Tallysman, a manufacturer of high-performance GNSS antennas and related products, has introduced a magnetic-mount triple-band (plus L-band) GNSS antenna, TW7972, and a dual-band antenna, TW7872.
They are designed for precision agriculture, autonomous vehicles, navigation, real-time kinematic (RTK), precise point positioning (PPP), and other applications where precision matters. The ability of the TW7972 to access L-Band correction services extends its utility to a wider range of applications.
The introduction of these antennas is a continuation of Tallysman’s expansion into broader band GNSS antennas. These antennas are the first releases in a line of new enclosures that will be used for additional broadband GNSS solutions.
Photo: Tallysman
The antennas employ Tallysman’s Accutenna technology.
The TW7972 is capable of receiving GPS L1/L2/L5, GLONASS G1/G2/G5, BeiDou B1/B2, Galileo E1/E5a+b and L-band correction services (1164 MHz to 1254 MHz + 1525 MHz to 1606 MHz).
The TW7872 is capable of receiving GPS L1/L2, GLONASS G1/G2, BeiDou B1 and Galileo E1.
The precisely tuned antennas have a tight pre-filter to protect against intermodulation and saturation caused by high-level cellular 700 MHz and other signals.
The antennas provide superior multi-path signal rejection, a linear phase response, and a tight phase-center variation (PCV) at a new economical price point, Tallysman said. The antennas provide comparable or superior performance to higher priced triple- and dual-band GNSS antennas on the market.
The TW7972 and TW7872 are housed in a magnetic-mount, IP67 weather-proof enclosure with pre-tapped screw holes. The antennas can also be ordered without the magnet.
The TW3967 (28-dB gain) and the TW3972E (35-dB gain) are the embedded versions of the TW7972. The TW3867 and TW3872E are the embedded versions of the TW7872. They are available with a wide selection of connectors and custom cable lengths, and can be custom tuned by Tallysman to ensure optimum performance within the customer’s enclosure.
Two new topic areas and presentations have been added to this Thursday’s free webinar on Signal Interference: Detection and Mitigation.
The speakers will explore anti-jamming protection with controlled radiation pattern antennas (CRPAs) and with dual-polarized antennas. The latter topic is also the cover story for the February issue, which demonstrated a significant improvement in positioning accuracy and robustness against interference with a dual-polarization approach: a gain in terms of C/N0, particularly for low-elevation angle satellites and valuable in urban environments.
Headshot: Kirk Burnell
Kirk Burnell from NovAtel joins the Feb. 2 panel to present “How to deliver assured positioning, navigation and timing in GNSS-compromised environments.”
He will look at applications that stress the importance of high-reliability PNT. Compromised GNSS signals due to unintentional interference is of great concern, but intentional interference due to jamming is much more insidious. Anti-jamming protection via controlled reception pattern antenna (CRPA) technology is now available to a wide range of users. A brief explanation of the technology will be followed by a few use-cases where CRPAs have been deployed in a variety of applications.
Burnell, Core Cards Product Manager for NovAtel, has worked at the company since 2015. With an education in survey engineering, Kirk has been working with precision GNSS system designers and integrators in both support and product management capacities for more than 20 years.
Headshot: Matteo Sgammini
Matteo Sgammini of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) will talk about work with dual-polarized antennas: the principles of operation of such an antenna array and how one performed in real-world jamming and non-jamming scenarios. This ION GNSS+ 2016 presentation became the cover story for GPS World’s February issue.
Innovation editor Richard Langley writes in his introduction to the February column, “All GNSS satellites transmit RHCP [right-hand circularly polarized] signals and therefore most GNSS receiving antennas are designed for such signals. However, a funny thing can happen to a satellite signal on the way to a receiving antenna. If the signal bounces off a nearby structure or the ground or the sea surface, its polarization is modified and it will become LHCP [left-hand circularly polarized] or a combination of the two polarizations.
“A primarily LHCP antenna can capture a significant portion of the energy in such a RHCP signal and could provide a strong response to a reflected signal when the line-of-sight signal is missing or very weak. So, there could be a benefit in having a dual-polarized antenna to improve positioning capability in marginal situations. Furthermore, jamming signals can be of arbitrary polarization and a dual-polarized antenna array with beamforming capability could better separate and mitigate such interference.”
February cover story. Photo: GNSS
Researchers at the DLR equipped a GNSS receiver with a diversely polarized antenna array to combine signal processing in the spatial and in the polarization domain. Tests show a significant improvement in receiver robustness against interference compared with the general single-polarization case.
The carrier-to-noise-density ratios of the line-of-sight components are improved since the receiver can use the power present on the left-hand circularly polarized channels, particularly for satellites with low elevation. Interference mitigation improves due to the possibility of filtering in the polarization domain and the additional number of available degrees of freedom.
Sgammini received a Masters degree in electrical engineering from the University of Perugia, Italy and now works at the Institute of Communications and Navigation, DLR. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in electrical engineering with research interests in interference mitigation techniques for GNSS. His research activity includes adaptive filtering, array signal processing and estimation theory for GNSS.
As the number of GNSS signals being tracked increases, so does the potential for interference to dismiss the performance gains of using those additional signals.
To maximize performance and efficiency, prepared PNT users need their equipment to be able to detect when interference is present and mitigate it.
Developers, integrators and users need mitigation tools to protect and preserve GNSS measurement quality, maintaining high-quality multi-frequency multi-constellation positioning performance, even in challenging RF environments. This is essential particularly on the integration journey, especially during prototyping and when encountering unforeseen interference events in field testing, in order to produce fully successful integrated products.
The one-hour webinar also will include a follow-up Q&A session with the speakers. Burnell and Sgammini join Patrick Casiano of NovAtel and Rick Hamilton of CGSIC on the speaker panel. Casiano will present an Interference Toolkit that measures RF spectrum levels and allows the user to apply mitigation tools to protect and preserve GNSS measurement quality. Hamilton will explain the proliferation of jammers, aspects of illegal use, coordinated government response to interference events, and regulations to prohibit manufacture, import, export, sale and use of jammers.
The u-blox ZOE-M8Q is designed for wearables, UAVs and asset trackers. Photo: U-blox
U-blox has launched a new positioning module, the ZOE-M8G. The ZOE-M8G is an ultra-compact GNSS receiver module designed for markets where small size, minimal weight and high location precision are essential.
ZOE-M8G offers exceptionally high location accuracy by concurrently connecting to GPS, Galileo and either GLONASS or BeiDou. It also provides -167 dBm navigation sensitivity, important for wearable devices, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and asset tracker applications.
The new u-blox ZOE-M8G helps simplify product designs, because it is a fully integrated, complete GNSS solution with built-in SAW-filter and Low Noise Amplifier (LNA). It can be used with passive antennas without the need for additional components, and doesn’t compromise performance.
The ZOE-M8G GNSS module measures 4.5 x 4.5 x 1.0 millimeters. Due to its small size, a complete GNSS design using a ZOE-M8G module takes approximately 30 percent less printed circuit board (PCB) area compared to a conventional discrete chip design with a CSP chip GNSS receiver.
“When you’re designing products such as smart watches, fitness trackers, asset trackers, UBI dongles and even drones, every square millimeter and every gram counts. The u-blox ZOE-M8G makes it significantly easier for product designers to achieve precise location tracking while keeping within their strict form factor and weight restrictions,” said Uffe Pless, product marketing, Positioning Product Center at u-blox.
Samples of the u-blox ZOE-M8G will be available in February 2017, and volume production will start in October 2017.
The first year I was at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) convention in 2012 (well before it became Xponential) in Las Vegas, Nevada, I spent a lot of time looking for any exhibitors who were thinking of business in commercial unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
At that time, the U.S. military had not yet suffered the major budget cuts that were to shortly impact extensive military development and use of UAS. So, asking around UAS developers at the AUVSI conference as to when they might think of applying their systems to commercial applications, and the potential changes that integration in the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS) might require … Well, there wasn’t much interest.
I often heard the response that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was so far away from allowing commercial UAS operations in the U.S. that it just wasn’t worth even considering what would be required.
In the years that followed, it has been somewhat refreshing to see the tone and shape of the annual AUVSI convention shift towards the commercial world. And with U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations now in place for sUAS, and with continuing growth in commercial and developmental operations, it’s clear that a good part of the industry is looking toward the civilian market. Not to say that military UAS development is lagging far behind, but it now seems that we have the prospect of a somewhat more balanced civilian/military marketplace for UAS.
Now, we not only have regularized commercial operations under FAA regulations, we are also hearing more often that Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) UAS applications are being developed and modes of operation are being established.
ADS-B (automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast) now appears to be one of one of the prevalent systems that BVLOS applications depend on, since the FAA is implementing ADS-B throughout the U.S., and it’s recognized as a likely component of increased-range UAS operations.
Avionics for Drones
uAvionix in California focuses on equipment aircraft, offering transponders and sensors for integration into UAS and for manned aricraft. Their latest ADS-B offering is a small, lightweight, low-power transponder for unmanned aircraft. Power consumption is low enough to be powered by battery pack for 2 hours, yet is powerful enough to provide visibility to other aircraft and UAVs up to 200 miles away, and uAvionix recently achieved U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval for this unit. The ping200S is designed to meet the requirements of TSO-C199 as a Class A Traffic Awareness Beacon System (TABS).
When integrated with a suitable ADS-B GNSS receiver, such as the uAvionix pingNAV GNSS sensor, a UAS would become compatible with the ADS-B system — a significant step towards BVLOS operations. An ADS-B-equipped aircraft can detect and locate other aircraft and warn them of its precise position. The FAA has mandated that all aircraft operating in the NAS be ADS-B equipped by 2020.
Ping200S ADS-B transponder. Logo: uAvionix
PingNav ADS-B OUT GNSS navigation unit. Logo: uAvionix
PingNav is a small, light and low-cost ADS-B OUT compliant navigation source that supports GPS/QZSS, GLONASS, Galileo and Satellite Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) and has a battery backup for quicker position initialization. The unit also has dual static ports for pressure altimeter readings and includes integrated security and integrity technologies, including Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM).
U.S. Department of Transportation Report
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) recently issued its final “Beyond Traffic 2045” report. The report discusses anticipated air, rail and road transportation challenges in the coming years.
UAS issues mentioned included drone delivery, noting that Google, Amazon and DHL have been evaluating use of unmanned aircraft for several years. Remotely piloted drone deliveries may shortly provide high value and/or urgent cargo to hard-to-reach locations; delivery of medical supplies in remote areas following a natural disaster has already been demonstrated.
Nevertheless, deliveries by drone in highly populated areas will require higher levels of security and safety and will have to overcome privacy risks, so it will likely take longer to verify these capabilities.
Anti-Drone Systems Forecast
Forecasts for growth of the drone market are already reaching heady proportions — one forecast expects sales to reach US$127 billion by 2020! But now the global anti-drone market is being forecast to reach US$1.14 billion by 2022. Maybe having lots of anti-drone systems preventing drone operations could slow down the growth of drone business itself?
Drones in the wrong hands are seen as a possible threat to our security systems, so detection and disabling drones is now becoming a requirement to support those security systems. Growth of the anti-drone market is being driven by more frequent security breaches by unidentified drones and by the use of drones for terrorist activities.
Fuel-Cell Power Drone
EnergyOr Technologies in Montreal, Canada, has been successful in developing and fielding compact fuel-cell products targeted at the growing drone market. Its EPOD fuel cell is the source of power for its H2QUAD 1000 drone, selected by French Air Force’s Centre d’ Expertise Aérienne Militaire (CEAM) for development testing under a Joint Development Agreement (JDA). The JDA is aimed at advanced development of long-endurance UAVs powered by EnergyOr’s fuel-cell system technology.
But what do you do when your fuel-cell-powered drone runs out of juice? For battery-powered drones, it’s easy to take them home and plug them in to recharge them, but their useful range and endurance is somewhat limited. So EnergyOr came up with a recharging system for its fuel cells — just hook up your tired drone to a portable hydrogen recharging set-up and you’re good to go again.
EnergyOr’s H2QUAD 1000 is a fuel cell powered quadrotor UAV capable of carrying a 1 kg payload for more than two hours, which is around four times longer than battery-powered UAVs. The turn-key solution includes a Ground Control Station (GCS), gimbaled 4K camera, portable hydrogen filling station and data acquisition/diagnostic system, as well as onsite operator training and engineering support.
Military Swarms?
Lastly, it appears that the U.S. military is taking on the challenge of using swarms of low-cost semi-autonomous UAVs for reconnaissance. During a full-scale test in October 2016, a swarm of 103 UAVs were deployed from three F/A‐18 Super Hornets over China Lake, California.
The “Perdix” (Greek mythology character who was turned into a partridge) swarm UAV was originally developed by MIT. It has two sets of wings with a 3D printed plastic body, a small rear-mounted propeller, is battery powered and carries a small camera. Perdix software has been refined considerably and is now sixth generation and has external update capability.
More than 670 have been flown, and the Department of Defense plans soon to produce them in batches of 1,000 — which might be a good thing, since they only have an endurance of around 20 minutes. Deploying drones from a fast jet can be a problem, but Perdix is now able to withstand the buffeting and turbulence from release speeds of Mach 0.6 and temperatures of -10° C.
After release, the swarm drones communicate with each other and perform formation flying exercises similar to a surveillance mission. But the swarm doesn’t precisely know how it will undertake a given task before it’s released — so each drone communicates and works with other drones, without a specific leader, and can readily adapt to drones joining or leaving the team.
To sum up, BVLOS advances using commercially available ADS-D avionics for drones, DoT planning for anticipated integration into U.S. national airspace (albeit warning that it may take more than anticipated for Amazon and others to eventually make deliveries using UAVs), growth in anti-drone systems keeping in step with the explosion in the market for drones, hydrogen fuel-cell powered drones, and military drone-swarms for surveillance. There is a lot going on in the developing UAV/UAS market sector.
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Professional GNSS users now expect lightweight, easy-to-use receivers optimized for their particular workflows. Meanwhile, a streamlined manufacturing process means design and production of sophisticated instruments now takes months rather than years, and relies on global teams of networked specialists.
Carlson Software approached Hemisphere GNSS in early 2015 with the goal of bringing a new GNSS receiver to market, one optimized for land surveyors with high precision, convenience, and small form factor. “We work closely with land surveyors, and we definitely saw a need,” said Carlson’s director of special projects Karl Nicholas. “Our clients were asking for smaller, lighter receivers. We also felt that a new receiver could be better optimized to work with the multiple satellite constellations now available, and with the array of RTK solutions that surveyors use routinely.”
Hemisphere recognized that a new lightweight receiver would also serve its own marine clients well, especially if it was optimized to work with the company’s Atlas GNSS Global Correction Service as both rover and base station.
The S321 by Hemisphere GNSS. Photo: Hemisphere
Carlson focuses on computer-assisted design (CAD) software, field data collection, and machine control products for land surveying, civil engineering, construction, and mining. Through the partnership, Hemisphere gained access to a deep knowledge base of how surveyors work with GNSS in real-world conditions, and how to optimize a new receiver for fieldwork of all kinds.
This aided decisions about interface, form factor, and features. Project dialog between the two companies identified specifications for particular functions and features, as prototypes became available for testing and feedback.
Specifications included:
Compact and Durable. A form factor for a smaller receiver had already been developed. “Our hardware design and manufacturing division in China presented a hardware design that we really liked, so we didn’t have to redesign from scratch in that area,” explained Hemisphere senior product manager Lyle Geck. “We were able to move ahead with only minor modifications.”
Carlson tested rigorously before signing off on the hardware design. “I put mine on top of a two-meter pole and dropped it onto concrete and dirt, and I also tried it out in wet weather — worked fine!” recalled Nicholas.
Multiple Constellations. “We now have a receiver that works seamlessly right now with GPS, GLONASS, and the Chinese BeiDou system,” added Nicholas. “And when Europe’s Galileo system becomes available, we’ll be ready for it too.”
RTK, Correction Sources. Hemisphere’s Athena RTK engine, is designed to process the new signals with high-accuracy performance. In addition to traditional RTK correction methods using NTRIP and UHF/900 MHz radios, Hemisphere also provides Atlas, its own L-band correction service: subscription-based, flexible, available over the Earth’s landmass, from approximately 200 reference stations, providing up to sub-decimeter accuracies via L-band satellites or over the Internet.
The new receiver was also designed with a built-in UHF radio, and multiple wireless communication ports to enable corrections via radio, cellular modem, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or serial connections.
Base Station Capacity. The receiver can serve as both rover and base station. “For our marine clients, this receiver is actually more likely to be used as a base station,” said Geck, typically set up in a port for construction or other maritime operations. Not a closed system, it works with Atlas, other protocols like TrimTalk, and with external radios that can be connected as needed.
Productivity. For surveyors, Carlson specified a compass and a tilt sensor so the receiver knows if the pole is vertical, how it’s oriented horizontally, and how to correct for those factors. It works for stakeouts and recovering points; the unit directs the user to the next point graphically, saving time.
For surveyors in obstructed areas, position reliability will often degrade. “Surveyors are aware of this, but it’s hard to compensate when they don’t have information about just what’s happening with accuracy.” SureFix uses proprietary algorithms and various inputs to give a quality indicator for particular points, for confidence when shooting in difficult multipath conditions, or telling a surveyor to slow down to get the required precision. This improves fieldwork and can eliminate trips back to the field to correct errors.
Carlson Software leveraged its 30+ years in land surveying, while Hemisphere GNSS added manufacturing experience and GNSS and RTK expertise. The result is a compact receiver, BRx6 from the former and S321 from the latter, tuned for the requirements and workflows of customers’ daily projects.
Spirent Communications is making available PT TestBench software, designed to help technology, system and application developers build more accurate positioning functions more quickly. The testing, analysis and reporting package automates testing of GPS and other GNSS receivers, so higher quality systems are brought to market faster and more reliably.
Photo: Spirent Communications
Until now, there have been no standards for GNSS receiver performance assessment, leaving developers to create test plans themselves from scratch. PT TestBench embodies more than 30 years of Spirent GNSS testing expertise, enabling all users to setup, run, iterate and interpret time-consuming tests with a single mouse click, the company said.
“PT TestBench will transform GPS/GNSS receiver testing, and will help developers to focus on delivering better end-user experience,” said Romain Zimmermann, Spirent product manager.”It can also assess receiver designs against real-world GPS jamming and spoofing signals.”
PT TestBench works with existing Spirent equipment including 6300M, 6700, 7000 and 9000 simulators. It enables users to:
Select the right GNSS tests: Pick from test suites covering fundamental GNSS tests and real-world vulnerabilities and threats.
Automatically run and repeat tests: Define test repeatability for faster testing and statistically meaningful results.
Save time on setup and interpretation: GNSS scenarios and test cases are built in, with pass/fail analytics based on user-defined or default standards.
Test for the latest GNSS challenges: Access Spirent’s constantly updated library of observed, real-world signal interference and threats, including solar weather, scintillation and spoofing.
By adding the GNSS Vulnerabilities and Threats test suite, PT TestBench users gain 12 months’ access to PT Cloud — a continuously updated cloud library of real-world GNSS threats. It offers multiple instances of captured real-world intentional interference waveforms, GNSS segment errors and receiver transitions, as well as jamming and spoofing events, plus the latest observed space weather and scintillation. Together, these instances provide an excellent means to build robust testing into a user’s GNSS simulations.
To complement PT TestBench, Spirent Professional Services are available to integrate devices under test in PT TestBench, and if a user’s particular application requires modified test cases, they can tailor solutions to match a specific need.
For more information on how to create a GPS/GNSS test plan, Spirent offers a free guide for engineers integrating positioning, navigation or timing features into new devices.
TRAK Microwave has added a GPS time and frequency clock to its product offerings. The 50-channel 8835 GPS reference clock serves satcom, defense and wireless applications.
The 8835 GPS clock has extreme power and interoperability options while maintaining GPS accuracy and reliability, TRAK Microwave said. While tracking GPS, the clock exhibits a frequency accuracy of <1 x 10-12 and a 1 PPS accuracy with <50 nanoseconds, RMS.
8835 GPS Clock by TRAK Microwave.
The proprietary oscillator steering discipline algorithm can enhance the RMS accuracy of either the double oven crystal oscillator or optional enhanced rubidium oscillator for greater depths of accuracy.
To increase interoperability, the 8835’s 10/100 base-T Ethernet interface can leverage a range of network protocols including NTP, SNMP, Telnet, SSH and FTP for status and control. The unit can also accept a variety of power sources including 24 VDC, 48 VDC or 100-240 VAC with an external AC/DC converter.
The highly compact and configurable device operates from -30oC to +60oC with a TNC GPS receiver port. A datasheet on the 8835 can be downloaded here.
The University of the Bundeswehr Muenchen and the Norwegian Space Centre are organizing the International Summer School on Global Satellite Navigation Systems 2017.
Longyearbyen, Norway.
This year the Summer School will be held at Longyearbyen, Svalbard – Spitsbergen, Norway, Sept. 4-15. Lectures start the morning of Sept. 5 and end Sept. 14 following dinner.
The Summer School is open to graduate students, Ph.D. candidates, early-state researcher and young professionals seeking to broaden their knowledge.
Svalbard is an Arctic wilderness series of islands comprising the northernmost part of the Norwegian territories. It is mostly uninhabited, with only about 3,000 people. Longyearbyen, however, is a living community with an airport, a university, a hospital, schools, shops, restaurants, pubs, hotels, and the world’s largest commercial ground station.
The summer school will provide key information, fresh ideas, basics, innovative approaches and practical advice on such topics as:
Basics of satellite navigation
Ionospheric and tropospheric effects on GNSS
Carrier-phase positioning
GNSS RF link performance
GNSS signals
GNSS receivers
Leadership and team effectiveness
GNSS threats and countermeasures
Navigation in GNSS denied environments
Cyber safety for civilian navigation
Become a GNSS entrepreneur
Location data and raw measurements in Android
IPR and patents in GNSS
Liability issues in GNSS
Railway high-integrity navigation overlay system (RHINOS)
Multi-frequency multi-system GNSS
Evolution of GNSS, in particular of the Galileo system
Satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) and receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM, ARAIM)
GNSS space service volume and deep space navigation
The summer school will be held in cooperation with the European Space Agency and the Joint Research Centre, as well as, ISAE Supaero, Stanford University and TU Graz.
EndRun Technologies, a provider of precision time and frequency solutions, today announced the availability of the Real-Time Ionospheric Corrections (RTIC) option for the Meridian II Precision TimeBase.
The RTIC option directly measures and removes the ionospheric delay to GPS signals within a single frequency L1 timing receiver. This new Meridian II option optimizes the stability and accuracy of the time and frequency outputs.
The largest contributor to GPS time-transfer error is the delay of the satellite signals as they pass through the ionosphere, a layer of ionized particles a few hundred kilometers above the Earth’s surface. The RTIC option uses proprietary algorithms within EndRun’s L1 GPS timing receiver to remove ionospheric delays in real-time.
This unprecedented capability was previously only available with expensive dual frequency L1/L2 GPS receivers.
“National lab test results have confirmed that the ionospheric corrections performed in EndRun’s single frequency GPS receiver significantly improve upon the GPS ionospheric broadcast model, allowing our products to meet or exceed the timing performance of dual frequency L1/L2 solutions,” said Bruce Penrod, vice president of product development, EndRun Technologies. “We expect the performance improvement to be even greater during periods of high solar storm activity.”
Key Meridian II performance specifications with the RTIC option and an Ultra-Stable OCXO are:
Time accuracy of <10 nanoseconds RMS to UTC (USNO)
NovAtel Inc. is showcasing its high precision positioning technology as part of AutonomouStuff’s “Roadmap to Autonomy” exhibit at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Jan. 3-8 in Las Vegas. The exhibit is located at the MGM Grand in the Skyline Terrace Suite.
AutonomouStuff provides research and development platforms for the safe and reliable testing of automation technologies.
It uses NovAtel’s exceptionally robust SPAN GNSS + Inertial (INS) technology to provide the highly precise, continuous 3D positioning necessary to evaluate robotic and autonomous solutions for autonomous applications.
NovAtel’s SPAN technology combines a high-performance Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver with an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to deliver deeply-coupled centimeter-level positioning. SPAN provides robustness against short GNSS outages, using IMU updates to bridge the positioning solution. SPAN also provides high data rate position, velocity and attitude (pitch, roll, heading) updates to capture the full real-time motion profile of a vehicle. Widely deployed in the automotive R&D space, SPAN supports applications ranging from autonomous navigation to V2X systems, where it is utilized to provide a source of vehicle ground truth.
As a committed technology partner, NovAtel has worked closely with AutonomouStuff to optimize SPAN for AutonomouStuff’s vehicle perception kits. As a result of these efforts, AutonomouStuff is able to offer three different levels of positioning performance — “good, better, best” — based on the grade of IMU selected.
“We are always excited to work with the team at NovAtel and cannot wait to show off their ‘good, better, best’ SPAN GNSS options for autonomy in our suite at CES,” said AutonomouStuff CEO Bobby Hambrick. “Their solutions are a significant piece of autonomous research and development. With three kit options, there is something for everybody. We’ve done the work for you, allowing you to choose which kit is best for you based on your accuracy needs and price range.”
The collaboration with AutonomouStuff is reflective of NovAtel’s commitment to the development of fully autonomous vehicles for a wide range of industries. In May 2016, NovAtel announced the formation of a new Safety Critical Systems (SCS) Group, tasked with developing functionally safe GNSS positioning products that will meet the exceptional performance and safety requirements of autonomous vehicles.
“Our team made significant progress in 2016 towards product definition, GNSS integrity for automotive applications, and corporate TS 16949 compliance,” said Jonathan Auld, Director of the SCS Group at NovAtel. “As the world leader in high precision GNSS technology for more than 20 years, NovAtel is leveraging its extensive experience developing safety critical systems for the aviation industry to meet the future safety thresholds required for driverless cars.”
AutonomouStuff and NovAtel representatives will be available in the MGM Grand Skyline Suite during the CES to answer customer questions. To set up a meeting with the NovAtel SCS team at CES 2017, attendees can contact Allan MacAulay, Business Development Manager, SCS ([email protected]).
Qualcomm Technologies Inc. has introduced a new variant of its connected car reference platform using its flagship gigabit class Snapdragon X16 LTE modem to help car manufacturers deliver the high-speed, high-quality and reliable connectivity required for advanced telematics and connected vehicle services — supporting peak download speeds up to 1 Gbps.
Qualcomm is showcasing the variant at CES 2017, which is being held Jan. 5-8 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Building on the Company’s leadership supplying 3G/4G LTE modems for automotive, the reference platform is designed to allow carmakers to quickly and easily integrate the broad range of additional wireless and networking technologies required in today’s vehicles, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy and GNSS, with optional support for DSRC and Cellular-V2X.
The platform also includes a module reference design for the Snapdragon X16 LTE modem to help automotive suppliers accelerate development and improve time-to-commercialization.
Highlights of the new connected car reference platform include:
Gigabit Class LTE cloud connectivity: The Snapdragon X16 LTE modem supports Gigabit-class download speeds, up to 10x as fast as first generation 4G LTE devices. The modem is designed to employ sophisticated digital signal processing to pack more bits per transmission with 256-QAM, receives data on four antennas through 4×4 MIMO, and supports for up to 4x Carrier Aggregation. All of this comes together to support peak download speeds up to 1 Gbps, helping satisfy the connectivity needs and use cases of the next generation of connected vehicles including high-definition map updates, connected navigation with real-time traffic and road condition information, software upgrades, Wi-Fi hotspot and multimedia streaming.
In-car networking and satellite navigation: The connected car reference platform also integrates Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2, Bluetooth Low Energy 4.2, sensor support for stolen vehicle tracking and recovery, quad-constellation GNSS and 3D Dead Reckoning (DR) location solutions, with optional support for vehicle-to-everything communications using DSRC/802.11p or Cellular-V2X. The solution is designed to manage concurrent operation of multiple wireless technologies using the same spectrum frequencies. In addition, the reference platform features in-vehicle networking technologies such as Gigabit Ethernet with Automotive Audio Bus (A2B), Controller Area Network (CAN) and Local Interconnect Network (LIN) interfaces.
OEM and third-party applications support: Qualcomm Technologies also provides a security-rich framework for the execution of custom OEM and third-party telematics applications. The simplified access to tightly-integrated apps processing functionality is designed to help automakers and service providers handle the increasing number of use cases requiring connectivity — simultaneously in many cases — and quickly prototype, develop and deliver unique and differentiated experiences to their customers.
Qualcomm Technologies has also developed a reference hardware module in two different band configurations, North America and Rest of World (including Europe). The module design is engineered to support up to four antennas to utilize the 4×4 MIMO capabilities of the Snapdragon X16 modem and reach the peak download speeds of up to 1 Gbps. This can help accelerate the time-to-commercialization of this flagship device and the Company is working with module manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers to further optimize 2-antenna and 4-antenna configurations aiming to meet cost-effectiveness and size requirements of specific automakers, specific segments and use cases.
“Connected cars are becoming intelligent sensors on the road, not only using data for consumer use cases such as Wi-Fi hotspots and video streaming, but also collecting and transmitting critical, rich real-time information about road conditions, map updates and driver status,” said Patrick Little, senior vice president and general manager, automotive, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “As a leader in car connectivity, Qualcomm Technologies is well positioned to address the tremendous data demand, helping automakers integrate the broad set of technologies required by a new generation of connected vehicles.”
The new connected car reference platform using Snapdragon X16 LTE modem, including its corresponding reference module, is expected to be available in the first half of 2017.
All major global automakers currently use products from Qualcomm Technologies’ broad portfolio of automotive solutions, including the Company’s flagship Snapdragon automotive processors and modems.
Across telematics, infotainment and connectivity, Qualcomm Technologies has achieved more than 150 automotive design wins, and car manufacturers across the globe have selected Snapdragon processors for their next generation infotainment solutions. To learn more, please visit Qualcomm Technologies’ automotive booth at CES, north hall, booth #5609, or visit qualcomm.com/automotive.
