, transform it to intelligence and create deliverables.”
With the ZX5, Trimble extends its unmanned aerial portfolio to include both fixed-wing and multirotor solutions, providing customers with a choice to meet their specific requirements. Trimble’s fixed-wing UX5 provides longer flight capabilities for large, open environments including farms, mines, canals, flood areas and forests — while the ZX5 is more suited for mapping smaller sites, including facades, obstructed areas, construction sites and standard aerial mapping applications.
The Trimble ZX5 multirotor UAS.
The ZX5 Multirotor is built for everyday jobs where image capture from tight spaces is common. Its vertical takeoff and landing capabilities allow users to work in tight places and obstructed environments where fixed-wing solutions are less suitable. It requires no launcher, is easy to assemble and includes everything needed to capture high-quality geo-referenced photos for aerial mapping and inspection applications.
The ZX5 includes a 16-megapixel camera to capture high-quality aerial imagery, down to 1-mm ground sample distance. The ZX5 also can be equipped to capture live video imagery for civil infrastructure, utility and oil and gas pipeline inspections.
Data captured by the ZX5 can be imported into Trimble Business Center Photogrammetry Module software to create detailed ortho-photos, digital elevation models, point clouds, volume calculations and 3D models, all without requiring specialized photogrammetry knowledge or experience. It also integrates with Trimble’s Inpho UASMaster module for advanced photogrammetric processing.
In addition, the Trimble ZX5 has been granted a Section 333 exemption from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The Continuously Operating Reference Station network’s Silver Spring facility will be go offline starting at about 2 p.m. Eastern time Friday, but is expected to be back online by noon Sunday. “Our alternate facility will have full data holdings,” the National Geodetic Survey says on its CORS website.
The shutdown is for a building-wide upgrade. The Online Positioning User Service (OPUS) will be unavailable during the entire shutdown period.
Eric Gakstatter, GPS World’s Survey/GIS editor, has outlined alternatives that surveyors and GIS professionals can use during a shutdown.
Trimble has launched Trimble VRS Now correction service in Georgia. The commercial subscription service provides surveyors, civil engineers, and geospatial professionals in the region with instant access to real-time kinematic (RTK) GNSS corrections without the need for a base station.
Using both the GPS and GLONASS constellations, the Trimble service delivers centimeter-level RTK corrections customized for each GNSS receiver’s location anywhere in the network via cellular communications. The Trimble VRS Now service supplies accurate, reliable and easy-to-use GNSS positioning for a variety of applications including surveying, urban planning, urban and rural construction, environmental monitoring, resource and territory management, disaster prevention and relief, and scientific research, Trimble said.
“As we continue to expand our VRS Now network throughout the U.S., we’re excited to offer users in Georgia state-of-the-art VRS correction services powered by the latest Trimble infrastructure technology,” said Lisa Wetherbee, business area director of Trimble’s Positioning Services Division. “Now seamless coverage is available across Georgia, Alabama and Florida providing customers with reliable centimeter-level accuracy and the flexibility to work more freely across a larger tri-state coverage area.”
Service in Georgia is a continuation of Trimble’s focus on providing solutions that enable customers to increase productivity by simplifying access to high-precision positioning around the world. Similar VRS Now services are operating in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Oregon, New Mexico and parts of Europe and Australia.
Finnish radio data communication specialist Satel will present innovative new products for mission-critical radio data networks at INTERGEO, being held in Stuttgart, Germany, Sept. 15-17.
In Germany, radio data communication solutions from Satel are distributed by the full-range and systems provider Welotec. At the trade fair in Stuttgart, the partners will present their products at adjacent stands. Both Satel as a radio data communication specialist and Welotec as a full-range and systems provider have a strong portfolio for the core market of RTK/GNSS, UAV and RPAS (remotely piloted aircraft systems) applications.
By 2020, Satel intends to be the world’s number one provider of mission-critical data connections, it said in a statement. This goal also includes becoming the technology leader, which the company hopes to achieve through intensified research and development.
At INTERGEO, Satel will present its latest products. Visitors will be able to see the OEM modules Satelline-M3-TR1 and Satelline-M3-TR4. These modules allow use of the frequencies requiring a license (330 – 473 MHz) as well as the European license-free frequency ranges (433.05 – 434.79 MHz and 869.400 – 869.650 MHz).
The newly developed Satelline-M3-TR4 is the smallest available data transceiver module in its class, according to Satel. The Satel Compact-Proof is a portable radio data modem with a rechargeable battery and a flexible tuning range (403 – 473 MHz). The robust Satelline EASy Pro 25W, likewise with a broad tuning range (403 – 473 MHz), allows radio communication up to a range of 50 km, which makes it quite versatile.
Welotec offers a large range of antennas that supplement the Satel radio data modems. The antennas cover a large frequency range from 68 MHz to 6000 MHz, indoor and outdoor applications, MIMO technology and also antennas with an operating range from minus 40 degrees Celsius to 80 degrees C for use in harsh environments. At INTERGEO, visitors will see innovative solutions from Welotec in the area of industrial communication — for example, the industrial UMTS, LTE and WLAN routers of the TK800 series or the high-performance Industrial-WLAN access point DM500. For measuring tasks, Welotec offers the laser distance sensor OWTB V2.1, which features an extremely high resolution and ranges of up to 500 meters for industrial applications.
Satel and Welotec will be at INTERGEO 2015 in Stuttgart in Hall 4, Booth G4.020. GPS World is covering INTERGEO live — visit gpsworld.com and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Fugro has extended its integrated survey services to help improve efficiency in coastal management and enable more informed decision-making. A new agreement with global specialist EOMAP enables the creation of integrated bathymetric survey products that comprise elements from Satellite Derived Bathymetry (SDB), Airborne LiDAR Bathymetry (ALB) and traditional acoustic survey technologies. The integrated data and product solutions will provide clients with outstanding value and unmatched coverage, Fugro said.
“Teaming with EOMAP augments our considerable survey and satellite imagery capabilities and will allow a timely and cost-effective nearshore bathymetry review facility for clients whose own bathymetric holdings are either very old or very sparse — or both,” said Don Ventura, hydrographic business development manager at Fugro. “This service will help coastal zone management and engineering teams, environmental scientists and hydrographic agencies to focus on their immediate needs and to make more informed decisions on subsequent, efficient data acquisition and management.”
EOMAP’s robust technology platform can process satellite images and deliver global bathymetric and benthic habitat data over the full range of temporal and spatial resolutions through its proprietary, sensor-independent Modular Inversion Processor (MIP). This both complements and augments services already provided by Fugro, to provide even more spatial data solutions to suit a wide variety of budgets and purposes.
“We are very pleased to provide our Satellite Derived Bathymetric products and services to Fugro,” said Matthew Bergin, Vice President of Business Development at EOMAP. “We believe that this agreement will create a unique, one-stop technology resource to meet the demanding requirements of both commercial and government customers.”
