GPS World articles from April 2006

GPS World archives from April 2006

Call in for backup.
April 1, 2006... Strengths. Weaknesses. Opportunities. Threats. The prudent designer, the canny marketer, the conscientious executive continually review the four categories. In these heady days of system interoperability and new satellites...

2015: Good times ahead.(European Commission's Galileo project)
April 1, 2006... Precise positioning by satellites stands on the brink of a new era. Over the last year, GPS and GLONASS have set themselves ambitious targets of upgrading their services in the near future, and Europe's Galileo is taking big steps forward to...

Federal RadioNav Plan addresses mix.(THE SYSTEM)
April 1, 2006... Publicly released in February 2006, the 2005 Federal Radionavigation Plan (FRP) represents the U.S. government's 12th iteration since 1980 defining current policy on the radionavigation systems mix, and replaces the last FRP issued in 2001. It...

WAAS clarification.(Wide Area Augmentation System)
April 1, 2006... The FAA's announcement (reported in March GPS World) that WAAS in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada may be significantly inhibited by relocation of WAAS-broad-casting satellite AOR-W before the new PanAmSat becomes fully...

Galileo loud and clear; second launch in September.(European Space Agency)
April 1, 2006... Although the European Space Agency (ESA) maintains a tight cloak around the results--other than stating "GIOVE-A transmits loud and clear"--signal transmission monitoring of the first Galileo test satellite goes on at several facilities,...

Peering into the future.(Munich Satellite Navigation Summit)
April 1, 2006... "My GPS navigator is my favorite electronic toy," the Nobel laureate told his audience. "In my rather large collection," he added with a twinkle. Theodor Hansch, director of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and sharer of the 2005...

A European manufacturer's perspective.(Septentrio Satellite Navigation)
April 1, 2006... On January 12, 2006, upon arrival in the United States after a long transatlantic flight, I received a message on my cell phone: "first Galileo signals received." It was an emotional and truly historic event for Septentrio, the fruit of many...

Forty-three tons of autonomous navigation.(Oshkosh Truck Corp. )(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... The emerging market for autonomous vehicles got a huge lift in January, when a heavy logistics vehicle navigated its own way through a proving grounds desert course with no human input, showcasing an immediate application for the U.S. Army...

Single-chip ANTARIS 4 arrives.(TRACKING & WIRELESS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Atmel Corp. of Heilbronn, Germany, and u-blox AG of Thalwil, Switzerland, have released their GPS technology ANTARIS 4 in an ultra-small form. The new single-chip ATR0630 measures 7 x 10 millimeters and integrates a complete ANTARIS 4 GPS...

eRide to combine Galileo, GPS.(TRACKING & WIRELESS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... eRide, Inc. has opened a European Development Center in Munich, Germany, to tap into Munich-based Galileo cluster industries and develop chipsets and software combining GPS and Galileo technology. Jens Bodenkamp, managing director of eRide...

NovAtel releases Galileo-ready receiver and antenna.(SURVEY & MAPPING / NAVIGATION & GUIDANCE)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... NovAtel Inc. of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, has released its first production-standard Galileo-ready receiver and antenna. The new L1 L5E5a receiver offers 16-channel tracking of GPS L1/L5, Galileo L1/E5a, and SBAS signals in a Euro form-factor...

2005 financial roundup: leading GPS providers saw positive growth in 2005 as evidenced by reported annual earnings.(THE BUSINESS)
April 1, 2006... NovAtel Inc. (NASDAQ:NGPS) reached record growth with annual revenues of $63.3 million Canadian ($51.9 million U.S.) compared to $53.9 million Canadian for 2004. Revenue grew by 17 percent and net income by 30 percent over last year. NovAtel's...

TomTom marches into U.S. market.(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... America chose TomTom as the second most popular brand for mobile navigation during the fourth quarter of 2005, accounting for 25 percent of unit sales, according to The NPD Group, a provider of retail market information. NPD information is...

Leica references big apple.(SURVEY & MAPPING)(Leica Geosystems Inc.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... The New York State Department of Transportation has contracted with Leica Geosystems Inc. of Norcross, Georgia, to supply GPS reference stations and networking software to create a statewide network of permanently installed, continuously...

RFMD software-based GPS circuit.(TRACKING & WIRELESS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... RF Micro Devices, Inc., of Greensboro, North Carolina, has designed the RFMD GPS RF8110, a new software-based GPS circuit, to meet goals of lower cost and size in mobile devices. The RFMD GPS RF8110 is designed for integration of GPS...

New edition of GPS reference text.(Understanding GPS: Principles and Applications)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 1, 2006... The second edition of Understanding GPS: Principles and Applications, edited by Elliott Kaplan and Christopher Hegarty of The MITRE Corporation, provides a current and comprehensive treatment of GPS in 682 pages, comprising 12 chapters and...

Furuno chooses SiGe circuits.(NAVIGATION & GUIDANCE)(Furuno Electric Company Ltd.)(SiGe Semiconductor Inc.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Furuno Electric Co. of Hyogo, Japan, has selected SiGe Semiconductor of Ottawa, Canada, to supply GPS radio circuits for its navigation products. SiGe Semiconductor has already shipped more than 1 million GPS radio integrated circuits to Furuno...

GPS phones will boom, but hurdles loom.(global positioning system)
April 1, 2006... Of all the applications of GPS, the one offering the biggest and most broad-based business opportunities--and some of the greatest challenges--may be the cell phone. Mobile phones enabled with GPS are expected to increase in number at an...

Radar'd out: GPS vulnerable to high-power microwaves; Commercial GPS equipment, often present in military applications, is not designed to survive in one of the world's harshest electromagnetic environments--the topside of a modern naval warship. One ship's radar can often disable another nearby ship's GPS antennas.
April 1, 2006... Commercial GPS units are quickly proliferating on both civilian and military vessels plying the world's waterways and can be found in an increasingly wide variety of places including remote navigational systems, automatic piloting systems,...

EGNOS takes flight: aviation trials signal benefits in difficult approach environments; Tests of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) indicate the system's future capabilities as a navigation aid for the aeronautical community, particularly in approaches to mountain-based airports and other challenging environments.
April 1, 2006... Traditional navigation methods have long fallen short of requirements for airports in mountainous locations such as the Alps. Not all airports are equipped with expensive instrument landing systems (ILS) that enable pilots to land and take off...

Drive-by DTM: GPS and GSM power cost-effective terrain modeling; A data teletransmission system for quick and efficient creation of digital terrain models (DTMs) forms the backbone of experimental work in the transmission of differential GPS and real-time kinematic (RTK) corrections. A roving vehicle carries the system and collects data for a precise DTM.
April 1, 2006... Precise navigation, land surveying, and fleet-vehicle monitoring all require reliable, stable, and inexpensive wireless connections. Our previous experience with conventional UHF radio modems clearly showed that this type of data...

Spacecraft Navigator: autonomous GPS positioning at high Earth orbits.(global positioning system)(Column)
April 1, 2006... Calculating a spacecraft's precise location at high orbits--22,000 miles (35,400 kilometers) and beyond--is an important and challenging problem. New and exciting opportunities become possible if satellites are able to autonomously determine...

Correction.(Correction notice)
April 1, 2006... Some equations appearing in the sidebar "Minding Your Is and Qs" in the February 2006 "Innovation" column were incorrect. A corrected version of the sidebar can be found at http://gauss.gge.unb.ca/gpsworld/Minding_Your_Is_and_Qs.fixed.pdf.

GPS testing and simulation.
April 1, 2006... Mistral Software's next-generation Navigation Reference Design uses the SiRFstarlll GPS chip set to create a simulation platform for testing GPS and wireless applications. The Navigation Reference Design supports Navman's SmartST navigation...

Track Stick location recorder.
April 1, 2006... The Track Stick by Telespial Systems can precisely calculate its own position to within 15 meters, then show that position on graphical maps and 3D satellite images. The size of a pack of chewing gum, the Track Stick records location, time,...

Customized patch antennas.
April 1, 2006... Sangshin's KSA Series from CompoTRON Germany is a miniature antenna element specially designed for GPS. The patch antenna has excellent stability and sensitivity through the use of high-performance proprietary ceramic material well suited for...

GPS observation data software.
April 1, 2006... PPro2 Static from Kinematic GPS is a Windows-based program that processes raw GPS observation data to improve positioning accuracy. Using two static GPS receivers, one of which must be at a known position, the software reportedly can achieve...

Photogrammetry integrated system.
April 1, 2006... The Aerial Inertial Camera System comprises a high-resolution 39 megapixels fully calibrated metric camera, inertial measurement unit (IMU), inertial dual-frequency GPS receiver, and the SoftNav INS real-time navigation and remote camera...

Agricultural sprayer control.
April 1, 2006... The Swath Manager 5 from Mid-Tech enables automatic on-off control of sprayer boom sections based on GPS positions. An accessory to the CenterLine Lightbar, Swath Manager 5 can improve the efficiency of product application by decreasing...

Know where your jacket is?(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... A wearable "Know Where Jacket"--equipped with GPS, GSM, and Bluetooth capabilities--debuted at the CeBIT high-tech trade show in Hanover. According to manufacturer Interactive Wear AG of Starnberg, Germany, the integration of the active...

Scientists hold volcano watch.(Augustine Volcano)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Scientists are using a network of telemetered GPS receivers to keep a close watch on Augustine Volcano in lower Cook Inlet, Alaska. The Trimble receiver network, operated by the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO), provides a continuous record of...

Oh, deer--busted!(Saskatchewan wildlife officials launched the investigation for poaching)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Evidence on a GPS navigation device found in a hotel room led to the arrest of five hunters in Quebec, Canada, for poaching, CBC News reported March 6. The hunters were fined $40,000. The poaching ring came to the attention of authorities when...

Once tracking fly balls, now tracking flames.(Albert Belle's former girlfriend filed case against him for stalking)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Former Major League baseball player Albert Belle appeared in a Scottsdale, Arizona, courtroom March 6 to plead not guilty to charges that he used a GPS device to stalk a former girlfriend, according to the Associated Press. Last month, the...