Canadian-based technology company SJAWS Technologies has developed a GPS monitoring system to assure the reliability of signals. The company’s Skysweeper service monitors the integrity of GPS signals and alerts users when interference occurs.
“The GPS navigation signals that maritime, terrestrial and aviation industries rely on are all vulnerable to interference and manipulation,” said SJAWS CEO Peter Mueller, adding that thousands of spoofing and jamming incidents occur every year, including to U.S. Navy vessels and commercial aircraft.
SJAWS will be at the Canadian Aerospace Conference in Ottawa, Ontario, on Nov. 8–9, and will be available to meet ITB obligors and strategic partners in person or by video to present the latest update on their technology.
Mueller started SJAWS this year with Liz Hennessy after 15 years of GNSS network technology experience with Rx Networks. Hennessy co-founded Goldtouch Technologies Inc., manufacturer of ergonomic PC peripherals.
Trimble and Exyn Technologies are developing multi-platform robotic autonomy for complex, GPS-denied environments. (Photo: Trimble)
Trimble and Exyn Technologies are working on a proof of concept for a fully autonomous surveying solution for construction.
The solution will integrate the Boston Dynamics Spot robot, the ExynPak powered by ExynAI, and the Trimble X7 total station. It will enable fully autonomous missions inside complex and dynamic construction environments, which can result in consistent and precise reality capture for production and quality-control workflows.
Autonomous robots powered by ExynAI can sense and avoid obstacles, dynamically adapting to the complexity of construction environments. To ensure safety and efficiency, the ExynPak integrates with a robot, supporting Level 4 of autonomous exploration missions without requiring the robot to “learn” about its environment beforehand.
A surveyor can define a 3D volume for a mission, and then the integrated robotic solution handles the complexities of self-navigation without needing a map, GPS or wireless infrastructure.
The integration of the Trimble X7 provides high-speed, high-accuracy 3D laser scanning to capture the state of the environment. The captured data can be uploaded to the Trimble Connect collaboration platform and shared with project stakeholders for further analysis, including a comparison to building information models (BIM) and previous scans to monitor quality and progress. The result is a detailed and accurate map collected with minimal human intervention and risk.
Exyn and Trimble will be demonstrating their technology at the Trimble Dimensions+ Conference Nov. 7-9 in Las Vegas.
Chinese scientists say they have succeeded in an experiment that could improve satellite navigation and redefine the second as a unit of time, reports the South China Morning Post.
The scientists performed the experiment in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in western China. They placed two terminals in laboratories 113 km (70 miles) apart. Each terminal was equipped with a laser, a telescope and two optical frequency combs that measure exact frequencies of light. Laser pulses sent between the terminals allowed researchers to confirm the time.
The research team was led by quantum physicist Jian-Wei Pan at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC).
Sending signals over long distances would enable a global network of optical clocks that can help improve the accuracy of satellite navigation services.
China also is sending three atomic clocks to its Tiangong space station to establish a space-based timekeeping system of exceptional accuracy. The clocks can work together to measure time with 10-19 stability, missing only one second every few billion years, and is expected to be thousands of times more accurate than a hydrogen maser.
The Ricoh Theta X 360° camera uses a u-blox module for its location metadata. (Photo: Ricoh)
The ZOE-M8B GNSS module from u-blox is integrated into the new RicohTheta X camera. The camera allows users to shoot high-quality 360-degree spherical images and videos in one click and visualize them immediately on an LCD touch panel.
The u-blox ZOE-M8B enables the Ricoh Theta X’s built-in location system, one of its key features. The module is listed on the u-blox site as receiving GPS, BeiDou and GLONASS signals as well as QZSS, but the Ricoh Theta X specifications list only GPS + QZSS along with assisted GPS.
The u-blox receiver automatically embeds highly accurate location information for each image taken, without the need for a smartphone or another external device.
An icon on the LCD touch panel displays the availability of the GPS signals depending on the user’s location, ensuring the location information has been reliably acquired before shooting begins. The location is accurate down to a 5-meter radius, suitable for a wide range of industrial and consumer applications.
The u-blox ZOE-M8B GNSS module is an ultra-small (4.5 mm x 4.5 x 1.0 mm) system-in-package offering highly accurate positioning with concurrent reception of up to three satellite constellations. The Super-E (Super-Efficient) mode guarantees power consumption as low as 12 mW, and built-in SAW and LNA make it suitable for passive antennas. The u-blox ZOE-M8B targets applications that require a small size without compromising performance.
Part of a 360° spherical image shot with the Theta X. (Photo: Ricoh)
“We chose the u-blox module because of the highly accurate location information it offers, alongside easy integration and low power consumption,” said Kenji Daigo, GPS Function Developer for Theta X at Ricoh.
The Algiz 10XR’s screen features a glove/rain mode. (Photo: Handheld)
Handheld Group, a manufacturer of rugged mobile computers, has released the Algiz 10XR, a rugged 10-inch Windows tablet that combines durability with a GNSS receiver, 5G and future-proof features.
The Algiz 10XR was developed for field work or other challenging environments in markets such as logistics, mining, public transport, public safety, waste management or geographic information systems (GIS). It also has also been designed with customization in mind.
The tablet has a dedicated multiband GNSS u-blox NEO-M8U receiver for accurate positioning. The NEO-M8U module offers u-blox’s untethered dead-reckoning technology, which provides continuous navigation even under weak GNSS conditions.
Other key features
future-proof 5G communication for live video streams and bandwidth-heavy tasks such as mapping
Intel Elkhart Lake x6000 platform for reliable performance
Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC (64 bit)
high-resolution, sunlight-readable 10-inch touchscreen with super-hardened glass and rain-and-glove mode
future-proof 5G capabilities, 4G/LTE high-speed data, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
IP65 and MIL-STD ruggedness
full-day, hot-swappable battery
optional, integrated barcode scanner and near-field communications.
The tablet is supported by a broad set of accessories for field professionals: carry cases, vehicle cradles, pole mounts, extended batteries, and a vehicle dock with antenna pass-through for both GPS and Wi-Fi.
“The Algiz 10XR will bring some great performance gains for our partners and customers who rely on Windows tablets in the field,” says Johan Hed, Handheld chief product officer. “We’ve worked with this segment for decades now and are confident that we’ve developed a device with not only great specs, but a complete accessory package to help our customers with their fieldwork.”
Guidance and precision control, the base elements of modern machine control for construction, have continued to evolve since broad productization began in the mid-1990s. However, the value proposition has become even sweeter since, with value being realized beyond the return on investment (ROI) of the general contractors and the total project price tag for the clients. While the majority of equipment globally is still non-digital, new levels of simplicity and affordability are helping to fill that gap.
The roots of machine control stretch back a century. The Historical Construction Equipment Association (HCEA) posits that the A.W. French & Co. “utility grader” of the 1920s, a crawler-mounted unit that used stringline control, may be the very first example — and this before electronics and computing. However, it was the advent of real-time kinematics (RTK) for GPS in the mid-1990s that brought machine control as we know it to the construction site, and coincidentally to precision agriculture.
Initially, the focus was on guidance. Then it moved to precision control, such as blade control, and later propagated to more classes of motorized equipment, improved with further sensor integration.
The impact on construction and agriculture has been undeniable: productivity gains, less rework, more efficient handling of materials, shorter timelines, site safety improvements, and more. These benefits are as obvious to clients and operators as they were in the early days of adoption, gains from nearly three decades of innovation.
What form have these growing benefits taken, and who is realizing them? We sought insights from industry experts to find out.
Grading and Excavation
Automation is not just about speed; it is also about better control of the load and stress on the equipment and moving just the right amount of materials so as not to place a burden on it. (Photo: CHCNAV)
These two activities, as each of our interviewed experts attest, represent the lion’s share of realized productivity gains.
While not the complete picture of overall value, the sheer volume of equipment that has been, or could be, automated speaks, well, volumes. “Apart from the skid steer systems, there are more excavators manufactured than all the other equipment types combined,” said Daniel Sass, product manager of machine control at Hemisphere GNSS. “Excavators are the workhorse. And people use them differently, and they use other pieces of equipment to complement excavators somewhat differently. Certainly, the bulk of our sales is excavators, and in fact a key part of our value proposition is focused on compact machines, but also all the way up to mining shovels. Certainly, by volume it is excavators and compact excavators.”
Numbers help tell the story. “In the United States, at least in a three-year period from 2019 to 2022, about 253,000 excavators were sold, for which I have pretty reliable data, but only 61,000 dozers and only 7,000 scrapers,” Sass said. “That’s North America, where we also use a lot of dozers and scrapers. If you go to Europe, where they use excavators for many other tasks, the proportional impact might be higher.”
Operators can easily gauge the ROI of going digital for individual pieces of equipment such as excavators, but part of the incentive could be that general contractors are requiring subcontractors to be equipped and ready to fit into a more complete digital site. “Some definitely require it,” said Randy Noland, vice president of global sales at Hemisphere GNSS. “A lot of … larger sites. I wouldn’t say everybody mandates it yet, but that it is growing.”
“Operator assistance is not only helping someone cut to grade faster, but is also the best way to cut to grade,” said Cameron Clark, earthmoving industry director, Trimble Civil Construction. “How do you move the material? That directly ties into productivity by only moving the material you need to move, which also equates to less fuel because you can do it faster.” With operator assistance, Clark said, it is not uncommon to see productivity gains of 30% to 40%, even with inexperienced operators. And with automatics, this could exceed 75%, depending on the work done.
There are substantial gains to be made in operator assistance for less complex heavy equipment, such as compactors. “Often a contactor will put a less experienced operator in the compactor,” Clark said. “In manual days, to overcome the potential of under-compaction and missing spots, they’d create quite a big overlap, maybe up to 40% of overlap between paths. By adding steering control, we can automate the compactor to where it needs to be — to stay on line every day, all day. And you can reduce the overlap to 10% or 15%; having to compact a smaller area means that you’re quicker, say 30% quicker.”
“Grade control gains can be 30% to 50%,” said Magnus Thibblin, president, machine control division, Hexagon Geosystems. “Depending on the machine and the job application, and how experienced the crew is, it can be similar for excavators.” Thibblin was an end user from the early days of machine control. He saw its potential and how it might work better. Its benefits came not just from automating elements of the equipment, he said, but from implementing a more complete digital workflow.
“How much are you working with the digital design from the start?” Thibblin said. “I’m one of those who believes you should have 3D from the start; for any kind of layer that the machines can build to. Incidentally, in North America, working to models is implemented for a lot of graders and dozers. In Europe, there is a large excavating market, but it’s the same foundation. If you work from the design, you will have savings in fuel, time, efficiency, safety, etc. Depending on all of these things, the total value proposition may be 30% to 70%.”
Wenming Sun, vice general manager for digital construction, CHCNAV, reiterates these points. “Currently, our machine control solutions are mainly installed on earthmoving machines, including bulldozers, excavators and motor graders,” Sun said. “The greatest value of these solutions is to improve construction efficiency, shorten construction time, reduce fuel consumption and mechanical wear while ensuring construction quality.”
CHCNAV is a relatively new player in the construction machine control market, launching initially in Europe and Asia. The company has been developing automation and steering systems for equipment that can yield the highest gains for their customers. “For example, our 3D TG63 automatic control system for motor graders can double efficiency compared to manual operation of machines and reduce time by 50% for the same workload,” Sun said.
Getting to the designed grade, or trench line, of earthworks geometry faster is a huge benefit, while reducing or removing finishing steps is a bonus. “Now we’re seeing that with excavators that have automatics, the finishing we can get out of an excavator is amazing,” Clark said. “You used to get dozers cleaning up after excavators. Now, with the performance you can get with an automatic excavator, you often don’t need to run the dozer — the excavator can get it done the first time.”
However, dozers are used for many other tasks. Clark noted that about 95% of blade-control systems for dozers sold have automatics. He said grade control brings tremendous productivity gains, but that excavation is right up there as well. “When you look at the number of machines out there, it’s in a different league,” Clark added. “In 2021, for example, globally about 370,000 crawler excavators and 325,000 mini excavators were sold.”
Lateral Benefits
GNSS has revolutionized automation for many classes of heavy equipment. However, for certain high precision work, particularly finished elevations, site levels and totals stations are essential. (Photo: Hexagon)
For the general contractor, ROI is a key measure. This can be reasonably easy to gauge, as this ROI calculator shows: intelligent-construction.com/roi-calculator/. However, what matters is not just the upfront time and cost for grading and excavating, but also avoiding lateral time and costs. “If you can do jobs faster and more accurately, it lends itself to less rework,” Clark said. “You do it right the first time, which again goes into less fuel, and then also less material. For example, let’s say your excavator is digging down to a trench and the operator digs too deep, which happens often. That material dug out of the trench potentially needs to be carted away. So, extra fuel and trucks are needed to take the material away. They’ve got to put high quality material back in, so that means they actually have to cart more material back to put in the trench, and you have to spread the material.
Again, it’s a flow-on effect — a chain reaction. When you look at sustainability, what we do has direct and indirect effects — it’s 1 gallon of fuel you don’t use that saves about 22 pounds of carbon emissions.”
The green dividend goes beyond just what individuals and firms wish to see. Increasingly, infrastructure developers and owners may be subject to sustainability requirements. Depending on where the work is being done, sustainable development goals are being acted on. This includes not just the environmental goals, but also requirements for the digitalization of design and construction, and ultimately smarter and more sustainable infrastructure. Machine control in construction can deliver some of the most substantial benefits in meeting these goals.
Like overall value for the operators and clients, gauging the highest green dividend becomes a proposition of sheer volume. “On average, your dozer is going to burn much more fuel. However, we sell four times as many excavator solutions as we do for dozers,” said Miles Ware, vice president of marketing and global customer care, Hemisphere GNSS. “The excavator solution is critical for both an ROI and an environmental impact.” Among the most-sold excavators in the United States are the Kubota 4-ton, the John Deere 3.5-ton and 5-ton, and the Caterpillar 5-ton. “The smaller excavators are going to use a lot less fuel,” Ware added. “If we compare this to mid- and large-sized excavators and dozers, we might be getting close to a point of equilibrium, when it comes to environmental impact. Those that consume huge amounts of fuel move massive amounts of earth. However, the ability to have the larger units operate much more efficiently, complete jobs much faster, and get on site and off site quicker with fewer passes in fewer hours adds up to a green dividend. Then you take the smaller volumetric scale of so many excavators and the environmental benefit really starts to balance out. There are huge incentives for all these platforms, whether it be dozers or excavators, to have the technology in place.” Hemisphere announced at the Bauma Exhibition in October that it now has systems to support loaders and scrapers.
“One of the things that’s really intriguing to me about the loader solution is that it represents a crossover point between construction earthmoving and agriculture,” Ware said. “There’s a huge benefit for feedlots and agriculture-related operations, where they use machine-controlled loaders to avoid damaging base layers. We have a growing machine-control audience, and a substantially growing precision agriculture audience. It is just one example of how technologies are cross-pollinating in different verticals.”
The benefits of machine control are broadly recognized across the industry. “Improved construction efficiency and shorter construction time means that the machine operating time is shortened for the same workload,” Sun said. “According to our own calculation results, using for instance our system for motor graders, fuel consumption can be reduced by 35% to 50% under different working conditions. Thanks to the full real-time automation of its blade, the grader can achieve the expected finish accuracy in one or two passes, whereas an unequipped machine would require four to five passes. This effectively reduces fuel consumption and, as a result, minimizes the carbon footprint of construction projects.”
Automation means you can build to the model in less time and refine the movements of the equipment to move just the right amount of material — enough to improve productivity, but not so much as to put an undue strain on it. “Any time you have a piece of equipment that needs to be repaired or is out of service, it is disruptive to the project of course, but it can also have an environmental impact, and sustainability is something we all work toward,” Thibblin said.
Connectivity and Collaboration
Going to a fully digital site means working fully in 3D, from a digital model, and seeking to eliminate 2D plans sets. No more interpretation, no more estimation—the right amount of material is moved rapidly and reliably by multiple machines working in harmony. (Photo: Hemisphere GNSS)
Moving forward, there may be additional incremental gains in the productivity of individually automated equipment, yet this may be modest in contrast to the time since the introduction of machine control decades ago. For the next sea change in construction productivity, we should be looking beyond simply the machines. “Let’s take the holistic viewpoint,” Thibblin said. “You have everything from the machines that of course have either machine control or different levels of autonomy, everything from semi-autonomous to semi-automatic. Then you have the trucks, which can be connected also with the tracker devices, which enables optimal routing, enhanced safety, and coordinating material handling cycles.”
Total project and site coordination has been in the works for vertical construction for quite some time; we hear a lot about building information modeling. However, heavy civil is catching up. “We anticipate that the ongoing integration of digital construction solutions with internet of things technologies will bring more choice and functionality to customers,” Sun said.
Further, real-time collaborative software platforms are already in use. Many vendors for machine control have added live connectivity for such coordination.
“Our customers are using ConX,” Thibblin said, referring to Leica ConX, a cloud-based collaboration tool. “It is remotely connecting to the mission, which is support, service, file transfers, project updates.” While online collaborative tools have been around for years, current offerings have reached such a level of maturity that they have driven a boom in adoption for even smaller operations. Customers need to make sure that projects are working optimally, and continuously.
Another major difference from the early days of machine control is that the relative cost of outfitting equipment with automation components is far less. Therefore, it is more practical to automate nearly all equipment on a site, making a truly coordinated digital site possible. “It’s not just the larger businesses that are investing, it’s also the smaller businesses that understand and can calculate the ROI. It is also a difference in competency level: how complex and support-intensive the system was. Now, it’s much more integrated,” Thibblin said.
Today’s systems are tighter, work better, connect better with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and the learning curve not as steep. The machines have become smarter, yet easier to use and integrate. “You do not have to be a nuclear scientist to understand the systems,” Thibblin said. “The equipment and collaboration tools are now much simpler. Not simple to make, but we do that for you.”
It is a chain reaction: the equipment gets smarter yet simpler, and both characteristics drive more adoption. More of a site gets automated, enabling digital collaboration, and with that comes more efficiency, saving on time, costs, materials and fuel. The sum of the parts yields productivity gains, the site gets safer, and of course there is a green dividend as well. “It is not just the one thing that gets to this,” Thibblin said. “It is many parts.”
Clark reiterates, “The biggest driver and the biggest impact is when we can actually control the site, optimize how we coordinate groups of machines working together, and efficiently run the job site. That’s where you’re going to see the biggest benefit for sustainability and reducing the carbon footprint. You don’t just optimize productivity at the machine — it’s the coordination of the site and how the machines work together.”
What about the smaller firms and short-duration projects? Should the same level of full site integration happen for each job? Perhaps not. However, there are alternative ways to realize nearly all the benefits of automation without a full digital site. “There’s a lot of focus on short-duration jobs, not only for the typical small contractors, but also for large contractors,” Clark said. “Some large contractors actually target a decent portion of jobs for smaller duration, to balance out changes in market dynamics.” There is a lot of demand for small contractors with technology, and many small contractors have to automate just to stay in the game.
“People using grade control see all the benefits, and that affects their costs,” Clark said. “They can get jobs at a different price than someone who isn’t benefiting from grade control. We’re seeing this a lot in the adoption of our earthworks and grade-control products.”
A challenge to adoption by smaller firms used to be that with a small staff, they might not have the necessary office software, a surveyor, a design engineer, or a 3D modeler. While there is a cottage industry of drafters who do small 3D modeling contracts for that market, there are now more alternatives. “We’ve added features to our systems that enable these contractors, on these short duration jobs, to create designs without requiring office software,” Clark said. “Typically, without a 3D design, you are eyeballing, and you have to do grade checks. There are conventional systems that can include lasers and line tracers, but now that simple designs can be added to the machine-control systems without additional office steps, more operators will be able to use them on a greater number of small jobs.”
Multi-sensor integration has enabled more equipment on the site to be automated. Not long after the first GPS-guided machine control systems came along, more sensors were added, such as inertial measurement units (IMUs). Besides IMUs, the sensors in play can include GNSS receivers, lasers, lidar scanners, sonics, optics, cameras, displacement sensors, pressure sensors, thermal sensors, inclinometers, vehicle distance measurement instruments and telematics.
Beyond GPS, the wealth of additional GNSS satellites and signals has brought more robust and reliable solutions in mixed environments. Recently, a heavy equipment operator called to ask if there was “something wrong with GPS” that day. He reported having spotty fixes and wildly varying results. After some standard troubleshooting of his communications and correction sources, we determined he was using a legacy broadcast format, and his GNSS receiver, while fully multi-constellation enabled, was only using one constellation. Once a newer correction format was chosen — bam! — he was fixed instantly with results as good as he’d ever seen. Things are getting better on all tech fronts.
Coordination of a fully digital site often involves integrating as many operations as possible through a back-end site management software, connecting as much equipment as possible, and working from standard models. This can be a relatively simple proposition if a site is under a single solution. However, general contractors may not be in a position to use equipment from a single brand. They may have a diverse equipment portfolio and seek flexibility in being able to onboard subcontractors. Vendors have recognized this and offer different levels of interoperability. “In addition to high-performance and real-world site-smart software features, our systems play well with mixed fleets,” Noland said. “Meaning multi-brand GNSS systems, radios and various file formats. This is key for firms that have already made investments, as well as new users entering the market concerned about how compatible their equipment will be.”
“If you have a mixed fleet, you can easily grow it,” Ware said. “Or, you can interoperate with other contractors or entities. So, if there’s a brand X already working, and if a Hemisphere GradeMetrix contractor is added to that project, they can seamlessly come in and handle most of the files, go immediately to work, and further expand the use of the technology on that particular project.”
The Underserved Market
Machine control has evolved in the decades since initial productization from navigation and guiance to include precision control of blades, buckets and more, and the ability of even smaller equipment to work from 3D models. (Photo: Trimble)
If the construction industry is going to help meet growing global infrastructure needs, to fill the existing multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure gaps, then a lot more equipment needs to be automated.
“Let me just make a general comment that speaks to both productivity gains and a lower carbon footprint: as an industry, we can do much better,” Noland said. “Only about 15% to 20% of the equipment that could be outfitted for machine control has been, and the other 80% is up for grabs.” Noland credited other key players — such as Trimble, Topcon, and Leica — with providing excellent solutions for certain sectors of machine control, yet he sees an opportunity for Hemisphere to excel.
“The next wave is the underserved part of the market,” Noland said. “If we’re successful, then your climate impact is greater and your productivity gains higher.” He noted that in addition to systems for large equipment, a particular focus for Hemisphere has been providing a range of affordable solutions for smaller equipment. “We feel like we are tapping into that part of the market that has been underserved. It’s not necessarily new features from what everybody already has, as much as it is democratizing the technology to that underserved 80%.”
Autonomy and the Near Future
It is exciting to think about, but is the next sea change for construction machine control going to be full automation? Is that truly an inevitability? Or is the road to autonomy already paved with productivity gold?
“The autonomous machine, and the autonomous site; it is what we are doing to get there that continually boosts productivity,” Clark said. “As more operator assistance is added, the semi-autonomy that many systems already provide means that the operator can concentrate on more aspects of the operation; and this definitely enhances site safety.”
Autonomy might not necessarily reach every piece of equipment, and contractors may not want it for every task. With the prospects of anything like a fully autonomous site being on a sliding horizon, contractors and clients are not waiting around — they are already reaping the benefits of automation on the individual equipment level. Productivity gains and a green dividend will only increase as sites become more fully integrated. In some ways, the best parts of such a future are already here.
Gavin Schrock is a practicing surveyor, technology writer and operator of a cooperative GNSS network.
Leica Geosystems, part of Hexagon, has launched of Leica iCON gps 160 — a significantly enhanced, next-generation construction smart antenna with features that increase productivity in all stakeout and measurement applications on the jobsite.
The Leica iCON construction portfolio offers a broad range of smart antennas to fit every construction professional’s needs. From basic level to sophisticated high-end applications, Leica Geosystems’ smart antennas are designed and built to withstand challenging site conditions. All of them seamlessly integrate with all Leica iCON construction instruments and controllers as well as the iCON field software for precise, real-time verification.
To expand its portfolio of smart antennas, Leica Geosystems has launched the iCON gps 160, a versatile solution for various applications. It can be used as a base station, as a rover or for machine guidance. The Leica iCON gps 160 is a modernization and enhancement of the successful Leica iCON gps 60, which has been well accepted in the market. The result is a smaller, more compact GNSS antenna with additional features and a larger display for ease of use.
The new Leica iCON gps 160 is particularly suited to complex construction environments with different GNSS requirements — the ability to switch between the different applications is at the users’ fingertips. Besides checking grade, cut and fill, stakeout points and lines, users can also benefit from using this solution for basic-level GNSS machine guidance.
Construction technology must be easy to adopt. Thus, the iCON gps 160 comes with an integrated color display, a user-friendly interface, smart setup wizards and an intuitive construction-specific workflow to help contractors get the most out of their investment from day one.
Size and weight reductions make the iCON gps 160 easy to handle, while the latest GNSS and communication technologies improve data reception, resulting in increased productivity and efficiency.
Photo: Leica Geosystems
The optional tilt feature allows users to measure and stake out points with a tilted pole, which saves time and extends the measurement possibilities on any construction site.
“At Leica Geosystems, we understand that construction surveyors are under pressure and tight schedules to provide accurate, on-demand data that helps deliver projects on time and on budget,” said Matthias Schmidt, manager, Portfolio Field and GNSS, Leica Geosystems. “The iCON gps 160 Smart Antenna sets new standards in construction GNSS antennas. It solves several challenges simultaneously, enabling precise measurement, avoiding mistakes and extra trips on-site, ultimately helping to work toward a more sustainable future.”
The D70 is the latest release in the Boreas digital FOG (DFOG) series, offering a new performance grade with superior accuracy, exceptional stability and reliability. The technology is suited to surveying, mapping and navigation across subsea, marine, land and air applications.
“We are thrilled to expand the Boreas series with the D70. It’s a system that will provide additional flexibility in the Boreas family, making ultra-high accuracy inertial navigation far more affordable than with previous FOG INS systems,” said Xavier Orr, CEO and co-founder of Advanced Navigation. “This patented technology opens the possibility for adopting FOG INS systems across a much broader range of vehicular applications, particularly autonomous vehicles and aircraft where weight and size are at a premium.”
Boreas D70 combines closed-loop DFOG and accelerometer technologies with a dual-antenna real-time kinematic (RTK) GNSS receiver. These are coupled with Advanced Navigation’s artificial-intelligence-based fusion algorithm to deliver accurate and precise navigation.
The system features ultra-fast gyrocompassing, acquiring and maintaining an accurate heading under demanding conditions. While the D70 does contain a GNSS receiver, it is not required for gyrocompass operation.
Based on the company’s DFOG technology, the D70 delivers a 40% reduction in size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) when compared to systems of similar performance.
0.01° roll and pitch
0.1° secant latitude heading (gyrocompass)
0.01°/hour bias instability
10 mm position accuracy
The Boreas Series
The Boreas DFOG series features ultra-fast gyrocompassing and can acquire heading, either stationary or dynamically, in less than two minutes. The gyrocompassing allows the system to determine a highly accurate heading without any reliance on magnetic heading or GNSS.
The technology stems from Advanced Navigation’s artificial intelligence sensor-fusion algorithm allowing the system to extract significantly more information from the data. It is designed for control applications, with a high level of health monitoring and instability prevention to ensure stable and reliable data.
Advanced Navigation designed Boreas from the ground up for reliability and availability. The hardware and software are designed and tested to international safety standards and have been environmentally tested to MIL-STD-810. The system achieves a mean time between failure (MTBF) of more than 70,000 hours.
Additional features of the Boreas D70 include Ethernet, CAN and NMEA protocols, as well as disciplined timing via a PTP server and 1 PPS. An embedded web interface provides full access to all of the device’s internal functions and data. Internal storage allows for up to 1 year of data logging.
About DFOG Technology
DFOG is patented technology, which has been developed over 25 years involving two research institutions. DFOG was created to meet the demand for smaller and more cost-effective FOGs, while increasing reliability and accuracy.
The first generation of FOG, made available in 1976, used analog signals and analog-signal processing. The second generation was developed in 1994 and is still used to this day. It improved upon the first generation with a hybrid approach using an analog signal in the coil with digital signal processing.
In 2021, FOG evolved into DFOG. This third generation of FOG sets itself apart by being completely digital, providing higher performance and reliability while enabling a 40% reduction in SWaP-C.
To achieve this, three different yet complementary technologies have been developed to improve the capabilities of FOG.
Digital Modulation Techniques. DFOG uses a specially developed digital modulation technique passing spread spectrum signals through the coil. The new digital modulation technique introduced in DFOG technology allows in-run variable errors in the coil to be measured and removed from the measurements. This makes DFOG significantly more stable and reliable than traditional FOGs. It also allows a smaller FOG with less coil length to achieve the accuracy of one with a longer coil.
Revolutionary Optical Chip. By integrating five sensitive components into a single chip and removing all the fiber splices, the size, weight and power are reduced considerably while significantly improving reliability and performance.
Specially Designed Optical Coil. DFOG employs a specially designed closed-loop optical coil, developed to take full advantage of the digital modulation techniques. The design allows for optimum sensing of in-run variable coil errors using the new digital modulation technique. It also provides a very high level of protection for the optical components from shock and vibration.
NextNav Inc., a GPS and 3D geolocation company, has acquired Nestwave SAS, a privately held company specializing in low-power geolocation.
The acquisition was completed Oct. 31 for $18 million.
NextNav is based in McLean, Virginia, and Nestwave is located in based in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Nestwave provides advanced geolocation solutions to internet of things (I0T) modem and digital signal processor vendors and end IoT users.
Nestwave will adopt NextNav’s name and be integrated into existing TerraPoiNT engineering and technology efforts, with all Nestwave employees remaining with the company. Nestwave CEO Ambroise Popper will become NextNav’s vice president and general manager in France and is joining NextNav’s executive leadership team, while Nestwave CTO and Founder Rabih Chrabieh will serve as vice president of engineering.
The combination of NextNav’s technology with Nestwave’s LTE/5G capabilities will allow NextNav to intelligently combine signals from existing terrestrial LTE/5G networks with its own highly synchronized TerraPoiNT system to deliver near nationwide resilient 3D position, navigation and timing (PNT) capabilities that contribute to dramatically lower deployment costs.
The company serves markets including timing for critical infrastructure, aviation, automotive, IoT and other mass market applications sooner.
“The acquisition of Nestwave presents a unique opportunity for NextNav to optimize further the use of its existing spectrum bandwidth, while contributing to a drastic decrease of our TerraPoiNT system’s future capital and operating expenditures,” said Ganesh Pattabiraman, NextNav co-founder and CEO.
“By leveraging Nestwave’s unique technology and ambient LTE/5G waveform, NextNav can gain significant spectral efficiency, accelerate the availability of resilient PNT and release the underlying spectrum’s capacity for additional data-oriented services. An LTE/5G waveform also enables broader penetration of NextNav’s applications and technology across the handset and device ecosystem for all of its products and target markets,” Pattabiraman said.
Pattabiraman continued, “Nestwave brings not only a physical presence in Europe, but also a team of professionals who have established strong relationships with European Union representatives that will be beneficial as we continue active conversations with government officials in the United States, Europe and globally over GPS/GNSS resilience.
“The transaction is not expected to materially increase the company’s operational cash burn, and the lowered capital requirements will enable us to quickly scale our GPS resiliency capabilities in both the United States and global markets sooner than previously anticipated.”
Last year I was privileged to be part of a Blue-Ribbon Review Panel for an American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) surveying publication. The book is Surveying and Geomatics Engineering: Principles, Technologies, and Applications. I recently received my copy of the published book in the mail and decided to highlight some sections. While preparing this column, the chapters reminded me of how geodesy has expanded into so many different disciplines.
I first mentioned this in my July 2020 article for the “First Fix” column of GPS World, where I stated that the shortage of American trained geodesists poses a significant economic risk for the United States. In that column, I mentioned how geodetic science and technology now underpin many sciences, large areas of engineering (such as driverless vehicles and drones), navigation, precision agriculture, smart cities and location-based services. That is why I believe understanding geodesy is more critical today than ever. In January 2022, Mike Bevis, collaborating with others, prepared a white paper titled “The Geodesy Crisis,” documenting the concern about the lack of trained geodesists in the United States.
Image: Dana Caccamise II
“The inverted geospatial pyramid” graphic depicts how the entire $1 trillion geospatial economy is supported and dependent on geodesy, and how it’s close to collapsing without an increase of support for geodesy. A lack of geodetic expertise in the United States presents a significant challenge, with future impacts on positioning, navigation, mapping and dependent geospatial technologies.
In my opinion, without investment in geodesy, the United States will not have the available skills and knowledge to develop new geodetic technologies and improve models to address challenges to society, such as
how the Earth’s surface is changing as sea level rises and the Earth’s glaciers and ice sheets change on timescales of months
how the tectonic plates are deforming and what physical processes control earthquakes, and
the ability to monitor the temporal changes in Earth’s water reservoirs by measuring changes in Earth’s gravitational field as it responds to the moving water mass and the deformation of the solid Earth caused by moving water.
These challenges need a well-maintained, stable terrestrial reference frame (TRF) with sub-1 mm/year vertical accuracy. Errors in TRF heights can propagate systematically into estimates of atmospheric water vapor, sea level, satellite orbits and other parameters. An accurate TRF can lead to important observations and discoveries because it enables revelations from coherent global motions. (My previous column described the latest International Reference Frame of 2020 [ITRF2020].)
Geodesy has been a significant part of my life for 50 years. I’ve seen a lot, and unless we address the Geodesy Crisis, the innovations in geodetic science of the past will not continue in the future. At least not in the United States.
The Geodesy Crisis paper was mentioned in the Fall 2022 ION Quarterly Newsletter by Everett Hinkley (see the box below). Hinkley noted, “The geospatial community relies on geodesists, though few in the community are fully aware of this connection nor understand the importance of geodesy to their work.” I encourage everyone to download the white paper and the ION Quarterly Newsletter to understand the importance of the need for more trained geodesists.
Excerpt from Everett Hinkley’s Article
“In January 2022, a white paper entitled America’s loss of capacity and international competitiveness in geodesy, the economic and military implications, and some modes of corrective action was released (Bevis et al.). This collaborative paper paints an alarming picture of the dwindling pool of trained geodesists within the United States. The report highlights America’s loss of capacity and international competitiveness in geodesy and states: ‘The U.S. is on the verge of being permanently eclipsed in geodesy and the downstream geospatial technologies. This decline in capability threatens our national security and poses major risks to an economy strongly tied to the geospatial revolution, on Earth and, eventually, in space.’ Though the word crisis correctly describes the dire predicament well, it didn’t occur overnight. Due to several converging trends, the geodesy crisis has been decades in the making. A national lack of geodetic expertise presents a significant challenge with downstream impacts on positioning, navigation, mapping, and dependent geospatial technologies. The Department of Defense, intelligence community, and federal civil agencies’ mapping entities rely on accurate and precise maps for a broad range of purposes, and reliable maps depend on an accurate geodetic underpinning. The geospatial community relies on geodesists, though few in the community are fully aware of this connection nor understand the importance of geodesy to their work.” (Reproduced with permission from ION.)
In my “First Fix” column, I mentioned that I attended The Ohio State University (OSU) to obtain my graduate degree in Geodetic Science in 1979. Therefore, I admitted that I am a little biased — once a geodesist, always a geodesist. That said, in OSU’s geodesy heyday (1960–1990s), many Americans trained were sent there by federal agencies: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), NOAA/National Geodetic Survey (NGS), USGS, Army, Navy and Air Force. During the 1970s, NGS sent two employees back to school every year. These agencies needed geodesists because they were undertaking significant projects, such as the NGS projects to readjust the U.S. national horizontal (NAD83) and vertical geodetic (NAVD88) networks. I was one of the employees NGS sent to OSU to be trained to support the NAD83 and NAVD88.
Today, the environment is different. U.S. federal agencies still need geodesists to develop enhanced and refined geodetic models and tools. However, major U.S. companies, such as Google and FedEx, the automobile industry, the construction industry (automated machine guidance), precision farming companies and mining companies also need more accurate geodetic models, tools and algorithms. Therefore, these companies also need trained geodesists to perform essential research on topics that address their geodetic requirements. As indicated in “the inverted geospatial pyramid” graphic, the entire $1 trillion geospatial economy is supported by geodesy.
As implied in Hinkley’s article, geodesy has played a role in developing geospatial products but most users didn’t realize that it was their foundation. Since it’s been in the background, everyone assumes it will always be there. A participant at one of my workshops stated that “GPS has made geodesists out of all of us.” In my opinion, the advancements in GNSS equipment and processing software provided some users with a “false sense of knowledge or security” that they understood what was happening within the “black box.” One of my colleagues at NGS said that the new equipment and software programs were creating a field force of “buttonologists.”
These statements concerned me at the time and concern me today. With the last generation of trained geodesists either retired or getting ready to retire, we are at a critical stage of not being able to meet the geospatial needs of the future. As indicated in the white paper, there are significant challenges in rebuilding programs that support the training of geodesists.
Hinkley’s article summarized several action items that could help improve the lack of trained geodesists in the United States. I’ve provided his list in the box below. I’ve highlighted several items the surveying and mapping community can help achieve.
So how do we build and educate the next generation of geodesists?
Make the White House and Congress aware of this crisis, particularly its national security implications; seek direct support in the federal budget to correct this issue. It has become clear that, without engagement at the highest echelons of the U.S. government, averting this current crisis and its eventual outcome is unlikely.
Teach rigorous math in our public schools; follow the scholastic math approach used in many Asian and European countries.
Encourage creative thinking!
Actively market geodesy in high schools as a rewarding career for the math stars before college entry.
Build back, support and sponsor geodesy programs at select universities. This support needs to be strategic, with backing from the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Break our cultural trend of reactions to crises and seize the opportunity to be proactive and prevent the foreseen consequences of this crisis.
Encourage U.S. government support in the form of grants, professional development of staff, and research collaborations/affiliations. There are early efforts underway to bring new talent into the pipeline:
the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is forming an emerging scientist consortium (ESCON) with partnerships that exist with Ohio State, UT-Austin, and other industry/academic/government partners
a pilot Ph.D. geodesy educational program with three NGA and one NGS employee is in place; the NGA expects to continue growing this program.
the NGA’s new western headquarters in St. Louis will bring 350 companies and organizations into the regional GEOINT ecosystem.
If we answer this call to action collectively, there is hope that a new cadre of U.S. geodesists can be cultivated before it’s too late to recover.
(Reproduced with permission from ION.)
With all that said about the need for more geodesists, one thing that this ASCE publication may do is make some readers realize how much they don’t know about the roots of the technology that they’re using to create geospatial products and services. This knowledge gap is not just correctly using GNSS and other geospatial technology to perform a survey, but also integrating various instruments to create an accurate mapping system, such as mobile mapping and terrestrial laser systems. My intent is not to criticize the expertise or knowledge of anyone, and I only mean to point out that in today’s use of computers and programs, many technical concepts are hidden in “black boxes.” I learned many things about some topics by reviewing this book.
The book is 556 pages and has 15 chapters. As part of my responsibilities as a Blue-Ribbon Panel member, I read every word in the book, and not many people will read the entire book. Still, I would encourage surveyors, engineers, geodesists, photogrammetrists and GIS and remote-sensing practitioners to obtain a copy of the book for reference and to understand the limitations of geospatial technology.
Now to the book’s content. I want to highlight that the forward is written by Juliana Blackwell, director of the National Geodetic Survey (NGS). She states that “A common thread running through the manual is the importance of the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS) to modern geospatial applications.”
Most of my columns highlight something relevant to the NSRS. That’s because the NSRS is the foundation layer for United States federal geospatial products, and geodesy provides the foundation for all geospatial products and services as indicated in the “The inverted geospatial pyramid” figure.
I would also like to highlight a statement by Gene Roe in the preface. He states, “Because entire books could be devoted to each of these topics, this manual only provides a summary, and it points the readers to important references where they can find more details. The manual is meant to provide a comprehensive but general overview to help support education and inform practicing engineers on the important role of the surveying engineer. It is too important for this not to occur.”
I agree with Roe’s statement that the book is important for surveying engineers. Still, I would add that this book is important to anyone working with GNSS and other geospatial data, especially geodesists, surveyors and GIS practitioners.
This publication is edited by three individuals that are licensed surveyors; two of them are geodesists who work for NGS. These individuals have performed a fantastic job of ensuring that all chapters have been reviewed for correctness and that the information provided is current and essential for users of geospatial data.
Readers can download copies of the book and specific chapters here. You can buy it as an e-book or in print. The “Abstract” box summarizes the book from the ASCE Library website.
Abstract
Sponsored by the Surveying Committee of the Surveying and Geomatics Division of the Utility Engineering and Surveying Institute of ASCE and the National Geodetic Survey of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Surveying and Geomatics Engineering: Principles, Technologies, and Applications, MOP 152, is a comprehensive yet general overview to help support education and inform practicing engineers on the important role of the surveying engineer. It provides a much-needed update on the modern practice of surveying and geomatics engineering.
Topics include:
• geodesy
• coordinate systems and transformations
• least squares adjustments and error propagation
• modern surveying and remote sensing technology
• analysis and establishment of control
• geographic and building information systems
• construction surveying, and
• best practices.
MOP 152 can be used as a summary and a reference for practicing engineers, surveying and otherwise, to help provide a solid understanding of the state of the surveying and geomatics engineering field.
Below is a list of the chapters and their authors. This column cannot highlight everything important in this book, but I will select a few items to which I believe users of geospatial data should pay attention.
Chapter Titles
Chapter Number
Chapter Title
Author(s)
Forward
Juliana P. Blackwell
Preface
Gene V. Roe
Acknowledgments
Daniel T. Gillins
1
Engineering Surveying Within ASCE
Gene V. Roe
2
Geodesy and Geodetic Computations
Earl F. Burkholder
3
Map Projections and Local Coordinates Systems
Michael L. Dennis
4
Local, Regional, and Global Coordinates Transformations
Michael L. Dennis
5
Analysis and Adjustment of Observational Errors
Charles D. Ghilani
6
Satellite-Based Surveying Technology
Jan Van Sickle
7
Leveling and Total Stations
N.W.J. Hazelton
8
Terrestrial Laser Scanning
Michael J. Olsen
9
Mobile Terrestrial Laser Scanning and Mapping
Michael j. Olsen, Jaehoon Jung, Erzhuo Che, Chris Parrish
10
Aerial Surveying Technology
Michael J. Starek, Benjamin E. Wilkinson
11
Survey Control
Daniel T. Gillins
12
Construction Surveys
Marlee A. Walton
13
Survey Records
Andrew C. Kellie
14
Information Systems in Civil Engineering
Yelda Turkan, Dimitrios Bolkas, Jaehoon Jung, Matthew S. O’banion, Michael Bunn
15
Professional Services and Design Professionals Agreements
David E. Woolley, Lisa D. Herzog
As a geodesist, I usually focus on topics relevant to geodetic science. This book has a lot of topics that use geodesy concepts to create an engineering product or service. For example, chapter 2, “Geodesy and Geodetic Computation” by Earl Burkholder, provides a good summary of geodetic concepts that anyone using or generating geospatial products should know and understand. It gives basic equations without lengthy derivations of how they were developed.
In my opinion, chapter 3, “Map Projections and Local Coordinates Systems” by Michael Dennis, does the best job of explaining the concepts of map projections that are relevant to the surveying and mapping community. Many GIS practitioners use map projections in their software but don’t have a working knowledge of what’s happening to their original data. This chapter describes the current United States State Plane Coordinate System of 1983 (SPCS83) and the future State Plane Coordinate System of 2022 (SPCS2022) that is scheduled to be adopted in 2025. Dennis uses figures and diagrams to describe map projections, angular and linear distortion, and methods for reducing map projection distortion to make it easier for readers to understand the concepts. One section of interest to many surveyors after SPCS2022 is adopted is the Low-Distortion Projection (LDP) Coordinate Systems section. This is useful because, in SPCS2022, many states have designed LDP systems for their state’s SPCS2022. The box below provides a diagram with the number of zones for each state.
Image: NGS Presentations Webpage “Grids for the Future: A New Approach for Designing State Plane Coordinate System Zones” by Michael Dennis.
One purpose of an LDP is to reduce linear distortion; it is not a new concept. Many surveyors have performed a simplified form of it for decades. It’s known by many as a “modified” or “scaled” State Plane. The American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) taught a workshop for decades describing how to compute a “modified” State Plane Coordinate. I was an instructor of this class in the 1980s and 1990s. “Modified” State Plane Coordinates had several issues, but they worked reasonably well in small areal extents. Today, with the advancements in computers and computer software, there are better ways to accomplish an LDP. Dennis’ section does a great job explaining the new SPCS2022 and the design of LDPs in the SPCS2022. The use-case examples provide a simplified description of understanding the linear distortion behavior in an area.
Chapter 4, “Local, Regional, and Global Coordinate Transformation” by Michael Dennis, is one that every surveyor and GIS practitioner should read. Dennis highlighted the differences between “equation-based” transformations and “grid-based” transformations, as well as combined equation-based transformations with grid-based transformations. Understanding the information provided in chapter 4 will be important when NGS replaces the NAD 83 (2011) and NAVD 88 datums with the new, modernized NSRS in 2025. NGS will provide models and tools for users to perform coordinate transformations, but hopefully, some users will want to understand what’s happening behind the scenes.
Chapters 8 and 9 discuss laser scanning systems. In chapter 8, “Terrestrial Laser Scanning,” the “Data Quality Considerations” section highlights common artifacts or limitations encountered with terrestrial lidar system data. The authors provide many examples of these artifacts, making the concept easy to understand. At the end of this chapter, there are 14 pages of references that will be very helpful to users involved with terrestrial laser scanning systems.
Chapter 9, “Mobile Terrestrial Laser Scanning and Mapping,” is very informative, especially the section on georeferencing. This section is not just the description of properly using GNSS to perform a survey, but also the integration of various instruments to create an accurate mobile mapping system. I like how the authors discussed the error sources in georeferencing the system, listed the source, and provided an explanation of the error.
Anyone performing a GNSS survey project that meets NGS’s requirements needs to read chapter 11. I like the section describing how users should evaluate CORSs before using them as control. Evaluating CORS is something all users should do before using any CORS in their project, because not all CORS are created equal. See the excerpt from chapter 11 below for the recommended steps from the author.
Excerpt from Chapter 11 – Steps for Evaluation of CORS
The author recommends the following steps:
1. Choose stations that are within 100-300 km of a project site. It is well known that errors in GNSS baseline processing are directly correlated with baseline length (Chapter 6). Tropospheric delay is reduced when baselines are shorter and atmospheric conditions at each end of the line are similar. In addition, mutual satellite visibility at each end of the line for differencing diminishes as baselines grow longer. That said, errors in GNSS processing are more occupation time-dependent than baseline length-dependent (Eckl et al. 2001). Therefore, for short GNSS sessions (i.e., < 2 hours), choose CORS within approximately 100 km as control; for moderate GNSS sessions (i.e., 2 to 8 h), choose CORS within approximately 300 km. Note that even longer baselines can be successfully processed when GNSS sessions are very long in duration (e.g., up to 2,000 km for 24 h sessions).
2. Determine if GNSS data are available at a given CORS during the time of your survey. Of course, if data are unavailable, then the station simply cannot be used as control. NGS provides a tool known as “User Friendly CORS (UFCORS)” for entering a date and time range to view available data at a given station (NGS 2021c). This tool can also be used to download the raw GNSS data for processing and adding a station to the survey network.
3. As discussed previously and when possible, choose a CORS with computed velocities rather than modeled velocities from HTDP. NGS provides tables of official coordinates with “computed” versus “htdp” coordinates and velocities on the website for CORS.
4. Review the aforementioned short-term time-series plot for the station, ideally at the time of the project. Stations with large spikes, data gaps, bias from the published “red” line, or large standard deviations should be avoided. A good rule-of-thumb is for the RMS in the short-term time-series plot (Figure 11-2) to be less than 1.0 cm in north and east and 2.0 cm in the up direction in a local geodetic horizon frame at the station.
5. Examine the formal uncertainties for the official coordinates of the CORS. Standard deviations in north, east, and up are provided on the station’s datasheet, accessible from the webpage for the CORS (more on datasheets are discussed in the following under Passive Control). Stations with unusually large standard deviations (> 3 cm) should be avoided. Note that standard deviations are not available for CORSs with modeled velocities.
I believe that the evaluation of NOAA CORS is critical, so I’ve described Dan Gillins’ “Steps for Evaluation of CORS” below. First, users can access the NOAA CORS using the NGS CORS Map utility. After the map appears, users can move the cursor over the center of the project area, where it provides the location of the cursor and the three closest CORS. Users can click on a CORS icon and get coordinates and other information about the CORS. Also, they can place an X on the map, and the utility will draw a 250-km circle around the point. The box in the lower left-hand side of the map provides a list of the sites within 250 km of the marked location.
Users can download the NOAA CORS coordinates and velocities (computed and modeled). I downloaded the files and plotted three circles (with radii of 100, 200, and 300 km) around CORS NC77 in Charlotte, North Carolina. I only plotted CORS that are operational and have computed velocities. North Carolina has a lot of CORS to select from. In contrast, I’ve plotted three circles (also with radii of 100, 200 and 300 km) around CORS WYRF in Casper, Wyoming.
Buffer Zones around Charlotte, NC
Image: Dave Zilkoski
The plot depicting the buffer zones around Casper indicates that there are no CORS within the 100-km circle and only a few between 100 and 200 km.
Buffer Zones around Casper
Image: Dave Zilkoski
The data availability of the CORS site can be obtained by clicking on the CORS icon, selecting “Get Site Information,” and then selecting “Data Availability.”
There are too many chapters to describe each one, but I encourage users to check each chapter’s abstract on the ASCE website and decide which ones would be the most beneficial to them (see the box titled “Abstract for Chapter 11 Survey Control”). The manual provides numerous references and can serve as a helpful resource for finding further details on the fields of geodesy and surveying.
A goal of mine is for some readers of this column to obtain enough knowledge to “whet their appetite” and encourage them to pursue an education in geodesy and surveying. Others who are influential in federal government programs and those responsible for geospatial research for industries will recognize the need for more trained geodesists in the United States and help by doing the following:
actively market geodesy in high schools as a rewarding career for the math stars before college entry
build back, support, and sponsor geodesy programs at select universities; this support needs to be strategic with backing from the highest levels of the U.S. government
encourage U.S. government support in the form of grants, professional development of staff, and research collaborations/affiliations.
A Garmin inReach with a map showing incidents. (Photo: Garmin)
InReach devices have provided SOS assistance on seven continents in more than 150 countries
Garmin International has announced that 10,000 SOS incidents have been aided with its inReach handheld device. InReach technology allows for location tracking, two-way text messaging, and critical SOS emergency-response services.
The Garmin inReach provides two-way communication and a coordination center staffed 24/7 to serve users engaging in activities such as mountain climbing or camping.
Garmin provided the following insights into who is using the device’s SOS capabilities, where, and in what situations. For more data insights, visit this blog.
The top five activities that produced incidents include hiking/backpacking, driving, motorcycling, climbing/mountaineering and boating.
Mountain regions such as the Pacific Crest Trail, the European Alps, and nearly all of New Zealand seem to have a high propensity for SOS incidents. However, cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Aspen have all reported SOS incidents ranging from cycling to hiking.
Medical emergencies and injuries represent nearly 50% of the global SOS incidents, highlighting the preparedness inReach provides users to meet unexpected or unforeseen events.
Nearly one in five incidents were triggered by a good Samaritan, who purchased a device for their own peace of mind but were able to assist someone else in need.
The second highest number of SOS triggers (12%) comes from driving incidents. Many driving SOS incidents involve people needing help while on the road and outside of cellphone service.
A few InReach incidents are pet emergencies, unexpected natural disasters, and reuniting a child with a parent.
Garmin Response center
The inReach devices have a dedicated SOS button and 100% global Iridium satellite network coverage. Users can quickly report an SOS should an emergency occur.
Once an SOS is reported, even if no other action is taken by the user, the device sends a distress message to Garmin Response, a 24/7-staffed professional emergency response coordination center.
Garmin Response will communicate with the individual in distress, his or her listed emergency contacts, applicable search-and-rescue organizations and other available local resources. The staff will deliver a confirmation when help is on the way, provide updates on the status of the response effort, and remain engaged until the incident is resolved.
“The two-way communication of inReach is so important in an emergency situation,” said Sarah Kramlich, Garmin senior director of services and subscription strategy. “After initiating an SOS, Garmin Response will ask questions to learn more about the incident and what appropriate first responses are needed for rescue, whether a tow-truck or helicopter.”
Tbe company has received Global Certification Forum validation of 5G LBS Assisted-Galileo test case
Keysight Technologies Inc. has gained Global Certification Forum (GCF) validation of a 5G location-based services (LBS) assisted-Galileo (A-Galileo) test case by combining 5G new radio (NR) and GNSS technology.
The achievement will accelerate implementation of LBS in smartphones by enabling mobile phone vendors to verify that designs comply to the latest 3GPP specifications that support accurate location positioning in a wide range of sectors.
Sectors include healthcare, road and aerial transportation, emergency and rescue services, public safety, and homeland security. Highly precise positioning services also enable mobile operators to deliver personalized services supporting entertainment, hospitality and retail applications.
LBS leverages different technologies, including GNSS, beamforming and round-trip time to geographically locate a user. LBS test cases allow users to verify sensitivity, accuracy and dynamic range in mobile phones that leverage GNSS constellations to identify precise geographic location.
S8705A RF/RRM DVT and Conformance Toolset. (Photo: Keysight)
GCF conformance agreement group meeting #72, held Oct. 21, confirmed the validation of the first 5G LBS A-Galileo test case, which was supported by Keysight’s S8705A RF/RRM DVT and Conformance Toolset. The toolset provides access to a wide range of radio frequency, radio resource management, and development validation test cases used to verify 5G NR designs in both non-standalone and standalone deployment modes.
The S8705A toolset uses the E7515B UXM 5G Wireless Test Platform, a compact signaling test platform with multi-format stack support, rich processing power and abundant RF resources for emulating various mobility scenarios in a 5G network as well as a recommended GNSS emulator to deliver the LBS test case.
Canadian-based technology company SJAWS Technologies has developed a GPS monitoring system to assure the reliability of signals. The company’s Skysweeper service monitors the integrity of GPS signals and alerts users when interference occurs.
