The official portrait of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh as Master of Trinity House. (Image: Trinity House)
Prince Philip, technology advocate, championed both GPS and alternative navigation methods during his lifetime.
Prince Philip — the Duke of Edinburgh and husband of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom — died on April 9 at Windsor Castle in England. He was 99. His funeral will take place April 17.
As the Master of Trinity House, Prince Philip was the U.K.’s authority for lighthouses in England, Wales, the Channel Islands and Gibraltar. Trinity House is also responsible for the provision and maintenance of other navigational aids, such as light vessels, buoys and maritime radio/satellite communication systems.
In its extensive coverage of his death, the BBC aired a radio program in its World Service that mentioned the prince’s knowledge and concern about GPS. “As Master of Trinity House, he was infuriated that people didn’t understand what would happen if GPS were shut down,” said the narrator.
Real Admiral Sir Jeremy de Halpert was Prince Philip’s deputy master at Trinity House. “ Prince Philip from the very beginning understood that it was a single point of failure,” de Halpert told the BBC. “GPS can be jammed very easily… He encouraged us to move ahead and make sure the country has a failsafe backup, which we have done, and it is now operational,” he said.
Below is the section of the documentary where the prince’s support for GPS and a GPS backup is discussed.
GPS World thanks Innovation editor Richard Langley for sharing the material.
XPeng Motors‘ new XPeng P5 smart electric vehicle is equipped with automotive-grade lidar technology. The P5 has “navigation guided pilot” (NGP) capabilities, which will be on China’s city roads for the first time in a production vehicle, powered by XPeng’s full-stack in-house developed autonomous driving system XPILOT 3.5.
The XPILOT 3.5 autonomous driving system has a high-precision positioning unit (GNSS + inertial measurement unit, or IMU) along with 32 perception sensors — two lidar units, 12 ultrasonic sensors, five millimeter-wave radars and 13 high-resolution cameras. The sensors are fused into a 360° dual-perception system to provide sufficient redundancy to handle challenging and complex road conditions.
The double-prism lidar units are able to distinguish pedestrians, cyclists and scooters, static obstacles, and road work, in challenging scenarios such as night and low-light conditions, backlighting and alternating light-and-dark illumination in tunnels.
Extending the NGP function from highways to city diving, the P5 will be able to handle situations such as other autos cutting in, automatic follow and speed-limit optimization on urban roads, recognizing traffic lights as well as small objects.
The P5’s Xmart OS 3.0 in-car operation system supports all-voice interaction. It uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SA8155P auto-grade computing platform to ensure seamless user control and interaction. The instrument console includes a 15.6-inch screen with essential information and controls where the driver needs them. Xmart OS 3.0 also allows vehicle-to-home connection.
The P5 will be featured at Auto Shanghai 2021 on April 19.
New technologies use a variety of inputs to help ensure seamless navigation, even when GPS reception fails because of interference or jamming.
Honeywell has successfully demonstrated multiple alternate navigation technologies for military aircraft. These new products are intended to help ensure seamless navigation — even when GPS signals are blocked, interrupted or unavailable.
For military operations, GPS-jamming — intentional or not — can block vital signals from conveying critical information regarding positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). In these instances, it’s important for military vehicles and aircraft to be equipped with alternative navigation technologies, like celestial or vision navigation, to maintain operational readiness.
“For military operations, not having access to critical positioning and timing information can make or break a mission,” said Matt Picchetti, vice president and general manager, Navigation & Sensors, Honeywell Aerospace. “We’re very excited to roll out this robust lineup of alternate navigation solutions, which are specifically designed to address the needs of our military customers and give them the added layers of redundancy needed to successfully carry out their operations, even if they lose access to GPS signals.”
Illustration: Honeywell
Alternate navigation technologies provide a different means of measuring position, velocity and heading when GPS is disrupted. These technologies include:
Vision-aided navigation. This technology uses a live optical or infrared camera feed and compares it with maps to provide a passive, not jammable, highly accurate alternative PNT solution that provides GPS-like accuracy in GPS-denied or jammed conditions.
Celestial-aided navigation. Honeywell’s celestial-aided navigation technology observes stars and “reference objects” orbiting the earth such as satellites, which have known positions and velocities. This technology compares those reference objects to stars and can determine position and velocity, the same way a GPS receiver can.
Magnetic anomaly-aided navigation. This navigation technology measures magnetic strength using sensors and compares this data with known geographical magnetic maps to accurately identify the position of the aircraft relative to the Earth.
Prototypes of these alternate navigation systems will be available in 2022, with initial deliveries expected to start in 2023.
Honeywell navigation systems are used by nearly every aircraft flying to guide millions of passengers to their destinations. Since 1914 when the first autopilot used Honeywell gyroscopes to hold the plane stable during flight, Honeywell has delivered more than 500,000 high-performance inertial sensors across several platforms on land, in the air and at sea.
GTX Corp will begin testing its new Cat M1 LTE SmartSoles across North America, Europe and Australia, and will begin the regulatory certification process for FCC/IC and CE.
The following week will begin the device network certification with Verizon, which will be providing the cellular connectivity for the North American market. GTX will also be testing with Orange and Telefonica for connectivity in Europe and Australia.
“With over 200 back orders and increasing demand every day, we intend to begin production as soon as we complete testing and certification, expected sometime next month, and then immediately start fulfilling all pre-orders and backorders first,” said Andrew Duncan, GTX Corp. director.
The patented and award-winning GPS SmartSoles were designed to address Alzheimer’s and autism challenges, where those diagnosed are at risk of wandering and becoming lost. Wandering is a safety issue with far-reaching implications for the person with the disease, their caregiver, law enforcement and healthcare providers.
GPS SmartSoles are placed in the wearer’s shoes. They contain a Nordic Cat M1 LTE GPS module connected through cellular networks that send a GPS location to the GTX central monitoring website and app. GTX is also upgrading its tracking app both for iOS and Android.
The SmartSoles can also be used by people at risk of kidnapping, such as government employees, journalists and corporate executives. SmartSoles come in three trim-to-fit sizes for men, women, and children, are water resistant, include an inductive charging pad, and are assembled in Rhode Island.
The ION GNSS+ 2021 technical program is online, and registration for the event is now open. ION GNSS+ 2021 takes place Sept. 20-24 at the St. Louis Union Station Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri.
ION GNSS+ 2021: GNSS + Other Sensors in Today’s Marketplace, is the 34th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of the Institute of Navigation, and the world’s largest technical meeting and showcase of GNSS and GNSS-related technology, products and services.
“It’s exciting to be meeting in-person in St. Louis,” said Lisa Beaty, ION executive director. “We are expecting a pent-up demand as the community is eager to convene and get caught up. The ION GNSS+ 2021 technical and commercial exhibit is the best opportunity of the year to see what’s been happening in PNT [positioning, navigation and timing].”
ION GNSS+ 2021 features more than 300 technical presentations under two technical tracks: Commercial and Policy, and Research. The opening Plenary Session will feature two keynote addresses: “Towards a Smart Digital Reality: Building a Sustainable Future,” presented by Burkhard Boeckem, and “Artemis: Return to the Moon” presented by Steven Clarke, NASA.
For those unable to attend in person, ION GNSS+ 2021 will include a virtual option. Registration offers access to all on-demand conference content, live streams of select sessions, proceedings, as well as recordings of the sessions that were live streamed during the conference. ION GNSS+ Virtual Registration includes virtual contact with ION GNSS+ exhibitors and CGSIC’s technical program.
To view the ION GNSS+ 2021 technical program and to register, go to ion.org/gnss.
Hyper Precise Location (HPL), a real-time kinematics (RTK) service, is now available via Verizon ThingSpace to customers and application developers in more than 100 U.S. markets. When paired with Verizon’s 5G Edge capabilities, HPL provides precise positioning data for emerging cellular-vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) technology, which is necessary for certain safety applications.
Verizon recently teamed with automakers to demonstrate vehicle-pedestrian safety scenarios made possible through HPL, 5G Edge and C-V2X.
HPL is software as a service (SaaS) that provides a stream of real-time GNSS correction data to device receivers, enabling location accuracy within 1-2 centimeters, for users on 5G and 4G networks. This can enable high-scale, low-cost, centimeter-level location capabilities for industries such as automotive, HD mapping, robotics, construction, and smart agriculture (AgriTech). Designed and deployed in a privacy-protective manner, HPL does not store or share user location data.
HPL embraces open delivery standards including RTCM for its data streams, with others to be added on a rolling basis. IoT devices using HPL can be accessed and managed through a user API and the ThingSpace IoT management platform. Support resources on ThingSpace will detail API integration, coverage availability, and more.
“Hyper Precise Location stands to boost or enable next-gen technologies across industries, from intelligent-driving to drone delivery to highly automated operations within construction, agriculture, and much more,” said TJ Fox, SVP of Industrial IoT and automotive for Verizon Business. “HPL’s fast expanding coverage area, API friendliness, privacy protection, and use of open-delivery standards make it ideal for developers and customers demanding precision and flexibility.”
In August, Verizon announced it is also developing HPL next-gen road safety and highly advanced driving solutions through partnerships with location and mapping expert HERE Technologies (HERE) and Renovo, the automotive software company. HPL can also support other emerging technologies that depend on high-level location accuracy, such as delivery drones, and advanced IoT applications, such as infrastructure monitoring, critical asset tracking, and high value shipping.
U-blox is partnering with ArduSimple, a Spanish company seeking to facilitate the adoption of centimeter-level GNSS technology for mass-market applications.
The companies partnered to develop the SimpleRTK2B single-board computer (SBC). The device, which is built around up to three u-blox ZED-F9P high-precision GNSS receivers, simplifies the development of centimeter-level positioning solutions supporting real-time kinematics (RTK), making the technology accessible to broader audiences.
The SimpleRTK2B-SBC was developed to make RTK technology as close to plug-and-play as possible. In addition to working as a stand-alone solution, customers can program their own applications with the company’s microPython API.
The SimpleRTK2B-SBC delivers mechanical integration with centimeter position on three axes (heading, pitch and roll), outputting on NMEA, RTCM, RS232 and CANBus interfaces via Ethernet, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 2G/3G/4G communication. It offers configurable input/output and an inertial measurement unit.
Firefighters in Slovenia. (Photo: tomazl/E+/Getty Images)
Public Safety Communication Europe (PSCE) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have signed a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) to support the use of satellite applications for public safety.
ESA and PSCE will work together under the new MoI towards establishing interoperable public safety communications systems.
The MoI will support the emergence of space-based applications in the public-safety domain such as public safety services relying on secure mobile broadband communication solutions. These include applications within disaster preparedness, response and resilience, situational awareness, assessments of damages, navigation-based services for tracking and coordinating rescue forces on-site and for emergency vehicles.
“ESA Space Solutions and the 4S Strategic Programme Line will support through this agreement the emergence of solutions making use of secure satellite communications for institutional public safety user communities,” said Rita Rinaldo, ESA. “This can be achieved as of today through existing satellite telecommunications infrastructures. In the future it will be possible to make use of new and innovative infrastructures with enhanced capabilities. Early pilots and demonstrations will showcase the unique benefits granted by satellites to the user communities and early adopters.”
“The cooperation with ESA will help to explore complementary solutions that will contribute to cover capability gaps and needs for public safety. It is of extreme importance to improve public safety communication systems with cutting-edge and rapidly deployable solutions that will facilitate PPDR missions,” explained Marie-Christine Bonnamour, PSCE.
The first step for ESA and PSCE cooperation will be PSCE participation in ongoing user studies on “Satellite Applications for Public Safety.” PSCE will help identify the needs of public safety stakeholders such as emergency services, fire brigades and law enforcement.
Trimble to provide reliable in-lane positioning for the year-long research program
Trimble and VSI Labs have formed an alliance, with Trimble serving as the GNSS precise positioning supplier for VSI’s autonomous research vehicle program. The alliance officially kicked off in March at Destination ACM, a long-distance driving event for VSI’s research vehicle that continues with additional events throughout the year.
The collaboration provides the opportunity to showcase Trimble RTX technology as the trusted precise-positioning correction source for car manufacturers and their suppliers. Coupled with Trimble’s inertial positioning, Trimble RTX plays a pivotal role in a vehicle’s ability to maintain accurate and reliable lane-discipline during autonomous driving.
Destination ACM launched from VSI’s Minneapolis headquarters en route to the American Center for Mobility’s (ACM) test center in southeast Michigan where a day of testing and demonstration took place March 26.
“The integration of Trimble’s precise RTX positioning is a key element of VSI’s technology stack for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicle (AV) applications,” said Stephen Ruff, general manager of Trimble’s On-Road Autonomy Division. “VSI Labs is a leading researcher of best-in-class technologies critical to autonomous vehicle development.”
Suitable for on-road driving applications, Trimble RTX corrections operate on a single, global network. Drivers are not subject to the coverage outages that can exist when relying on local positioning systems — requiring line-of-sight to a positioning source or radio/cellular/internet connections.
When occasional obstructions are present, such as a bridge, tunnel or deep urban or rural canyon, Trimble augments its precise GNSS positioning with inertial technology to maintain continuous positioning and orientation while on the road.
Trimble’s innovative GNSS positioning is being used on the road today by a number of automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to improve the functional safety and performance of ADAS for passenger vehicles. Consumers have logged more than 7 million miles using Trimble RTX for lane-level positioning to date.
“VSI Labs is thrilled to have Trimble’s RTX technology on board,” said Phil Magney, founder and president of VSI. “Trimble’s positioning capabilities allow us to really expand our applied research on the safety and performance of autonomous and ADAS driving solutions.”
Trimble GNSS positioning technology will be used in the VSI research vehicle during each of the quarterly Destination ACM events, the Drive World Conference in Silicon Valley in August, the VSI 2021 “Drive South,” and other events this year.
For more about autonomous vehicles, see our June issue.
The physical and digital world are integrating. We are nearing the edge of the analog universe. Physical immersion is giving way to virtual immersion. It is the virtualization of products and services in the evolution of technology. Michael Saylor calls it the sixth wave of software engineering. We are moving away from externally experiencing data and are moving towards actively interfacing with data directly in virtual space.
“You can Zoom anywhere at the speed of light and bend time and space.” — Michael Saylor
The world of tomorrow is already here. We are waking up to it. The blips of information at the fringes are coming nearer. The horizons of time are as far as one can see into the future and the past. How far can you see? From wherever you are there are others who can see a little further. Look forward. Look back. Others are ahead and behind. They exist where time is most comfortable for them. Some take up positions living in the past. Some stake their place as far into the future as they are able. Look towards those early adopters. Ask them what they think. They see more clearly the blips of information out on the horizon.
What are those blips? How will they impact the geospatial community? How can you position yourself to take advantage of the coming trends?
America needs to go back to work and America’s infrastructure is old and in disrepair. In 2019, Congress introduced H.R.4687, the SMART Infrastructure Act, a $2 trillion bill but it never made it out of the House. However, that bill is being reintroduced. This time it will become a bill putting America back to work and its price tag will likely eclipse the previous bill. It will address infrastructure — all types of infrastructure: physical, data, cybersecurity, health, financial, transportation, energy, and communications. It will be a primary theme for the next two decades. Get ready! Change can happen fast and it’s about to accelerate.
“The future happens slowly and then all at once.” — Kevin Kelly
Rebuilding this infrastructure will require geospatial technologies. STEM has been the siren call for the past 30 years and for good reason. Those who heeded the call and invested their education into coding, engineering, data science, geospatial technologies, mathematics, artificial intelligence, and other STEM related fields are going to lead the coming workforce. Now is the time to get certified and establish your credentials.
Take the case of architectural design and construction. It used to be blueprints drawn on light tables. That is how I learned to do it back in the 1970s. Then it all moved to computer aided design (CAD) drawings. Now, urban planners and architects create immersive 3D virtual reality (VR) visualizations. That is becoming standard practice.
Project managers used to spend their day making their rounds walking the site ensuring the project was being built to specifications. However, that is changing. Soon, each worker’s safety glasses will have built-in augmented reality (AR). They will build their portion of a project exactly to plan. Project managers will connect with workers in the field and see the project they are working on progress in real-time while in their office on 3D models.
When the project manager does walk the site he or she will be wearing augmented reality (AR) head-up displays and able to compare the physical construction to the digital model in real-time. Backhoe and excavator operators will grade to exact precision. Robots will be common at construction sites assisting operations and enhancing current capabilities. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) will fly regular patterns over construction sites. Heavy-lift UAVs will supplement cranes for some operations. Subsurface structures, whether buried beneath the ground or behind a wall will be digitized with precise location data making future replacements and repairs swift and easy. The uses of geospatially dependent technologies will continue to grow. The construction worker of tomorrow will be very different than the one of today.
Photo: Trimble
The new infrastructure will be built with smart technologies and incorporate renewables and “green energy” initiatives with a responsible approach to sustainability; for example, roadways will have embedded peizo-electric crystals in the asphalt to generate electricity from passing vehicles. The electricity will charge batteries that will power smart sensors embedded in the street and provide power to street lights with sensors and 5G networks along the roadways. Excess power will transfer to other microgrids for use elsewhere. Energy will also come from capturing wind on top and along the sides of buildings, along roadways, and at tunnel exits and entrances. Thermocouples will capture heat and generate electricity.
Solar power will be generated from panels, windows, films, and even paint surfaces. All of these sources together will feed into microgrids. Some of this renewable energy will convert water to hydrogen for fuel cells, and some will power carbon dioxide (CO2) converters to extract CO2 from the atmosphere and create synthetic fuels. In 2010, Sunexus submitted a geospatial study of the solar reforming process to the Office of Scientific & Technical Information (OSTI). The study showed that nearly 58% of industrial CO2 waste from power plants, cement plants, ethanol production, and natural gas processing could be converted to synthetic diesel fuel.
Image: U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Besides energy, other smart materials will be used such as small sensors that are geospatially sensitive nanodevices embedded in roads, bridges, tunnels, buildings and other structures. They are wirelessly connected to one another creating a 3D mesh network. These nanodevices continuously report their structural health. This 3D mesh network can detect vibrations passing through it that cause distortions in the mesh framework.
Geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) will profile devices based on their normal statistical ranges. If any data such as location, temperature, humidity, pressure, acoustics or health status exceed the device’s standard deviation the GeoAI will analyze surrounding nodes in the mesh network to depict patterns. Suspect events will immediately come to the attention of emergency services. These microdevices can provide early detection of cracks in a structure or deterioration of a surface protection layer.
The use of these devices extends beyond structural monitoring. More broadly, they have societal applications too, such as for security purposes. When fitted with acoustic sensors they can detect sounds, and by geospatially analyzing the data from many thousands of devices the epic center of a noise event can immediately be located. Take for example a gun shot, fireworks, an explosion, or a vehicle accident. The increased acoustic signal would trigger the GeoAI monitoring the devices to plot a spatial analysis of the acoustic report. The map would alert area would flash red on the monitor at the control center and nearby cameras would zoom in on the location providing images and live video feeds all within moments of the triggering event. The analysts at the control center could immediately assess the situation and dispatch the proper response units.
Embedded devices also serve as seismic sensors blanketing broad areas and are able to record surface vibrations moving through the mesh network. An earthquake would appear as a moving wave field along the network.
Additionally, data from the mesh network can integrate with other devices. It can provide smartphones with precise location data. Imagine no longer standing on a street corner turning in circles trying to figure out which way to go. When connected with the mesh network and looking through AR glasses or the smartphone view screen the path will be illuminated. Autonomous vehicles will connect with the mesh network and have absolute positional accuracy and have awareness of other vehicles, bikes, and pedestrians ensuring a more safe and efficient experience for everyone.
The mesh network can be used as a base layer for georeferencing the world. Notifications, warnings and requests for information can be sent to smartphones within an exact georeferenced location. Imagine being in your third-floor apartment sitting in your chair, listening to music on your headphones and reading an ebook. You are oblivious to the noise outside. An audible alert is sent to your phone and calls your attention. You look at your phone and a message is requesting information related to a possible gunshot at DD°MM’SS.sss N, DD°MM’SS.sss W. You click on the notification and a map opens up. You see it is right outside your window. You go to the window, look outside and see two people duck into a car. You watch as red tail lights drive away. You look back at the location on the street where the vehicle had been and a person is slumped over leaning against a stairwell.
On your phone you press the red alert button on the map application triggering a distress signal and confirming the incident may have been a gunshot and someone has possibly been injured. Emergency services immediately dispatch. Others nearby received the same alert message because it was automatically generated and sent out to all phone numbers within the area defined by the geospatial acoustic solution. Surveillance cameras on the corner of buildings were also triggered by the alert and automatically focused on the origin of the noise. Images of the assailants were captured along with the license plate of the vehicle. As the vehicle drove away a network of surveillance cameras continued following it turn by turn until it was finally intercepted and the occupants apprehended.
This world is nearer than it seems. The technologies are already here. Once the infrastructure bill is passed construction projects will begin and our physical world will begin to integrate with the digital world. The engineers design it. The construction workers and robots will build it. And it will be geospatial technologies holding it all together.
William Tewelow works for the Federal Aviation Administration. He is a graduate of the FAA management fellowship program. He served on special assignment to the U.S. Department of Transportation leading a national strategic geospatial initiative for the White House Open Data Partnership. He is a Geographic Information Systems Professional (GISP) and a speaker for the Maryland STEMnet Scholar program. He was among the first in the nation to earn a Geospatial Specialist Certification from the U.S. Department of Labor while working at NASA Stennis Space Center. He has degrees in Geographic Information Technology, Intelligence Studies, and is completing a masters degree in Organizational Management. William is a 23 year veteran for the U.S. Navy serving as a Geospatial Specialist, Imagery Intelligence Specialist, a Naval Aviator, a Meteorologist, and a Tactical Oceanographer. He is married, enjoys writing and traveling. His favorite quote is, “A man’s mind changed by a new idea can never go back to its original dimension.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
The United Kingdom’s National Timing Centre will conduct a two-phase series of funded studies and demonstrations focusing on “innovation in the dissemination and application of resilient time, frequency and synchronisation.”
The first round now being advertised is for feasibility studies of projects costing between £50,000 and £250,000. Total funding for the round is £2M. A briefing for interested parties will be held on April 20.
The second round and remaining funding will be devoted to technology demonstrations.
The UK’s National Timing Centre was established in response to several national studies and concerns about the vulnerability of space-based timing services.
Severe solar storms, called coronal mass ejections, were listed on the UK National Risk Register in 2012. While rare, these events can damage assets in space and on the ground.
Next month marks the 100th anniversary of the New York Railroad Storm. It was so powerful, telegraph offices were set on fire in the U.S. and Europe, fuses were blown, and equipment damaged. Even underwater telegraph cable traffic was affected.
Experts say if such a storm were to strike the Earth today, it would likely damage GPS and other GNSS satellites. At a minimum, it would charge the atmosphere and prevent signals from getting through for days.
Projects that will be considered for the UK competition must be technologies and application areas providing trust, assurance, security and resilience for time distribution.
While supported by Innovate UK, the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), which operates the virtual National Timing Centre, appears to be the primary agent for execution. NPL will offer applicants who are selected to participate in the feasibility study phase free technical consultation up to 12 hours, and free access to highly precise and accurate time signals from four NPL locations in the southeast of England.
Since its inception, the National Timing Centre seems to have concentrated on establishing distributed suites of atomic clocks, probably linked by fiber, as a first step to improving the nation’s timing resilience.
Industry observers have opined that future efforts are likely to focus on wireless distribution.
“Wireless requires less infrastructure and has no user limit,” said one. “It only makes sense they would go there once they feel they have a solid clock foundation.”
The competition is open to UK entities. Applications will be accepted April 19-June 9, with accepted participants notified on July 30.
Inertial Labs has released a new generation of GPS-aided inertial navigation systems (INS) for applications such as UAVs, helicopters and lidar surveys.
The company also has released two new inertial measurement units (IMUs) for measuring angular rates and accelerations for motionless and dynamic applications.
INS-DH-OEM
The INS-DH-OEM. (Photo: Inertial Labs)
The high-accuracy INS-DH-OEM is designed for easy integration into custom enclosures and higher order integrated system applications. It combines the HoneywellHG4930 inertial measurement unit (IMU) into a GPS-aided INS to provide high-accuracy orientation, position, velocity and timing for land and aerial systems.
Consisting of three axes each of high-precision accelerometers and gyroscopes, the accuracy of the HG4930 plays a key role in the exceptional performance of the INS-DH-OEM. With input from the IMU, the INS-DH-OEM has a pitch-and-roll accuracy of 0.015 degrees real-mean-squared (RMS) for dynamic applications, and a pitch-and-roll accuracy of 0.01 degrees for motionless applications.
Another key factor for the INS-DH-OEM is its use of the NovAtelOEM7720 dual-antenna GNSS receiver. The OEM7720 is an all-constellation, multi-frequency heading and positioning solution with TerraStar PPP correction services and advanced interference mitigation features.
With aiding data from the OEM7720, the INS-DH-OEM features a 2-meter baseline heading accuracy of 0.05 degrees RMS for both static and dynamic applications. As a result, the INS-DH-OEM is a high-performance solution in line-of-sight and beyond line-of-sight antenna-pointing applications.
A reliable solution in varying environments, the OEM7720 ensures that the INS-DH-OEM is outputting the most accurate GNSS-aided data by supporting GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo, NavIC (IRNSS), and QZSS constellations.
The INS-DH-OEM can be applied in a wide range of aerial applications such as remote sensing, flight control and photogrammetry in which the INS-DH-OEM provides accurate positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) data for multi-rotor drones, fixed-wing drones and other UAVs performing these tasks. This data is paramount in the accuracy of these applications’ deliverables such as point clouds, orthomosaics and photogrammetric plots.
Weighing 280 grams and measuring 85.7 x 62.5 x 52.0 mm, the INS-DH-OEM is a lightweight, compact system that can be fitted with custom enclosures or integrated into higher order systems such as lidar payloads. It is compatible with scanners from many lidar manufacturers: Livox, Velodyne, Ouster and Quanergy. This adaptability, coupled with top-of-the-line subcomponents and Inertial Labs’ sensor-fusion expertise, make the INS-DH-OEM the suitable for UAVs, UGVs, antenna pointing, and many more applications.
INS-U
The INS-U. (Photo: Inertial Labs)
The new INS-U GPS-aided INS with air data computer (ADC) output signal is based on a u-blox module.
The INS-U a fully integrated INS, attitude and heading reference system (AHRS), IMU and air data computer high-performance strapdown system that determines position, navigation and timing information for any device on which it is mounted.
The INS-U utilizes a single antenna, multi-constellation U-Blox GNSS receiver. With access to GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and BeiDou, the INS-U can be used in a variety of GPS-enabled environments and is protected against spoofing and jamming. Additionally, the INS-U is comprised of two barometers, a miniature gyro-compensated fluxgate compass, and tri-axis temperature calibrated advanced MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes. These high-performance sensors, along with Inertial Labs’ new on-board sensor fusion filter, state of the art guidance and navigation algorithms, provide accurate position, velocity, and orientation of the device under measure.
Perhaps the most defining feature of the INS-U is its embedded ADC. An essential avionics component for modern UAV applications, an ADC outputs static & dynamic pressure, pressure altitude, calibrated & true airspeed, true angle of attack, rate of climb, and wind speed of the device under measure. This data, combined with inertial reference information, provides UAVs with accurate information about the unit and its relation to its environment.
By using data from an INS, AHRS, IMU and ADC, the INS-U provides a complete navigation solution for UAV and Helicopter applications. The unit can use time-of-flight aiding data from a ground station for long term GNSS-denied conditions as well as external position and heading so it can still output accurate PNT information regardless of the environment.
The INS-U is a lightweight and compact solution with dimensions of 82 x 40 x 26 mm and a weight of less than 200 grams. This, along with an IP67 environmental enclosure, ensures that the INS-U can meet the environmental requirements and size and weight restrictions of a wide range of applications.
IMU-NAV-100
The IMU-NAV-100. (Photo: Inertial Labs)
The IMU-NAV-100 is a tactical grade IMU for wide range of higher order integrated system applications.
The newest addition to the Inertial Labs Advanced MEMS sensor-based family, the IMU-NAV-100, is now the best performing IMU that Inertial Labs offers. The IMU-NAV-100 is a fully integrated inertial solution that measures linear accelerations, angular rates, and pitch and roll with high accuracy utilizing three-axis high-grade MEMS accelerometers and three-axis tactical grade MEMS gyroscopes.
The IMU-NAV-100 features continuous built-in test, configurable communications protocols, electromagnetic interference protection, and flexible input power requirements which allow it to be easily integrated in a variety of higher order systems.
The IMU-NAV-100 line contains two options to accommodate a variety of projects.
The IMU-NAV-100-S is best for projects that require high performance stabilization for antenna and line-of-sight stabilization systems, motion control sensors, and platform orientation and stabilization systems. With a gyroscope angular random walk of 0.04 deg/√hr, the IMU-NAV-100-S is specialized to provide accurate data for stabilization applications.
The IMU-NAV-100-A is best used in a variety of systems such as GPS-aided INS, AHRS, and motion reference units. Regardless of the application, the IMU-NAV-100 is the company’s best performing IMU to date, providing a pitch-and-roll accuracy of 0.03 deg RMS. Fully calibrated, temperature compensated, and mathematically aligned to an orthogonal coordinate system, the IMU contains up to 0.5 deg/hr bias in-run stability gyroscopes and 0.003 mg bias in-run stability accelerometers with very low noise and high reliability.
