GPS World articles from October 2005

GPS World archives from October 2005

Adventures in interoperability.(civilian evacuation in New Orleans)
October 1, 2005... As they tried to return to New Orleans after the levees failed in August, many first responders found themselves blocked by police barricades. The city was under emergency evacuation orders and, without contravening instructions, the City of...

First modernized GPS satellite.(GLOBAL VIEW)
October 1, 2005... The first IIR-M (replacement, modernized) GPS satellite has gone aloft. Carrying the capacity to implement the new military signals (M-code on L1M and L2M) and a second civil signal (L2C), the two-ton, $75 million GPS IIR-M1 spacecraft rose...

NGA data drives improved accuracy.(National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency)
October 1, 2005... Civilian users should see a 15-20 percent improvement in real-time navigational accuracy since the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA, formerly the National Imagery and Mapping Agency) brought additional monitoring stations online in...

PNT research center at Stanford.(Stanford University's new research center for research on global navigation satellite system )(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... Stanford University will open a new research center dedicated to advancing global navigation satellite system capabilities. "Research at the Stanford Center for Position, Navigation, and Time (SCPNT) is aimed at vastly extending and expanding...

Irish autos aim at toolbooth elimination.(Active Road Management Assisted by Satellite)(European Space Agency's European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service)(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... A study funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) seeks to determine if GPS data, augmented by European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) corrections, can be used to correctly calculate road usage in Europe, and collect tolls for...

Hurricane hunters: GPS dropsondes trace Katrina's course.(Hurricane Katrina)(global positioning system)
October 1, 2005... While many residents of Mississippi and Louisiana wisely ran from the oncoming Category Five hurricane that hit the Gulf Coast in August, a few scientific types were teaming with military pilots to fly into the eyewall of the mother of all...

A single-chip GPS receiver and the steps to mass-market Galileo: as GPS chip volumes per manufacturer reach millions for the automotive market and tens of millions for consumer GPS, the market map for a single-chip GPS changes considerably. The advent of Galileo will bring out the full benefits of sensitivity, creating an opportunity for low-cost, high-integration chips.(DESIGN CHALLENGE)
October 1, 2005... Palinuro offers a one-chip GPS solution from radio frequency (RF) input to NMEA output of position, or even running a customer application in addition, such as driving a GSM/GPRS modem for tracking or position reporting. Putting Palinuro in the...

Assistance when there's no assistance: long-term orbit technology for cell phones, PDAs.(TRACKING & WIRELESS)
October 1, 2005... Long-Term Orbit or "extended ephemeris" technology delivers assistance data to assisted GPS (AGPS) devices without requiring wireless connectivity to an AGPS server. Valid for a span of days, LTO data can be obtained through Internet docking,...

Turn, turn, turn: wheel-speed dead reckoning for vehicle navigation.
October 1, 2005... "LET US NOW CONSIDER AN INVENTION BY NO MEANS USELESS, AND DELIVERED TO US BY THE ANTIENTS as of ingenuity, by means of which, when on a journey by land or sea, one may ascertain the distance travelled. It is as follows. The wheels of the...

NovAtel's new multipath mitigation.(GPS INSIDE)(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... NovAtel Inc. of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, has released its Vision Correlator multipath mitigation technology, creating a model of satellites' unique signatures to detect added reflections and subtle irregularities in received signals. Available...

Taiwan, China to boost GPS receiver development.(GPS INSIDE)(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... GPS-enabled device manufacturers in Taiwan and mainland China, which often use SiRF Technology GPS chipsets and Sony single-chip solutions, are expected to integrate more "homegrown" GPS receiver solutions in the near future. Driven in...

Consumer awareness, enterprise interest grow.(GPS INSIDE)(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... WomensWallStreet.com, an online financial magazine for women, published its first annual Gadgets and Gizmos Survey, in which women purportedly reveal what they love, what they hate, and which of their mate's gadgets they would like to trash....

Five GPS device makers post increased sales.(GPS INSIDE)
October 1, 2005... CSI Wireless Inc. hiked its second-quarter sales 23 percent to $19,1 million. The company projects a net loss for the quarter of $1.1 million, stemming primarily from the acquisition of the Outback precision farming business. Garmin Ltd....

Spirent GPS-inertial simulator.(Spirent Communications' demonstration)(global positioning system)(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... Spirent Communication is demonstrating its GPS/inertial test capability with a LN100 GPS/inertial navigator running with the company's GPS simulator and SimINERTIAL package which simulates the inertial sensors. Spirent announced deployment of...

Atmel, u-blox low-power Antaris 4.(TRACKING/WIRELESS)
October 1, 2005... Atmel and u-blox announce the Antaris 4 architecture combining low power consumption with performance of up to-158 dBm tracking sensitivity. Enabled byAtmel's 0.18-micron CMOS technology for the ATR0621 baseband and BiCMOS technology for the RF...

SiRF's smaller SiRFstarllx.(SiRF Technology Inc.'s chipsets)(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... The SiRFstarllx family of chipsets and software adapts the company's SiRFstarll architecture for smaller size, lower power, and lower cost. Available in GSC2x, GSC2xr, and GSC2xrx formats, the product family consumes one-third the power and is...

Tramigo T21 GPS/GSM tracking.(global positioning system, global system for mobile communication)(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... Tramigo's (Espoo, Finland) T21 vehicle-tracking device allows car, truck, and boat owners with Nokia Series 60 GPS/GSM-enabled smart phones to track their transportation assets. Designed for plug in to a vehicle's cigarette lighter outlet, the...

Motorola unveils ASTRO 25 tracker.(TRACKING/WIRELESS)
October 1, 2005... Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola Inc. introduced its ASTRO 25 Personal Location Tracking Solution helping public safety dispatchers monitor personnel operating outdoors. Available on ASTRO 25 Integrated Voice and Data Systems, the device...

Traffic data for Cobra navigator.(Cobra Electronics Inc. introduced NAV ONE 4500 portable navigation device )(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... Chicago-based Cobra Electronics Inc. has developed the traffic data-enabled NAV ONE 4500 portable navigation device using the SiRFstarll e/LP GPS chipset and SiRFXTrac high-sensitivity software from SiRF Technology (San Jose, California)....

Entry-level Navman iCN 320.(by Navman USA)(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... Navman USA of Foothill Ranch, California, introduced the Navman iCN 320 pocket-sized personal navigator with street mapping data for the U.S, or Canada (separate versions) and a speaker delivering turn-by-turn directions. Offering estimated...

Symmetricom XL-750.(Global Positioning System time synchronization)(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... The XL-750 from Symmetricom addresses key power industry timing requirements, providing GPS time synchronization for the, control, or analysis of the power system. The XL-750 meets the recent recommendations from North American Electric...

Temex time GPS/Rubidium kit.(real time clock systems development kit)(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... Temex Time of Austin, Texas, offers a design kit for the development of low-cost, integrated GPS/Rubidium timing clock systems. The kit comes with a GPS receiver, antenna and related cable accessories, and a smart GPS-disciplined SRO-100...

IEC battlefield control systems.(Interstate Electronics Corp.'s control/mobile network information systems )(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... Anaheim, California-based Interstate Electronics Corp. (IEC), a wholly owned subsidiary of L-3 Communications Corp., completed its first shipment of ruggedized battlefield control/mobile network information systems for military ground vehicles....

U.S. Air Force GPS CSAR radios.(General Dynamics C4 Systems supplying combat search and rescue radios to Air Force Special Operations Command)(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... Scottsdale, Arizona-based General Dynamics C4 Systems is shipping more than 1,400 HOOK2 GPS combat search and rescue (CSAR) radios to the United States Air Force Special Operations Command. Interoperable with coalition partners' systems, the...

U.S. Marines armed with Garmin devices.(MILITARY)
October 1, 2005... Homeland Security Technology Inc (HST) of Del Mar, California, and GPS World Supply have partnered to deliver Garmin 76S and 76CS handheld GPS navigation devices to U.S. Marines preparing to deploy in Iraq. The Garmin GPS-enabled handhelds came...

Integral systems GPS control study.(MILITARY)
October 1, 2005... Integral Systems Inc. of Lanham, Maryland, has won an Air Force GPS Control Segment (OCX) Program Research and Development Announcement (PRDA) contract valued at $1.2 million. During the six-month study, Integral will investigate and develop...

New TDS Ranger data collectors.(from Trimble Navigation Ltd.)(Brief article)
October 1, 2005... Corvallis, Oregon-based Tripod Data Systems (TDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Trimble (Sunnyvale, California), has unveiled its latest TDS Ranger data collectors featuring Survey Pro software, New compact flash slots allow users to add GPS,...

Clarification.(GPS INSIDE)(Correction notice)
October 1, 2005... The September issue mistakenly named BEI Systron Donner as a co-developer of the GuideStar GS-111 digital flight control system. Athena Technologies of Warrenton, Virginia, is the sole developer of the GuideStar GS-111. From the August...

Stock tracker.(GPS INSIDE)
October 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...

New OEM line.(RECEIVER TECHNOLOGY)
October 1, 2005... NovAtel has developed a new line of receivers in three different form factors to meet the integration needs of OEM customers. The product line includes one single-frequency board, the OEMV-1, and two dual-frequency boards, OEMV-2 and OEMV-3....

GPS IP core.(RECEIVER TECHNOLOGY)
October 1, 2005... CellGuide has released its new GPS/A-GPS IP core, CGX5500, and associated software. CGX5500 occupies approximately 0.25 square millimeter and provides tracking sensitivity to -160 dbm and acquisition to -157 dbm. Cold starts take 45 seconds at...

Low-power GPS.(RECEIVER TECHNOLOGY)
October 1, 2005... The TIM-LL from u-blox is a low-power OEM GPS module suitable for passive and active antennas. It provides two 3V (5V TTL-input compatible) serial ports, SPI and configurable 1.8V I/O ports. The 25.4 X 25.4 X 3-millimeter unit consumes 162 mW...

Testing modules.(RECEIVER TECHNOLOGY)
October 1, 2005... QinetiQ produces a range of miniature High Dynamics GPS Receivers for test and evaluation and range safety applications. These receivers can operate in up to 25g in navigation modes and 50g in hybrid modes, Position and velocity is output in...

L1 signal re-radiator.(RECEIVER TECHNOLOGY)
October 1, 2005... The RK-304 from San Jose Navigation is an enhanced version of the RK-104 GPS L1 band signal re-radiator. Offering a re-radiating range of 30 meters, the system features dual antennas to retransmit real-time GPS satellite outdoor receptions to...

Outdoor navigation.(NAVIGATION & GUIDANCE)
October 1, 2005... The Alan MAP 500 from Alan Electronics is a waterproof personal GPS navigator measuring 6.2 X 13 X 3 centimeters and weighing 200 grams, including two AA batteries and a 512 MB compact flash card. The device's SiRFstarlle/LP 12-channel receiver...

Pocket GPS navigator.(NAVIGATION & GUIDANCE)
October 1, 2005... The GPS 170XL from Pharos includes a 12-channel L1, C/A-code GPS receiver with reported position accuracy of 10 meters and velocity accuracy of 0.1 meter/second. Start times are 60 seconds cold, 40 seconds warm, and 5 seconds hot. The device...

GPS Pocket PC.(NAVIGATION & GUIDANCE)
October 1, 2005... The Mio 168 is a 112.8 X 69.6 X 24.15-millimeter, 147-gram Pocket PC with GPS. The device integrates an Intel Xscale 300 MHz central processing unit (CPU) and a SiRFstarlle/LP chipset. The Mio 168 has a 3.5-inch color display, 32 MB flash ROM,...

Time server.(MILITARY)
October 1, 2005... The GSA-approved Symmetricom TymServe 2100 is a Network Time Protocol (NTP) time server using a proprietary eight-channel, C/A-code GPS receiver and Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) to keep military computer clocks reportedly accurate to within...

L1/L2 system.(SURVEYING & MAPPING)
October 1, 2005... The Toughman GPS/Datacollector from DataGrid is a 10-parallel channel, L1/L2, P-code GPS receiver (12 channels for C/A-code L1/L2 C). Measuring 18 X 8.5 X 3.5 centimeters and weighing 470 grams, the system has meters-level accuracy in standard...

Survey receiver.(SURVEYING & MAPPING)
October 1, 2005... The GX1210 from Leica is a 12-channel L1, C/A-code survey receiver. Time to first fix is 30 seconds and stated position accuracies are 10 millimeters horizontal (static and rapid static), 20 millimeters horizontal (kinematic), and 30...

Cableless system.(SURVEYING & MAPPING)
October 1, 2005... Trimble's R8 GPS system has an internal transmit/receive 450 MHz radio module and an internal GSM mobile phone module, enabling the receiver to function as a surveying system without cables. With the internal radio, the base station and rover...

The challenges of M-code at JPO.(Joint Program Office)(Modernized User Equipment)(Interview)
October 1, 2005... The September issue of GPS World reported that the GPS Joint Program Office (JPO) has begun an effort to qualify a single industrial contractor for the military's Modernized User Equipment (MUE). After that issue went to press, we were able to...