GPS World articles from June 2005

GPS World archives from June 2005

150 Innovations.(THE VIEW FROM HERE)(Editorial)
June 1, 2005... This may be a false recovered memory, but I believe I first came across the sesquicentennial concept while looking at the Lewis and Clark Expedition stamp of 1954. There they were: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark front and center, Sacagawea...

Journalistic sensationalism.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2005... As a long time reader of GPS World, I was very disappointed to read the March 2005 issue. Not that the material wasn't very valid and useful, but it was promoted with a cover headline, "Jamming--Inside Story" that was poorly chosen just to grab...

Launch delay for first block IIR-M.(GLOBAL VIEW)(GPS Constellation Sustainment Assessment Team)
June 1, 2005... A series of glitches has delayed launch of the first modernized Block IIR-M GPS satellite. The spacecraft will be the first with the capability to transmit the new military M-code on the L1 frequency and the second civil signal, L2C, which will...

Galileo authority chooses director.(GLOBAL VIEW)(European Global Navigation Satellite System Supervisory Authority appointed Pedro Pedreira)(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... The administrative board of the European GNSS Supervisory Authority has named a Portugal Telecom manager to serve as the group's first executive director. Pedro Pedreira, a Portuguese national, will head the supervisory authority for a...

Europe crafts space policy.(GLOBAL VIEW)(European Space Agency)(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... The Galileo global navigation satellite system (GNSS) now under development will remain the cornerstone of a European Space Policy, according to a European Commission (EC) communication issued May 24. Other European space program priorities are...

Unstuck in traffic: after years of development, experimentation, partnering, and testing, the in-vehicle navigation system (IVNS) is ready to hit the road in the U.S. with GPS positioning as a key component, the systems could save private car owners billions--of gallons, hours, and dollars.(LEADING EDGE)
June 1, 2005... For years, navigation systems have helped pilots and mariners avoid heavily trafficked areas while they aim to chart and follow the safest, most time- and fuel-efficient routes. On land, the integration of real-time traffic data with in-vehicle...

Traffic data anywhere portable navigation systems: mobile device manufacturers and cellular phone companies also take the on-ramp to the traffic-enabled vehicle navigation market.(LEADING EDGE)
June 1, 2005... "I've been in the navigation business almost a decade, and have seen several traffic aggregators and solutions come and go. I think traffic-enabled navigation systems' time has finally arrived," said Dave Marsh, Director of Navigation for Cobra...

Flexed for flight: tightly coupled integrated nav system adapts to data formats.(INTEGRATION CHALLENGE)
June 1, 2005... The demanding requirements of a new miniaturized synthetic aperture radar (MiniSAR) system, adaptable to different types of data according to prevailing conditions, led these researchers to implement an extended Kalman filter that can process...

Ionospheric modeling: the key to GNSS ambiguity resolution.(INNOVATION)
June 1, 2005... THE GPS CARRIER-PHASE OBSERVABLE IS MORE THAN 100 TIMES MORE PRECISE THAN THE CODE-BASED pseudorange observable. Unfortunately, it is also ambiguous. If we want to use the carrier phase as a range measurement in positioning or navigation, we...

Company directory.(BUYER'S GUIDE)(navigation system companies)(Directory)
June 1, 2005... 308 SYSTEMS Inc 2637 Wapiti Road Fort Collins, CO 80525 970/282-7006 fax 970/282-7006 info@308systems.com www.308systems.com 746th Test Squadron 1644 Vandergrift Road Holloman AFB, NM 88330-7850 ...

Products and services.(BUYER'S GUIDE)(navigation system companies)(Directory)
June 1, 2005... ACCESSORIES XTech Cable assemblies AeroAntenna Technology, Inc. Allis Communications Co. Ltd. Andrew Corporation BEI Systron Donner Inertial Div. Brandywine Communications C & C Technologies C-Nav ...

Phoenix airport deploys GPS-based vehicle-location system.(GPS INSIDE)(Bridge Technology Inc.)
June 1, 2005... The City of Phoenix is deploying Bridge Technology's GPS-based Next-Shuttle automatic vehicle location (AVL) solutions and services accessible via the Internet at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The AVL system equipping and...

Jabil buys majority stake in EMTAC.(GPS INSIDE)(Jabil Circuit Inc.)(EMTAC Technology Corp.)(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... Jabil Circuit Inc., an electronic manufacturing services company based in St. Petersburg, Florida, has agreed to acquire a majority stake in EMTAC Technology Corp. for about US$4.84 million. EMTAC of HsinChu, Taiwan, produces...

Sprint location-enables mobile workforces.(GPS INSIDE)(Sprint Business Mobility Framework)(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... After successful beta tests with about two dozen clients, wireless carrier Sprint out of Overland Park, Kansas, has launched the Sprint Business Mobility Framework to location-enable mobile workers. Sprint's new integrated location-based...

Four out of five GPS firms post profit, revenue gains.(GPS INSIDE)
June 1, 2005... Four publicly held "pure play" GPS manufacturers posted revenue and profit growth in their recent fiscal quarters, while one fell. Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based CSI Wireless Inc. hiked its first-quarter sales 47 percent to US$17.75...

RF Micro Devices' Bluetooth/GPS.(LAUNCHES)
June 1, 2005... RF Micro Devices Inc. of Greensboro, North Carolina, offers its new RF8900 Bluetooth/GPS providing position, velocity and time data to Bluetooth-enabled portable navigation devices, PDAs, cell phones, personal computers, sensors/smart antennas,...

Furuno to embed eRide technology.(LAUNCHES)(Furuno Electric Company Ltd.)(OPUS2e baseband technology )(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... Furuno Electric Co. Ltd. has licensed San Francisco, California-based eRide's high sensitivity (exceeding -161 dBM in autonomous or assisted modes) OPUS2e baseband technology into Furuno GPS modules and chipsets. Tokyo, Japan-based Furuno,...

GPS-enabled Itronix tablet PC.(LAUNCHES)(Duo-Touch Tablet PC)(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... Itronix Corp. of Spokane, Washington, has developed a second GPS-enabled notebook, the magnesium encased Duo-Touch Tablet PC, for mobile workforce/fleet management and dispatching applications. Target markets for the 3.9-pound tablet PC include...

Galileo Masters.(LAUNCHES)(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... A European competition for novel applications of global navigation satellite systems is offering business development support valued at 50,000 euros. The second annual Galileo Masters, organized by the Application Center Oberpfaffenhofen in...

Dead reckoning with SiRFDRive2.(LAUNCHES)(SiRF Technology Holdings Inc.'s SiRFDRive2 GPS/Dead Reckoning Software)(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... SiRF Technology Holdings Inc. of San Jose, California, unveiled a patent-pending SiRFDRive2 GPS/Dead Reckoning Software designed for navigation and telematics vehicle positioning applications. The software taps the vehicle data bus as a...

Errata.(LAUNCHES)(Correction notice)
June 1, 2005... The May article "Moving Platform Orientation" stated an incorrect boxcar width for low-pass filtered GPS data; the figure on page 31 should be "5 samples for 10 Hz data." The story also inverted the name of the Environmental Security Technology...

Stock tracker.(GPS INSIDE)(GPS devices making companies' stock prices)(Statistical data)
June 1, 2005... Note: GPS World's STOCK TRACKER is designed to detail general trends in the GPS community and key capital markets. The companies listed here are publicly traded and represent GPS "pure play" enterprises that derive most of their income from...

GPS utility.(GPS-RELATED SOFTWARE)
June 1, 2005... GpsGate from Franson allows users to run many GPS applications using a single GPS. By creating additional virtual ports, most NMEA-enabled GPS applications can connect via the utility. The GpsGate has a built-in simulator to mirror GPS...

14-channel chip.(RECEIVER TECHNOLOGY)
June 1, 2005... The Baldur ATR0640 GPS IP developed jointly by Atmel and Thales Navigation is a 14-channel GPS baseband IC priced at $5 per chip. The 12 x 12 LFBGA package has reported sensitivities of -137 dBm for acquisition and -150 dBm for tracking. The...

Tracking protocol.(TRACKING & WIRELESS)
June 1, 2005... GPSFlight's Decode DLL software library makes possible wireless GPS telemetry to any Windows application. This COM object comes complete with documentation allows application developers the ability to add support for GPSFlight wireless...

Wireless AGPS.(TRACKING & WIRELESS)
June 1, 2005... Trace Technologies combines Qualcomm's Snap Track Wireless Assisted-GPS the TRACE Asset Tag and the ReFLEX wireless network allowing users to locate critical assets and people quickly and easily in environments where conventional GPS loses...

Fleet management.(TRACKING & WIRELESS)
June 1, 2005... The Asset-Link 400 from CSI Wireless integrates GSM and AMPS for asset-tracking and fleet management. Utilizing a SiRFstarlle/LP12-channel GPS receiver, Asst-Link 400 offers stated accuracies of less than 6 meters (50 percent) and less than 10...

Angular Rate Sensor.(TIMING & SYNCHRONIZATION)
June 1, 2005... BEI Technologies' LCG50 is a single-axis, MEMS-based Quartz Angular Rate Sensor designed for integration with OEM applications. The LCG50 features a GyroChip sensor and all required electronics on a 26 x 26 x 10.7-millimeter PC board module....

Laptop GPS.(NAVIGATION & GUIDANCE)
June 1, 2005... The Earthmate GPS LT-20 from Delorme turns any laptop PC into a GPS navigator by integrating STMicroelectronics' Vespucci STA2501 chip and SiGe Semiconductor's SE4100L RF chip. Included with the LT-20 are Street Atlas USA 2005 software and...

Calendar 2005.(conferences on navigation systems)(Calendar)
June 1, 2005... * JULY 19-22 ENC/GNSS 2005 Munich, Germany. European Navigation Conference and GNSS symposium covers Galileo system and segment technology, status, and development; GPS and GLONASS modernization; augmentation systems; certification;...