GPS World articles from September 2003

GPS World archives from September 2003

A doctor in the house?(The View From Here)
September 1, 2003... Nobody has figured out a way to make service calls to middle earth orbit. We might consider that fact amid the recent failures of critical U.S. infrastructures: the Midwest/mid-Atlantic power grid, the consequent overloading of many...

Airport obstruction survey.
September 1, 2003... In the July issue of GPS World, Fred McCamic's article "Cleared for Take-Off: GPS, GIS, and Removal of Airport Obstructions" describes how the San Diego Airports Division and Department of Public Works GIS Division used GPS instruments to find...

Strategy and Programs with Overlook Systems Technologies, Inc.(Advisors Update)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Jules McNeff has accepted a position as Vice President for Strategy and Programs with Overlook Systems Technologies, Inc., a professional technical services and engineering firm with extensive experience in GPS and related technologies.

Institute of Navitation's Executive Fellow.(Advisors Update)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... William Klepczyinski has been appointed the Institute of Navitation's Executive Fellow and will work in the Office of Space and Advancec Technolog, U.S. State Department.

A matter of money.(Washington View)
September 1, 2003... Money is, without question, the single biggest issue impacting the Global Positioning System: money to fund modernization, money to start GPS III, money to support interference studies, money to pay for augmentations. But it's not just the...

European Commission proposes Galileo structure.(Global View)
September 1, 2003... The European Commission (EC) has proposed a management structure for the Galileo program that would establish a Supervisory Authority to oversee the concessionaire operating the satellite positioning and timing system and a Center for Safety...

Q2 looks good for two GPS firms.(Global view)
September 1, 2003... Bucking woes besetting other tech sectors, two prominent GPS manufacturers announced record and near-record second-quarter results for 2003. As two of a handful of public companies that are nearly "pure-play" GPS providers, Sunnyvale,...

The height of precision.(Application challenge: monitoring buildings)
September 1, 2003... Tall buildings are among the few constructed facilities whose design relies solely upon analytical and scaled models. Home to many important strides in the evolution of these structures--some say Chicago invented the skyscraper--the "Windy...

GPS car talk: listening to Bluetooth.(Bluetooth and GPS: integration challenge)(Industry Overview)
September 1, 2003... Drivers increasingly carry and use wireless devices such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants, handheld GPS receivers, and notebook computers in their cars. Current in-vehicle integration of GPS employs a cable to connect the...

GPS for the rest of us: monitoring the civil signals: elimination of selective availability and introduction of modernized GPS signals have heightened awareness of the need--and opportunity--to improve the monitoring of civil GPS service and provide timely alerts of "unhealthy" ranging signals.(System challenge: signal monitoring)
September 1, 2003... 0n Sunday, May 25, 2003, the atomic frequency standard on GPS satellite number 27 (SVN/PRN 27) became erratic. By Monday the range errors caused by the faulty clock had compelled the GPS satellite operators at Schriever Air Force Base to...

GPS in aerial warfare--a matter of precision.(Precision Revolution: GPS and the Future of Aerial Warfare )(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... The Precision Revolution: GPS and the Future of Aerial Warfare by Michael Russell Rip and James M. Hasik, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, June 2002. 448 pages, hardcover, $49.95. During the more than three decades since the Global...

EU technology policy: why Galileo?(Competition for Technological Leadership: EU Policy for High Technology)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... Competition for Technological Leadership: EU Policy for High Technology, by Johan Lembke, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK, 2002, 312 pages, hardcover, [euro]95 (US$107,00). The bursting of the dot-com bubble and the lengthy slump in...

The magnetic compass and GPS: getting your bearings.(Magnetic compass: innovation)
September 1, 2003... Humans have always needed to travel--to find food, to explore and conquer new lands, to trade. Navigating safely to a destination and back requires skilled use of knowledge and senses to determine current position and the direction in which to...

Gears up for LBS: SiRF technology signs new CEO.(GPS Inside)
September 1, 2003... GPS receiver manufacturer SiRF Technology went outside the GPS and wireless communities in its search for a new president and CEO, but not outside the electronics industry. The San Jose, California--based developer of OEM products targeting...

New Satellite Geodesy text.(GPS Inside)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... The second edition of Satellite Geodesy by Gunter Seeber carries an extensively updated and expanded core chapter on GPS. A member of GPS World's Editorial Advisory Board, Seeber has been a professor at the University of Hannover, Germany,...

Consumers on LBS: market sssessment.(Launches)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... A new market research study will assess U.S. consumer interest and willingness to pay for location based and telematic systems and services. Conducted by Driscoll-Wolfe Marketing & Research Consulting (Palos Verdes Estates, California), the...

Oskando, Fastrax: team for safety.(Launches )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... OU Oskando, a Tallinn, Estonia-based designer and producer of Global System of Mobile Communication (GSM) devices, has teamed with Fastrax Ltd. of Helsinki, Finland, to produce a personal security device (PSD) for security and emergency...

Motorola Oncore module: disciplines timing.(Launches)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Motorola (Schaumburg, Illinois) has expanded its Oncore product family with the M12+ Timing Oncore GPS timing module for industries that require GPS disciplined timing. The company's timing algorithms have produced 2-nanosecond, 1-sigma noise...

ParthusCeva in NAVAIR advanced missile.(GPS inside)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... ParthusCeva, Inc. of San Jose, California, announced a contract--received mid-2002 and now coming to fruition--from the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) for the design of a high-performance GPS system for military test and research, as...

Guardian Mobility: puts out sentinels.(Launches; Sentinel GPS remote asset tracking device)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Guardian Mobility Corporation of Ottawa, Canada, a company formed in July 2002, announces September availability of production units of its Sentinel GPS remote asset tracking device. It incorporates a Fastrax iTrax02/8 GPS receiver module and a...

Trimble times yard engines.(Deals)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Cattron-Theimeg, Inc. of Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, selected Trimble's Acutime 2000 GPS antenna for its AccuSpeed locomotive radio remote control system. The patent-pending system allows railyard operators to control the direction, speed, and...

Air Force issues: three MUE contracts.(Military News)
September 1, 2003... The Air Force Space and Missile System Center (SMSC) has awarded a series of R&D contracts for modernized military GPS user equipment (MUE) to support implementation of the new M-code into future secure receivers. Contracts, which require...

ERI AJAR to U.S. DoD PLGR.(Military News)(Electro-Radiation Inc.'s contract for anti-jam antenna retrofit)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Electro-Radiation Inc. (ERI) of Fairfield, New Jersey, received a contract to deliver 100 GPS anti-jam antenna retrofit (AJAR) assemblies for use in the U.S. Army's precision location GPS receivers (PLGR). PEI Electronics Inc. (Huntsville,...

Raytheon, RAF: sign weaponry contract.(Military News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Raytheon Company of Tucson, Arizona, signed a $175 million contract with the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence to supply its Paveway IV precision guided munitions to the Royal Air Force (RAF). Raytheon will provide technical support, including...

Kill vehicle: Navy contract.(Military News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The U.S. Navy awarded Raytheon Company an $881.4 million, three-year contract to continue development of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) seabased interceptor. The SM-3 features a third-stage rocket motor, GPS guidance, and kinetic warhead to...

Leica, Intuicom: transmit position.(Deals)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Leica Geosystems Inc. of Norcross, Georgia, will integrate its GPS network technology and machine-control solutions with the high-bandwidth wireless data transmission capabilities produced by Intuicom, Inc. (Boulder, Colorado). Intuicom...

Garmin acquires UPS Aviation.(Deals)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... UPS Aviation Technologies, Inc., of Salem, Oregon, a producer of Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADSB) flight-safety technology, has been acquired by Garmin International Inc. of Olathe. Kansas, for $38 million. The company, which...

SiRF and Cambridge: explore hybrid positions.(Deals)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Cambridge Positioning Systems (Cambridge, England) will partner with SiRF Technology, Inc. (San Jose, California) to explore development of mobile location technologies to deliver faster time-to-first-fix positions and higher accuracy...

LBS in China: I go go.(Deals)(China Unicom and Qualcomm partner for location based services)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Wireless carrier China Unicom has launched location based services on its CDMA 1X network in the titles of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, using gpsOne assisted GPS (AGPS) technology from Qualcomm (San Diego, California). Coupled with the...

FleetBoss debugs with GPS.(Deals)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Westfield, Indiana-based Curtis Dyna-Fog, Ltd., a producer of spraying and fogging equipment, has joined with FleetBoss Global Positioning Solutions, Inc., of Orlando, Florida, to develop a GPS-guided spray-recording and vehicle-monitoring...

St. Pete Integrated Nav.(Events)
September 1, 2003... The 11th Saint Petersburg International Conference on Integrated Navigation Systems has issued a call for papers with a December 1, 2003, deadline. Topics include integrated navigation systems for marine, land, and aerospace applications;...

Applanix.(Industry Bytes)
September 1, 2003... Applanix of Richmond Hill. Ontario, Canada, has enhanced its POS MV marine product line with a new TrueHeave filtering tool to provide hydrographers with a more accurate heave estimate under challenging survey conditions. It reduces heave...

Atair Aerospace.(Industry Bytes)
September 1, 2003... The U.S. Department of Defense awarded Atair Aerospace (Brooklyn, New York) $849,000 and a small business innovative research (SBIR) Phase II funding of an additional $250,000 for continued development of its ONYX autonomous guided parafoil...

GPS receiver module.(Receiver Technology)
September 1, 2003... The A1029 GPS surface-mount component from Tyco Electronics is the first of a new generation of receiver modules from the company, designed for embedded GPS functions. It combines the ST Microelectronics STA2051 GPS baseband chip and embedded...

Rugged enclosure.(Receiver Technology)
September 1, 2003... NovAtel has developed a rugged, waterproof enclosure that can be fitted for either the company's dual frequency OEM4-G2L GPS receiver (FlexPak G2L) or its SUPERSTAR II GPS positioning engine (FlexPak-SSII). The FIexPak provides system...

OEM receiver module.(Receiver Technology)
September 1, 2003... The iTrax03 from Fastrax is a single-frequency, 12 channel receive module designed for industrial tracking and navigation systems and battery powered consumer products. User-configurable power management goes as low as CIRCLE 72

Low-power chipset.(Receiver Technology)
September 1, 2003... u-Nav Microelectronics announces production availability of its new GPS chipset for low-power, small form-factor applicatlon. The uN9101's radio frequeny integrated chip (RFIC) uses direct conversion receiver architecture to eliminate the need...

SBAS differential network.(Receiver Technology)(NavCom Technology StarFire Network)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The StarFire Network from NavCom Technology is a global satellite-based augmentation system (GSBAS) supplying differential corrections and stated real-time decimeter accuracy. It distributes low-latency, high resolution GPS orbit and clock...

Earth-mover guidance system.(Navigation and Guidance)(Trimble Geomatics and Engineering Division's Site Vision 5.0)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The Site Vision version 5.0 from Trimble Geomatics and Engineering Division is a machine guidance and control system for use on various earth-moving equipment. The on-board system, which factors in vertical and horizontal offsets of each blade...

Telematics Server.(GPS-Related Software)(Telcontar Universal Telematics Server)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The Universal Telematics Server from Telcontar integrates electronic devices with wireless, telephony, and Web technologies. Event and location data are transmitted from the remote device by means of the wireless network to the company's...

Postprocessing software.(GSP-Related Software)(Waypoint Consulting GrafNav/Graf/Net 7.0)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Waypoint Consulting has released version 7.0 of its GrafNav/Graf/Net GPS postprocessing software. It includes a redesigned processing engine, precise code-only single-point processor, and upgraded static and kinematic fixed integer processing....

Timing system evaluation.(GSP-Related Software)
September 1, 2003... The Jumpstart SynClock+ designer kit from Temex enables users of Stratum-1 references such as GPS, cesium, LORAN-C, CDMA, and E1/T1 to connect input/output cables to test and validate their timing systems. The plug-and-play kit includes an...

M-code simulator.(Military)(Spirent Federal Systems GSS4860 GPS)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Spirent's GSS4860 GPS navigation simulator, believed to be the first commercially available system capable of simulating the new Lm or M-code signal, which will become the new military signal as GPS is modernized during the next few years, is...

Digital compass.(GPS-Related Hardware)(Honeywell HMC6353 )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Honeywell has expanded its magnetics product line with the HMC6353 three-axis, chip-scale compass for small electronics applications such as GPS receivers, satellite antenna positioning systems, and laser range finders. The 15 x 11 x...

Digital sensor system.(GPS-Related Hardware)(from Applanix and Emerge)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Applanix and Emerge have upgraded their directly georeferenced medium format airborne digital sensor system (DSS) to provide 5-centimeter ground resolution. The ready-to-use DSS offers terrestrial and airborne calibration with full report, and...

Compact computer.(GPS-Related Hardware)(Octagon Systems PCS-620)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The PCS-620 compact single-board computer (SBC) from Octagon Systems includes four RS-232 serial ports, two of which can support RS-422/485 networks, and a CardBus port for GPS, wireless, or other devices. The unit incorporates a low-power,...

Agriculture management.(GPS-Related Software )(John Deere JDOffice agriculture-management software)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... JDOffice agriculture-management software from John Deere provides record -keeping capabilities for variables such as fields, operators, chemicals, crops, and machinery. Users can compute data such as break-even selling price, net income, and...

GPS-based map display software.(GPS-Related Software)(Corvallis Microtechnology CMT MapPad)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... CMT MapPad software from Corvallis Microtechnology is designed for GPS/GIS data collection, navigation, BaseMap background data, coordinate system conversion, and point/line/area symbols and patterns. It provides 3- to 10-meter accuracy and...

GPS-INS vehicle systems.(Integrated Solutions)(Oxford Technical Solutions RT3000 family)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The RT3000 family from Oxford Technical Solutions comprises six products providing different levels of postioning. The RT3100 is a single-antenna, GPS-aided inertial navigations system (INS) with 0.5-meter accuracy with GPS alding. The RT3020...

Measurement and documentation.(Integrated Solutions)(Optimus AutoDOCS)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... AutoDOCS from Optimus Corporation is an automated crashscene measurement and documentation system using GPS and computer-aided drafting (CAD) representations to supply drawings with reported accuracy under 2 centimeters. Using two CMC...

Bluetooth GPS navigation kit.(Integrated Solutions)(Socket Communications GP08050406 )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Socket Communications has released its new GP08050406 Nav Kit in-car navigation system, to be wirelessly added to a Bluetooth enabled Pocket PC. The included MyNavigator personal routing software enables trip planning, turn-by-turn...

Time and frequency distribution unit.(Timing and Synchronization)(TRAK Microwave 9300)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... TRAK Microwave's model 9300 time and frequency distribution unit for defense, satellite, and wireless applications provides as many as 12 four-channel distribution modules position. Distribution modules include digital, frequency, and telecom....

Network time adapter.(Timing and Synchronization)(Brandywine Communications NT-100)
September 1, 2003... The NT-100 from Brandywine Communications synchronizes computers, time displays, PBXs and other equipment. It connects to a central network time server through a local area network (LAN). It is also available with a built-in Motorola M12+ GPS...

Deployable DGPS: hardly much work Atoll.(Leading Edge)(digital global positioning system)
September 1, 2003... Some might feel tempted to linger in an azure lagoon rimmed by South Pacific coral reefs. Not the U.S. Coast Guard. It's duty, duty, duty, as buoy tenders briskly service and maintain aids to navigatior (AtoN) and ship out to their next port of...

Calendar 2003.(Calendar)
September 1, 2003... SEPTEMBER 17-19 INTERGEO 2003 Hamburg, Germany. Trade fair and conference for geodesy, geoinformation, and land management. Call +49 721 93133450, e-mail pbielesch@hintemesse.de, or see www.intergeo.de. SEPTEMBER 22-23 ISPRS...