GPS World articles from November 2003

GPS World archives from November 2003

Geointelligence: a beginning.(The View From Here)
November 1, 2003... Origins powerfully shape our destinies--and our destinations. Navigators understand that as they initialize--literally, mark a starting point--their inertial systems. Surveyors invest in origins whenever they establish a point of beginning...

Lobby muscles up, Congress moves on E911.(GlobalView)
November 1, 2003... Measures to protect funding for wireless emergency call location capability passed out of committee onto the floors of both chambers of Congress, and an industry committee to promote public and legislative awareness of wireless 911...

Galileo progress: new alliances, ITTs.(Global View)
November 1, 2003... Europe is moving quickly to advance its Galileo project on political and programmatic fronts now that the European Union (EU) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have completed funding arrangements and established the Galileo Joint Undertaking...

Leap second may affect some units.(Global View)
November 1, 2003... The GPS Joint Program Office is seeking to alert the GPS community that a leap second insertion into Coordinated Universal Time on 27 November 2003 might cause a brief anomaly in some receivers. Exactly 256 weeks will have passed since the...

In memoriam.(Ivan A. Getting)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
November 1, 2003... Ivan A. Getting, astro physicist, founding president and president emeritus of The Aerospace Corporation, and a principal developer of the Global Positioning System, died October 11, at his home in Coronado, California. [ILLUSTRATION...

Keeping the lights on GPS and power grid intermesh.(Application Challenge)
November 1, 2003... Engineers rebuilding lower Manhattan's power supply grid in the wake of 9/11 attacks devised a GPS-clocked intermesh solution to bring new substations online. The process used GPS to measure power sine waves, and developed software to link GPS...

Seeing the road ahead: GPS-augmented reality aids drivers.(Integration Challenge)
November 1, 2003... Improvements in road safety often focus on reducing the severity of trauma, with features such as seatbelts and airbags, rather than on accident prevention. Now, however, developments in positioning and visualization technologies can improve...

Optimizing Indoor GPS performance: receiver frequency standards.(Innovation)
November 1, 2003... GPS was never intended for indoor environments, and indeed, the relatively weak satellite signals do not readily lend themselves to use in such environments. The Federal Communications Commission's E911 mandate has spurred significant effort in...

GeoIntel event previews new NIMA.(GPS Inside)
November 1, 2003... Against the backdrop of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency's (NIMA) move to refashion itself as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the naugural GeoIntel 2003 Symposium took place October 14-17, in New Orleans, Louisiana....

Septentrio adds L2C, other upgrades.(Launches)
November 1, 2003... Septentrio, a Belgian designer and provider of proprietary Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) OEM technology, has introduced a variety of upgrades to its GPS receiver functionality, including implementation of the new civil signal...

FastraX fixed on personal security.(Launches)
November 1, 2003... Traxer PST-1, a pocket-size personal security device from FastraX Ltd. of Helsinki, Finland, features a panic button that uses the company's GPS receiver to pinpoint user position, direction, and velocity. The unit autodials preset numbers or...

Trimble software, L2 surveying.(Launches)
November 1, 2003... Trimble introduced the R8 and R7 RTK GPS receivers, which can track the L2C civil signal by means of the company's R-track technology. The R8 realtime kinematic receiver includes an integrated antenna for portability, and the R7 has a separate...

Rockwell wins DAGR competition.(Deals)
November 1, 2003... The GPS Joint Program Office (JPO) has selected Rockwell Collins for full rate production and delivery of Defense Advanced GPS Receivers (DAGRs) over the next eight years, beginning in November 2004. The contract is expected to yield between...

Air Force GPS modernization contracts.(Deals)
November 1, 2003... The U.S. Air Force issued a pair of contracts in October to sustain and modernize the Global Positioning System space and ground segments. The Boeing Company received a $146.8-million award for work on upgrading the first three follow-on...

Garmin guys Garner glory.(People)
November 1, 2003... Serving notice that, indeed, there is money to be made in the GPS business, Forbes magazine named Garmin International co-founders Gary Burrell and Min Kao to its 2003 "400 Richest People" list. Current CEO Kao ranks 275th on the list, with a...

Signal processor.(Receiver Technology)
November 1, 2003... A signal processing device and a down converter IC chipset from NEC Electronics enables correspondence in three modes: mobile station (MS)-assisted, MS-based, and autonomous. When the mPD77534 device and mPB1009 RF/IF double-conversion...

Gps timing module.(Receiver Technology)
November 1, 2003... Trimble's PT Lassen is an embedded GPS receiver for timing applications such as telecommunications, broadcast synchronization, and wireless. The 26 X 26 X 0.24-millimeter 8-channel device for GPS or UTC time and synchronization contains the...

Digital integrated compass.(GPS-Related Hardware)
November 1, 2003... Honeywell's HMC6352 digital integrated compass is composed of two magneto-resistive sensors, two amplifiers, a set-reset drive circuit, and microprocessor and communicates via a two-wire I2C bus system. The 6.5 3 6.5 3 1.4-millimeter unit is...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
November 1, 2003... A listing in the August 2003 issue for Rakon's integrated IT5300B weak-signal-detection oscillator erred in stating the frequency gradient versus temperature. The correct figure is 50 ppb/degree C.

Calendar 2003.(Calendar)
November 1, 2003... DECEMBER 8-12 AGU 2003 Fall Meeting San Francisco, California. The American Geophysical Union covers geodesy, global climate change, and volcanology. E-mail meetinginfo@agu.org, or www.agu.org/meetings/fm03/. DECEMBER 15-19 ...