GPS World articles from May 2003

GPS World archives from May 2003

GPS delivers. (The View from Here).(Editorial)
May 1, 2003... We've all heard the much-parodied unofficial motto of the U.S. Postal Service: "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." Well, I don't know whether the...

How accurate is GRACE? (Letter to the Editor).(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2003... I read the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) article in the February issue of GPS World with great interest. I heartily agree that the GRACE represents a tremendous boon to the study of Earth's gravitational field. I do not want...

This is war: FCC's disputed limits. (Washington View).(Industry Overview)
May 1, 2003... GPS users face yet another fight to protect GPS signal frequencies. As with most conflicts, the immediate skirmish belies a much larger war with far more at stake. The most recent Middle East conflict has generated war analogies for...

Galileo breakthrough: while obstacles remain. (Global View).
May 1, 2003... A prolonged stalemate among European Space Agency (ESA) members over their roles and shares of the Galileo project appears to have been resolved. An ESA Council meeting scheduled April26 was expected to finalize a plan. The breakthrough...

New IIR satellite goes to war. (Global View).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... The Air Force fast-tracked operational setting of the latest GPS IIR-9 satellite, launched March 31, reportedly to aid the Iraq war effort. Normally, GPS satellites require about 60 days for system checks and calibrations, but SVN45 became...

Safety at the wheel: improving KGPS/INS performance and reliability. (Integration Challenge).(Industry Overview)
May 1, 2003... Oncoming automobile capabilities such as lane-departure warnings and collision avoidance require real-time positioning accuracy of 10 centimeters or less. A new system integrating kinematic GPS, inertial measurement, wheel-speed data, and a...

From view to kill: integrated system guides ballistic missile intercept. (Challenge Integration).
May 1, 2003... Successful intercept of a ballistic target depends on the navigation performance of the Interceptor missile's GPS Aided Inertial Navigation System (GAINS), integrating an inertial measurement unit, GPS, and radar measurements for a blended...

GPS safety net GPS-Loran prototype processor. (Challenge Integration).
May 1, 2003... A prototype GPS-Loran integration processor generates GPS-only, Loran-only, and combined GPS-Loran solutions. Developed for Federal Aviation Administration testing in an effort to support and complement GPS in multimodal applications, it also...

Space weather: monitoring the lonosphere with GPS. (Innovation).
May 1, 2003... "Stormy today, clearing up tomorrow." That may sound like a typical forecast given by your local TV meteorologist, but it could just as well be a forecast of space weather. Here on Earth, high winds, heavy rains, deep snow, and other forms of...

Motorola and Avis navigate future. (Launches).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Motorola, Inc. of Schaumburg, Illinois, and Avis Rent A Car System of Parsipanny, New Jersey, are test marketing a new navigation service for rental car customers at the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, airport. Using a SiRFStarII GPS chipset inside...

Centrality offers GPS, Bluetooth, images. (Launches).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Centrality Communications -- a Santa Clara, California, company founded in 1999 with venture capital -- has launched Atlas, a line of OEM chipsets that integrates 16-channel GPS, Bluetooth, and digital camera image processing. Based on the...

RF Micro acquires Channel assets. (Deals).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... RF Micro Devices, Inc., has established a Boulder, Colorado, facility by acquiring assets of Channel Technology and hiring the company's Boulder employees. Channel Technology is a mixed-signal semiconductor company that produces wireless data...

FastraX ups ware. (GPS Inside).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... FastraX Ltd. of Helsinki, Finland, has released firmware version 1.08 for its iTrax02 GPS receiver. The upgrade includes iLogger, with autonomous logging of up to 40,000 position fixes into embedded flash memory for fleet management and other...

Correction.(Brief Article)(Correction Notice)
May 1, 2003... DeLorme Handheld A news item in the April issue about DeLorme's Earthmate GPS receiver incorrectly stated the power requirements. It requires less than 60 milliwatts (mW) in tricklepower mode, and 175 mW at full power.

Trimble deals for inside position, real-time location information. (GPS Inside).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Trimble's GPS capabilities and Rosum Corporation's television-based positioning technology will combine in a effort to provide continuous indoor and outdoor positioning. Trimble (Sunnvyale, California) plans to develop a range of products that...

Receiver and antenna. (Receiver Technology).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... CMC Electronics introduces the Navistar self-contained GPS receiver and antenna that incorporates the Superstar II GPS OEM card and is designed for use with notebook PC navigation systems, hand-held PCs, or PDAs. The 3.25 X 4.5 X 1.71 inch,...

GPS chipset. (Receiver Technology).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... The two-chip VQFN low-power GPS chipset from Trimble and Infineon Technologies is available in a form factor measuring less than one square centimeter. The chipset comprises one baseband application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and one...

GPS receiver. (Receiver Technology).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... Topstar 3000 from Alcatel Space is an L1-C/A GPS receiver for spacecraft applications. The unit includes one to four parallel RF/IF sections, 15-30 parallel channels, RS422 or MIL-STD-1553 data interface, 21-volt to 50-volt power bus, and OCXO...

GPS data collector. (Receiver Technology).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... NordNav's GPS SampleStreamer is a GPS L1 data-collection system that records GPS signals at the sampled intermediate frequency. The device, which measures 57 X 32 X 100 millimeters, uses a 28-dB gain antenna, 1 or 2 bits per sample, and is...

Calendar 2003.(Calendar)
May 1, 2003... MAY 15-16 Spirent Federal Users Conference Anaheim, California. Spirent Federal Systems U.S. Users Conference covers simulator product developments, features and testing techniques, training, and papers on users' applications. See ... .