Modern space-geodetic methods of high precision and accuracy were developed because of the benefits that they could bring to geophysics, and now have broad application to almost all branches of geophysics. Geodetic measurement systems involving GNSS and/or InSAR methods are particularly valuable to scientific investigations of the water resources… (more)

This year’s European satellite Navigation Competition saw eight special topic prizes and 17 regional honours awarded along with a €20 000 grand prize. The grand prize winner of the 2009 European Satellite Navigation Competition, Osmógrafo, combines satellite positioning with wind measurement and rescue dogs’ sense of smell in order to better determine which areas have already been covered by search teams… (more)

Whether underground or at the surface, unanticipated earth movement can pose particularly hazardous conditions on mines. Risks include the endangerment of lives, destruction of property and damage to valuable, specialised equipment… (more)

Recently appointed LabSat distributor Chronos Technology, who are based in the UK, Sweden, and Denmark, are attending the Nav 09 Conference at the University of Nottingham, UK, on 11 – 12th November.

Looking at the role of positioning technology now and into the future, the conference will highlight opportunities for GNSS as location technology enjoys wider consumer usage.

Telecoms experts Chronos will be presenting an applications showcase, and will also be displaying LabSat at the event.

Contact Chronos for more details.

Multi constellation operation is becoming a reality for LabSat, as the first prototype has now been built and is undergoing development in our test labs.

This will mean that Glonass and Galileo signals can be recorded, replayed and simulated alongside the normal GPS signal, which will enhance LabSat’s capabilities even further.

The new unit will be available from early in 2010 – further information on the release date and prices will be available in December.

Roke, the company behind numerous inventions in communications, aviation, and defence, has recently taken delivery of a record and replay LabSat system in order to test their GPS devices.

With laboratories located in the grounds of a manor house near Southampton, UK, Roke is one of Siemens’ worldwide R&D centres. Their past innovations are as diverse as ‘HawkEye’, a sensor system which tracks the flight of a tennis or cricket ball and revolutionised television coverage, all the way to ‘HALO’, an acoustic locator of guns and mortars, designed initially to detect cease-fire violations in Yugoslavia, and now used by the British Army.

The 420-strong company is also well known for providing quick and innovative solutions to complex challenges using location based technology across a variety of markets, which made the ability of LabSat to record and replay real world GPS scenarios for test and development for GPS devices useful in a variety of applications.

George McLeod, Test Gear Manager at Roke Manor Research, said, “LabSat has been a valuable tool in assisting our Engineers on GPS development projects.  The ability to record live GPS RF signals and replay these in the lab has allowed us to conduct realistic and repeatable GPS testing from the workbench, helping to ensure that we are able to deliver solutions that accurately meet our customers’ requirements in the fastest possible time scale.”

Roke Website

ION GNSS, the GPS industry’s most prestigious conference and tradeshow, was held in Georgia last month.

Craig Wynant from VBOX USA, LabSat distributor in the States, joined Racelogic Design Director Chris Smith to demonstrate LabSat’s capabilities.

Chris said: “There was a lot of interest in the LabSat GPS simulator from organisations across the GPS industry, including receiver manufacturers, aerospace companies, educational establishments, and chipset companies.”

He said: “It was also great to receive some good feedback from some of our existing customers, who are benefiting from using LabSat in their development work.”

LabSat's new video sync capability demonstrated at ION GNSS 09

Being asked if we’ll be taking along firearms to our exhibition stand isn’t a question we’re used to being asked by show organisers, but then again DSEI was no normal show.

Taking place at the ExCel centre in London’s docklands last month, Defence Systems & Equipment International London is the world’s largest defence expo, complete with a range of high end weaponry and security solutions, and attracting visitors from a diverse range of companies.

LabSat was on display in addition to the full range of VBOX GPS data loggers, and proved to be an attraction for a variety of attendees who stopped to find out how LabSat could assist in their GPS development and testing.

Our LabSat product manager, Stephen Jenkins, said:  “I spoke with a number of organisations who include GPS navigation in their products, and who would benefit from using LabSat within GPS development, integration, and production testing.”

“We also had interest from manufacturers of GPS surveillance systems, UAV developers, as well as defence system companies.”

Tomorrow and the day after I’ll attend a two day seminary on GNSS and SWEPOS^® held by Lantmateriet (the Swedish mapping, cadastral and land registration authority) in Gävle.

GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) is the standard term for satellite navigation systems, exampel of such systems are the US NAVSTAR GPS (Global Positioning System) (GPS) and the Russian GLONASS others that are in progress are The EU’s Galileo positioning system and Chinas’s Beidou navigation system.  

SWEPOS^® is a Swedish network of permanent reference stations for GPS.

Magnus Reuterdahl

Olá futuros leitores desse blog. Essa é minha primeira postagem e trata-se de um video sobre como funciona a locação de pontos do software TopSURV que é usado em estações totais da marca Topcon. Nessa demonstração eu usei uma estação total modelo GPT-7505 e eu gostaria de mostrar um pouco do que há de mais moderno em tecnologia, pois muitas pessoas não tem o privilégio de ter contato com esses instrumentos. Isso faz parte do propósito desse blog, aqui eu petendo postar informações úteis e práticas sobre algumas soluções tecnológicas da área de geomática.

La Commissione Europea ha scelto (tra tutti i maggiori service provider europei) il progetto di ENAV, finanziandolo di circa 5 milioni di euro, per il sistema di sorveglianza degli aerei in volo su zone dove i tradizionali segnali non offrono la copertura radar nell’ambito del programma TEN-T European Economic Recovery Plan. Per la prima volta, infatti – si legge in una nota -, grazie al particolare impegno di ENAV e dell’Italia nel proporre il controllo del traffico aereo quale infrastruttura strategica per lo sviluppo dell’economia continentale, i finanziamenti europei vengono destinati anche ai servizi di assistenza per la navigazione aerea.

Il progetto per il quale ENAV ha ottenuto il finanziamento e sul quale sta investendo da tempo in termini di studi, attivita’ di ricerca e pianificazione, riguarda la rete di sorveglianza denominata ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast).

Il controllo del traffico aereo viene oggi garantito dalla copertura radar, sistemi con un raggio d’azione limitato e costituiti da strutture impossibili da posizionare in mare o su territori di difficile accessibilita’ e con costi di acquisizione-manutenzione-gestione piuttosto onerosi.

La rete ADS-B invece e’ in grado di mettere a disposizione dei Controllori del Traffico Aereo tutte le informazioni del velivolo (posizione, velocita’, codice identificativo) attraverso la strumentazione di bordo che genera e trasmette dei report in modo automatico e con cadenze regolari usando il sistema satellitare Global Navigation Satellite System.

L’ADS-B, che sara’ fornita da SELEX Sistemi Integrati (Gruppo Finmeccanica) dotata delle piu’ moderne tecnologie, operera’ in maniera strettamente integrata alla rete radar ed alla piattaforma ATM nazionale italiana.

I vantaggi sono nella assoluta precisione che consente di ridurre le separazioni tra i velivoli senza alterare minimamente i livelli di sicurezza e nella copertura di zone dove i radar tradizionali non arrivano. I costi risultano cosi’ dieci volte inferiori rispetto ai sistemi in uso oggi.

• via: www.asca.it

Taking place in the vast ExCel centre in London’s Docklands, we’ll be exhibiting LabSat at one of the largest defence tradeshows in the world, on 8th – 11th September 2009.

Also on display is our GPS synchronised video-logger system, Video VBOX, which overlays graphical data onto video in real time, alongside our high speed VBOX dataloggers.

Find us at stand 523 and try out LabSat for yourself!

LabSat at DSEI 09, London Docklands

LabSat will be on display at ION GNSS 2009

ION GNSS 2009 takes place at The Savannah International Convention Center, Savannah, Georgia, USA, from September 22^nd to September 25^th 2009.

Come and see the LabSat in operation on the Racelogic stand: Booth Number 627.

Olá futuros leitores desse blog. Essa é minha primeira postagem e trata-se de um video sobre como funciona a locação de pontos do software TopSURV que é usado em estações totais da marca Topcon. Nessa demonstração eu usei uma estação total modelo GPT-7505 e eu gostaria de mostrar um pouco do que há de mais moderno em tecnologia, pois muitas pessoas não tem esse privilégio. Isso faz parte do propósito desse blog, aqui eu petendo postar informações úteis e práticas sobre algumas soluções tecnológicas da área de geomática.

Leica Geosystems offers the ideal solution for every GPS/GNSS application. Powerful GPS/GNSS technology for unmatched accuracy.

One of my favourite toys since 1998 has been GPS – the Global Positioning System – trivialised nowadays as the detestable SatNav, and humiliated by idiots who don’t even have the brains to look out of their own car windows to see where they are as they drive along two metre wide country lanes in three metre lorries, or drive their cars into ditches, so intent are they on following their SatNav.

Having depended on others, I got my own in 1998 simply because that when the price of street level maps for GPSrs (GPS receivers) fell to reasonable levels.

Back then, the system could be horribly inaccurate, and one friend wouldn’t touch GPS with a bargepole. A committed walker and climber, for some reason he wanted to be able to follow a GPS display in fog/mist without actually looking where he was going, and thought it was a highly dangerous system since he could step off a cliff if he followed it. He reckoned it was no use at all if he still had to look where he was going. We would soon have lost him back then too, as SA (Selective Availability) meant that until May 2000, the American military included a deliberate, pseudo-random error of up to 100 metres in the position signal.

The satellites and GPS are maintained by the US Air Force, and the US government seems to be concerned that despite a spend of £1.3 million to update the system, delay and overspend mean the system is at risk. The first replacement for the original satellites (launched in the 1990s) was due for launch in 2007, but is yet to be sent into orbit (launch now due November 2009).

Russia, India and China have developed their own satellite navigation technologies that are currently being expanded. Not forgetting Europe’s Galileo program and the GNSS  (global navigation satellite system) program, scheduled to begin to roll out next year.

With the dependence of the American military on GPS – it uses a separate signal from the civilian service, but still supplied through the same satellites and technology – it’s hard to see how this warning could be serious, and is more likely a warning shot for funding and resources in future. There are also commercial consideration as so many domestic applications have now adopted GPS, or GPS derived information into their structure – recall how many are employed in SatNav nowadays.

There’s also the navigation side of things, as the system has become increasingly incorporated into aircraft navigational systems, leading to the decline of a number of precision location services that aircraft depend on for flying automatically from locations around the world. Some aircraft now incorporate system which would  – rules permitting – allow them to take off, fly around the world, and land without any intervention from their human pilot, available only to take over in the event of an emergency or system failure.

I suspect budget manoeuvring by fear, rather than any real likelihood of the system collapsing – they just couldn’t afford for that to happen.

Losing the satellites, or not having an effective alternative to fall back onto, would be a commercial disaster on top of the current recession. Judge the industry by the fall in price of receivers:

In 1998, had I paid the going rate, I could have paid between £400 and £500 for a handheld GPSr with a relatively small greysacale LCD. With some makes, a further £100 to £150 would have been need to add street level maps for Europe, and even more for less well known areas.

In 2009, I am looking at TV adverts today for full colour LCD systems with speech and European street level mapping for £100 (well £99.99 to be exact), and if I raise the budget I can have Bluetooth, camera, and even radio reception of data that will amend routes I have set in order to navigate around accidents and other road closures.

And, I haven’t even touched on the mobile phone and other sneaky uses of GPS and related technology.

The world uses GPS, business around the world depend on GPS, manufacturers around the world depend on GPS. They realise that, hence the work on deploying national alternatives.

But, at the moment, would, or even could, the Americans turn off, or allow the present GPS system to fail or become unreliable? Could it afford the backlash? And to go back to its original reason for being – with so many GPS guided weapons dependent on it (and the outcry we have seen when the few weapons fired in a war today go astray) – can the military afford not to keep it operational, regrdless of cost? Even so, that might mean eventually turning off civilan access to save a few $.

The following was published by The Guardian today – it might be a good idea for the SatNav Junkies to print it out now, and carry it with them. It even included advice for how to deal with cliffs!

The Guardian’s Paper Map FAQ:-

How do I turn it on? An atlas operates much like a book, while a map unfolds, accordion-style, to form a large sheet. This should be held in front of you so that any writing is right side up. (How? One hand is operating the wheel/gears while the other is clamping the mobile phone to their ear – Apollo)

Now I can’t see anything! Stop driving. Never attempt to operate a map and a motor vehicle at the same time. (Ah, because it will interfere with the mobile phone – Apollo)

I need to get to Redditch. What do I press? Locate “Redditch” on your map and press it with one finger. Find your current location and press it with your other finger. Now find an unbroken line that connects the two fingers. That is your “route”. You are ready to begin your journey.

I’ve been driving for 40 minutes and it still hasn’t said anything. Should I just keep going straight? The map will not issue instructions. It is up to you to compare the route on the map with information gleaned from your surroundings, and drive accordingly. (Probably better to stop, and wonder how you managed to drive for 40 minutes with a map in front of you and a phone clamped to your ear – Apollo)

Sorry? For example – what does the sign you are passing now say?

“Croeso i Gymru.” Is that good? You’re on the Welsh border. Try to find yourself on the map.

I’m right near the edge of the paper! Is it trying to tell me to drive off a cliff? Don’t be silly. If your satnav told you to drive off a cliff, would you? (Probably – Apollo)

I’ve got quite a funny story about that, actually. Oh, pull over and ask someone.

OK. How do I turn this thing off? It’s a map. Just fold it up the same way you unfolded it, only backwards. Any other questions?

En feuilletant un les derniers editos de Mr. Benchemsi, j’ai été interpelé par la phrase suivante:

“Le directeur le la publication, Noureddine Miftah, et la rédactrice en chef, Maria Moukrim, n’étant pas là, les agents de la BNPJ sont allés les cueillir, la seconde à son domicile, le premier dans un immeuble localisé par triangulation, grâce au signal GPS d’un portable (waw !!)“

Signal GPS d’un portable ? c’est quoi ça ? Je sais qu’il y a un système de localisation appelé GPS, mais des signaux GPS émis par un portable … première nouvelle !!

Tranquillisez-vous messieurs, votre portable n’émet pas de signaux GPS.  Ce que Mr. Benchemsi voulait sûrement dire, c’est ça: “…, le premier dans un immeuble  grâce au positionnement par GPS fait par le portable du journaliste”… appréciez la différence !

En fait, même avec cette interprétation des propos de Mr. Benchemsi, il me reste quelques doutes:

1. Est-ce possible l’utilisation du GPS pour localiser un portable quelconque par une tierce personne ?
2. A-t-on vraiment besoin de GPS pour faire ce que suggère Mr. Benchemsi ?

Pour répondre à la première question, il faut faire quelques précisions sur le fonctionnement du GPS. le Global Positioning System (GPS) ne connait pas la position des personnes qui l’utilisent, tout bêtement parce qu’il n’en a pas besoin pour assurer sa mission qui est de: donner des moyens (fondamentalement, position et horloge du satellite) pour que n’importe qui, avec les moyens hardware et software adéquats, puisse calculer SA position.

Pour faire ça, il faut que le récepteur (dans notre cas, c’est le portable du journaliste) soit équipé d’une antenne spécifique capable de tracker les signaux des satellites GPS, d’un récepteur GPS et d’un software particulier pour interpréter les données GPS et calculer sa propre position. Ceci est loin d’être le cas de la quasi totalité des portables sur le marché actuel. Seulement une très petite gamme de portable incorpore ces antennes (normalement ce sont des portables plus grands, genre PDA). Les portables que n’incorporent pas ces antennes leur est PHYSIQUEMENT IMPOSSIBLE d’utiliser le GPS, c’est aussi simple que ça ! Un certain “fahem” me suggère que le portable a déjà une antenne, pourquoi donc ne pas l’utiliser pour capter les signaux GPS. FAUX … ARCHIFAUX: Une des caractéristiques fondamentales des antennes est la fréquence d’utilisation, or les fréquences GSM sont différentes des fréquences utilisées par le GPS.

Maintenant, même en supposant que le portable incorpore tout ce qu’il faut pour utiliser le GPS, il faut se rappeler que personne ne peut connaitre CETTE position sans que le portable ne la communique. Pour se faire une idée de la situation, il faut comparer le fonctionnement du GPS à une radio-diffusion: Tout le monde peut capter les émissions radio, mais il est impossible pour la station radio de savoir s’il y a quelqu’un à “l’autre bout” qui écoute les émissions. Le cellulaire doit donc envoyer cette position pour nous informer de sa position, et c’est là où il y a un gros problème: À qui l’envoyer ? Comment l’envoyer ? Quand l’envoyer ? Toutes ces questions restent sans réponses ! Oubliez s’il vous plait cet épisode des “Experts”, où Horacio demandait si le GPS du bateau était en mode récepteur ou émetteur.. Ça, c’est de la fiction !

Pour la 2eme question, la réponse est oui. On a pas besoin de GPS pour localiser plus ou moins un téléphone portable. J’expliquerai ça dans un prochain poste.. Entre-temps, faites attention à vos portables et n’oubliez pas qu’ils vous espionnent tout le temps !

BBC NEWS | Health | Tracking dementia patients with GPS.

Interesting application that uses GNSS to provide health benefits.

Le directeur du département astronautique de la China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp a annoncé que le système de navigation chinois   ” Compass”,  l’équivalent du GPS américain, serait opérationnel avec plus de trente satellites en 2015. De l’ordre de dix satellites seront lancés dans les deux prochaines années.(article Asia Times Online )

La Chine participe aussi au projet Galileo qui devrait être près en 2013.

Encore un exemple de la vitesse affolante du développement militaire et scientifique chinois. L’existence d’un système concurrent aux équivalents occidentaux susceptible d’offrir aux alliés et clients de Pékin l’accès aux armements de précisions et autres sous-produits de son développement spatial ne sera pas sans conséquences.

The first regional information day in Europe on the Galileo second FP7 call

• An Introduction to Framework 7 bidding
• UK success stories
• An update on GRACE
• Details on the Galileo second call work programme

Venue:
The University of Nottingham,
Jubilee Campus, Sir Colin Campbell Building
Date: Friday 30 January 2009
Time: 9:30 – 15:30
Cost: Free (includes refreshments and lunch)

This event will focus on the second call for proposals for GNSS research and development under the EU’s 7th Framework Programme to be announced on January 27th & 28th in Brussels. The second call will make available 40 million Euros in funding, a 60% increase over the funding available in the first call.

Register on-line at http://www.grace.ac.uk/galileo (places are limited to 100)

More information available at  GNSS Research and Applications Centre of Excellence website at http://www.grace.ac.uk

This short video sums up exactly what GPS is for those who have never heard about.

The military developed the Global Positioning System (GPS) to help identify the location of its major assets, such as air craft carriers, bases, missile installation, tanks, etc., and made it available for the public good after a a Korean commercial airplane was shot down over Soviet airspace in 1983.

The Global Navigation Satellite System is the backbone that holds the GPS network together.  The GNSS is a network of 24-32 satellites that float in geosychronous orbit around the earth.  These satellits emit a waves of information on a nearly constant basis that can be read by special GPS devices.

The GPS devices understands the exact location of each of the satellites in the GNSS (since they are in geosynchronous orbit their position is unchanging except for some mild orbit path decay) so it is able to use the geometric principle of trilateration to calculate the exact location of the GPS receiver.  Because of this, it can be useful to think of any GPS device as two things: a radio and a calculator.

Being a radio allows the GPS to received the signals from the satellites over head.  Instead of producing sound waves, this radio is able to understand the information being transmitted from the satellite – the location of the satellite and the time that this particular wave was sent.  This is where the calculator part of the GPS comes in.  Using this position and time information the GPS receiver is able to calculate the position of the receiver when the receiver receives three or more signals from different satellites.  The more signals the receiver finds, the more accuarte the location information will be.

To sum up, a GPS unit is a device that receives information from satellites that orbit the earth and transforms this information into meaninful position data.

This is the birthday of Mapsanywhere GIS Blog.  I hope that you will participate in the topic discussions, technical chat and networking of this Blog.   Happy Thanksgiving!

Creator: Josh Appleman

GIS Professional/ GNSS Solutions provider