The spectrum of today’s providers seems to range from highly sophisticated scientific systems used for development by precision receiver manufacturers, through systems with GNSS and aiding solutions, to specialized systems for both general and specific application developers and also for production test. So this month I’d like to try to summarize (in no particular order) what some of the suppliers of GNSS simulation systems are up to, how they may be positioned in the market and, wherever possible, what we might expect to see from them in the future.

GSG Series 6 GNSS simulator.

Spectracom is a more recent entrant to the GNSS simulation market, though the company has been providing frequency and time synchronization test equipment for about 40 years. Spectracom has integrated GPS into these products for more than ten years, and decided three years ago to use the knowledge it had gained to get into the GNSS simulation business.

The GSG family of simulators is positioned at the “affordable” end of the simulation equipment scale, and is targeted at users and integrators of GNSS, rather than developers of receivers. Spectracom claims to have about 80 percent of the features of the top-end simulations systems, but its more capable (Series 6) systems sell in the $20-30k range. While new to the business, the Spectracom team feels that this allows them to bring the newest technology and innovation to the market.

The Spectracom system is derived from its well-known frequency/time synthesizer equipment — in fact, it has the same look front panel and chassis — and also makes use of the same “easy-to-use” concepts. “It doesn’t take a navigation scientist to operate these simulators,” said John Fischer, chief technology officer at Spectracom. The accompanying Studio View software is reportedly relatively easy to use to generate trajectories and other test scenarios by connecting to Google Maps and uploading them to the simulator.

But with all new firmware and FPGA implementation, 64 channels, and four frequency bands covering both GPS and GLONASS, the GSG family appears to be very well positioned for application developers integrating GNSS. Galileo and Beidou/Compass are in the works and expected this year, and will be supplied as upgrades to existing equipment.

Spectracom anticipates significant growth in its target market for application developers in “anything that moves,” including automotive and airborne, video matching, radar/lidar, and handheld nav devices, including mobile phones. Spectracom has a number of product lines and around 100 people working for them, but the GNSS simulation group is around 12 strong.

Rohde & Schwarz is another relatively recent GNSS simulation entrant with new products for the market.

SMBV100A vector signal generator.

Its current offering — the SMBV100A Vector Signal Generator – can simulate 24 dynamic GPS, GLONASS and Galileo satellites.  The SMBV 100A has wide bandwidth and high output power levels. Real-time test scenarios can be customized by the user — including a neat facility that allows modeling of satellite masking by downtown buildings, along with anticipated multipath for the same urban scenario.

While somewhat new to GNSS simulation, R&S has been around since the 1930s, and its experience with frequency synthesizers and similar equipment is being carried forward into what the company terms its “cost-effective” GNSS simulation offerings. R&S anticipates significant growth in automotive, aerospace, UAV, and cellular assisted-GNSS application markets.

R&S has had success in the aerospace market for UAVs, and has developed the capability to model antenna patterns and UAV body mask as the vehicle rotates and attitude changes towards visible satellites. Along the same lines, R&S has hooked up its system to flight simulators and provided hardware-in-the-loop testing for clients. R&S also has the ability to run simulation scenarios for long periods of time, and for “very long” periods if the receiver is stationary — this feature makes use of large internal memory storage within the SMBV100A; of course, almanac validity limits just how long this is possible. P-code capability is provided as an option, and there is a roadmap for adding SBAS and Beidou capability later.

IFEN NavX-NCS Professional

In the meantime, IFEN in Germany is focusing on its NavX-NCS Navigation Constellation Simulator range of multi-GNSS signal simulators.

IFEN emphasizes the flexibility of its design, with a platform scalable from a 12-channel GPS L1 system up to a full multi-GNSS system with 108 channels and 9 frequencies for GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS and SBAS. With this building-block approach, channels and capabilities can be added as and when additional testing complexity is required.

IFEN claims that the capability to generate all GNSS signals — by combining different modulations with up to nine L-band frequencies — is the only existing solution on the market providing GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, QZSS and SBAS in one chassis at the same time. And, since April 2013, all IFEN NavX-NCS GNSS RF signal simulators are to include BeiDou B1 signal capability in accordance with the official Chinese BeiDou B1 ICD, and are ready for the other B2 and B3 BeiDou signals.

IFEN also founded a subsidiary in the USA in January this year called IFEN, Inc., located in California and operational with Mark Wilson (formerly with Spirent) as VP Sales. In addition, IFEN has formed a partnership with WORK Microwave — a leading European manufacturer of advanced satellite communications and navigation equipment. WORK Microwave is responsible for RF and digital hardware design while IFEN develops the associated software and manages the distribution of the product range.

Little-known IP-Solutions in Tokyo, Japan, has been working to develop its ReGen GNSS DIF signal simulator, a software simulator that simulates ionospheric effects, generates digital IF (DIF) signals similar to those recorded by an RF recorder, and comes with an optional capability of simulating integrated inertial navigation.

IP-Solutions’ digital IF baseband signal simulator ReGen has been developed in close cooperation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to test and validate GNSS signal processing algorithms and methods for use on board aircraft using tight and ultra-tight integration with INS, including specific scintillation models and ionospheric bubble simulation.

Actual recorded flight data (left), ReGen replicated flight data (right).

Various configurations of ReGen can produce multichannel GPS and GLONASS L1 signals and single-channel GPS L1, L2, L5 and GLONASS L1 and L2 signals, as well as simulating noise and interference.

Meanwhile, Spirent, arguably the original market leader in GNSS simulation, has continued along its chosen path of supplying the industry with the greatest capability and most extensive simulation systems.

Spirent has recently released test systems with support for China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System in addition to GPS, GLONASS and Galileo.

Spirent started shipping BeiDou-ready systems to its customers in 2012. Now these may be upgraded to full BeiDou capability using the information available in the first full issue of the BeiDou-2 Signal In Space Interface Control Document (ICD).

Also aiming at mobile applications, Spirent’s Hybrid Location Technology Solution (HLTS) integrates Wi-Fi, Assisted Global Navigation Satellite System (A-GNSS), Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) sensor and cellular positioning technologies. HLTS integrates four very different and distinct location technologies and provides repeatable and reliable lab-based characterization of mobile devices supporting hybrid location technologies that will enable “accurate everywhere” location — including indoor user location determination.

Other notable players in the GNSS simulation business include Racelogic, CAST Navigation and Agilent who are each pursuing their chosen niches in this expanding market segment. Racelogic’s LabSat GPS simulator is gaining popularity with a number of leading companies, providing the ability to record and replay real GNSS RF data as well as user-generated scenarios. CAST has an extensive line-up of GPS and GPS/INS simulation systems and support software, and Agilent has added to its impressive electronic testing portfolio with a very capable looking GPS simulation product line.

Several other companies — some based in China and Russia — are also trying to figure out their development and marketing strategies to conquer their chosen GNSS simulation market niche. This is all a very healthy sign that there are many other companies with new embedded GNSS applications that they are bringing to market and who therefore need GNSS simulation/test capability. Overall, this means there is still significant growth underway and far wider applications of GNSS on their way to market. Great news for the GNSS industry!

Tony Murfin
GNSS Aerospace

Indoor location research and fielded developments currently focus on consumer-level applications, mostly using mobile phone handsets, but this work will hopefully also benefit professional and high-precision uses of GNSS. Indoor location technologies could be of particular interest in machine control for warehousing, industrial assembly, indoor and even underground mapping, underground mining, in forestry where dense canopy virtually cuts out GNSS, construction, and other areas where sky-view is limited or negligible.

Tune in to Indoor Nav Webinar Thursday

Tune in to GPS World’s webinar, “Indoor Positioning and Navigation: Results of the FCC’s CSRIC Bay Area Trials,” on Thursday, April 18. Speakers include Khaled Dessouky (Technocom); Ganesh Pattabiraman (NextNav); Norm Shaw (Polaris Wireless); and Greg Turetzky (CSR). Registration is free.

Professional users will want to keep abreast of developments in the E-911 area, and be aware as achievable accuracies begin to approach what could be possible for precision applications. Right now, that’s maybe a pretty big stretch, but taking a look periodically is a good idea. A recent round of landmark tests by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) provides just such an occasion for a look-in.

The U.S., E-911 legislation put in place back in 2001 required that both landlines and cellphones should provide the location of callers to within specific accuracy levels. Location information was to be sent transparently to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) which would allow fire/rescue/police personnel to be dispatched to the location of the 911 call. For mobile phones, cellphone manufacturers and network providers forged ahead and implemented a number of location strategies using differing technologies — all require being outdoors where a clear sky-view is available.

GPS and augmented GPS technologies were only part of the cellphone solution. Other implementations included use of the cell-signal itself, along with an extensive database that can contain, amongst other things, signal attributes and network asset locations. Turns out that, today, around 60 percent of mobile phone calls are made within buildings, so the FCC started to investigate how to bring E-911 capability to indoor calls.

In 2011, the FCC commissioned a group called the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC), and Working Group 3 (WG-3) is the one currently investigating what can be done for indoor E-911 location. Drawn from interested industry participants, the WG-3 Location-Based Services (LBS) sub-group set about finding what technologies exist, how well they work, and how they could be applied to E-911. Now, there are a lot of people trying to crack this problem and many, many ways that it’s been tackled — all of which are at different stages of development and with differing levels of capability. In order to make definitive progress, WG-3 LBS decided that a test-bed was the best way to evaluate and compare what’s currently available.

Seven vendors signed up initially, but only three — NextNav, Polaris Wireless, and Qualcomm — completed the rigorous testing, which set out to basically establish horizontal and vertical accuracy, speed of location, and reliability and consistency of results for each system. The trial tested the performance of location systems across urban, suburban and rural areas in the San Francisco Bay Area. More than 13,000 test calls were placed from various tested technologies in 75 different indoor locations selected by participating public safety organizations from around the U.S. Click here for the full report.

In the tests, Polaris Wireless used an RF pattern matching/fingerprinting technique, Qualcomm used a hybrid Assisted-GPS (A-GPS)/Advanced Forward Link Trilateration (AFLT) system, and NextNav used wireless beacon technology. NextNav came out on top, and largely within the magical 50-meter “search ring” requirement, and was the only vendor to provide vertical location capability.

NextNav uses pressure transducers in its beacons and in the handheld units to accurately measure calibrated altitude — within about 2 meters — so it can actually report the floor where the handheld is located; it’s the only system tested that was able to do so. Apparently the use of MEMS pressure sensors in cellphones is forecast to increase to 681 million units in 2016, so this could be the right approach.

NextNav is focusing on the San Francisco market, where the company has fielded a significant number of beacons, but it has also placed beacons in another 40 metropolitan locations across the U.S. NextNav has acquired appropriate spectrum rights to transmit a 900-MHz “GPS-like” signal that’s synchronized to GPS. This enables good penetration into most urban buildings — both high-rise and those with fewer floors.

To support adoption of its solution, NextNav is working with a chipset manufacturer to incorporate processing of its location signal within an upcoming spin of an embedded cellphone chipset. While other solutions have adopted Wi-Fi and cell-signal solutions, NextNav contends that its approach is the most cost effective, as beacon deployment is geographically less dense and can be amortized over so many users.

NextNav Beacon.

Other solutions also apparently rely on the use of databases that store signal characteristics and a number of other parameters – the CSRIC report highlights the complexity this brings to database management and maintenance. NextNav also has a database, but this is basically to store records of location, cable configurations and calibration data. This is only used to ensure consistent performance of their system; it’s not required for network operation or location.

Higher precision applications would also benefit from this type of augmentation in the same way that WAAS users achieve higher accuracies, except this system uses local beacons, and there could be the potential for even higher precision with known fixed beacon locations within urban environments. As commercial UAV applications grow, it’s not impossible that there will be higher precision flight applications within cities, for geo-location surveying, building and outside appliance inspections, signal mapping, traffic mapping, road-work repair monitoring — in fact, many of the monitoring activities we see daily in towns and cities where a view of the sky can be particularly restricted.

The CSRIC participants are not the only ones pursuing the holy grail of indoor location. As mentioned, seven different location vendors/technologies began the process to demonstrate their performance indoors through the common test bed, but only three completed the process. The others remain highly motivated and involved, however, and at work tuning their varied solutions. The WG3 report states, “The following location vendors showed initial interest in having their technologies tested and highlighted through the test bed process, but ended up not participating in the Stage 1 test bed, for a variety of reasons.

• U-TDOA Positioning (TruePosition)
• DAS Proximity-based Positioning (CommScope)
• A-GNSS / Wi-Fi / MEMS Sensor Hybrid Positioning (CSR)
• LEO Iridium Satellite-based Positioning (Boeing BTL).”

Meanwhile, promising indoor location research goes on at a number of commercial and academic institutions, such as the University of Calgary PLAN group, which has focused on integration of Wi-Fi and GPS. An upcoming paper reports that Wi-Fi, using the 802.11 standards, can be employed in several different ways as a complementary positioning technology for GPS/GNSS navigation, and the two can be used in an integrated framework to provide a continuous and robust positioning service.

Another promising component for indoor location could be the recent release of a software application by Baseband Technologies, which can provide rapid ephemeris for up to 28 days, between ephemeris downloads from GPS directly or over cellphones from the Internet. But indoor location warrants much more extensive treatment than these few random comments — what’s summarized here are only some recent developments in E-911.

There will likely be another round of E-911 test-bed activities if funding and management issues are resolved. See CSRIC WG-3 LBS Subgroup member Greg Turetzky’s “Expert Advice” column from GPS World for perspective and a forward look. We can anticipate even wider participation by differing technologies and even greater levels of performance in future. Longer term progression towards higher precision professional applications seems to be inevitable.

Tony Murfin,
GNSS Aerospace

As a quick overview — L-band is just like WAAS, but with privately owned assets, rather than provided by a state agency. WAAS focuses on high integrity and accuracy, while L-band corrections are largely more focused on providing accuracy to users. A geographically distributed ground network of base stations sends receiver data to one or more central processing facilities, which formulate wide area corrections. A number of uplink stations then send these corrections up to geostationary satellite transponders (time on a number of satellites is often rented, but L-band companies could also own and operate their own satellites), and the transponders transmit the wide area corrections at L-band frequency for reception by suitably configured user receivers. Users are able to buy subscriptions that enable them to receive corrections for a period of time — and that’s how the private L-band suppliers make money. The accuracy a user can achieve depends on the service, but anything from a few meters to a few centimeters is now possible.

Before WAAS was fully operation in the U.S., L-band corrections supplied by private companies were already available. It became possible to regularly get meter-level accuracies without base-stations, and it was clear that this could well turn into a major benefit for users. Operations like agricultural automation, asset tracking, mining, marine navigation, and others that could get by with a few meters of accuracy began to rely on L-band corrections. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) could even work without base stations, and vehicle tracking could determine which side of the road a truck was on. Then with expanding worldwide ground networks, more satellites and ever-improving clock and orbit algorithms, we started talking about corrections that gave us decimeter accuracies. That’s when PPP began to outpace WAAS for some applications requiring higher precision.

Never quite got the significance of why the original marine PPP companies were spinning off land-focused providers from their marine businesses, but the original marine correction providers now have successfully established “land-only” provider companies. It makes sense to have a supplier talk to you in marine terms if you’re running a shipping company, and for that provider to focus on providing higher integrity corrections to your shipping fleet. Land-based machine control, GIS and vehicle tracking outfits, on the other hand, want their own land-based support networks and don’t want to talk in marine terms. So we now have a number of providers supplying different sets of PPP corrections. It’s also possible that segment pricing for the different markets might have played a role in these spin-offs.

The granddaddy system would seem to be Fugro’s OminSTAR — whose services are now marketed by Trimble following acquisition of OminSTAR marketing rights by Trimble in 2011, while Fugro retained its marine services. OminSTAR HP, G2, XP and VBS services are available courtesy of a worldwide network of reference stations, data networks, carrier-phase measurements and sophisticated “clocks and orbits” correction algorithms which provide sub-meter thru 10-cm capability to users.

The OmniSTAR network.

And of course Trimble is also running its own RTX service alongside OmniSTAR. With a world-wide reference station network, and a number of concentrated regional networks, CenterPoint RTX is regularly achieving less than 4cm for users. RTX is available over regular L-band satellite and over internet. Overall an impressive PPP capability.

The CenterPoint RTX network, by Trimble.

Then NavCom — and Deere & Co, its parent company — fielded the StarFire system for both NavCom and John Deere customers, who not surprisingly use it mainly for agriculture. However, use of the system has grown since it was introduced in 1999 and currently around 10 percent of customers are in markets other than ag — in offshore, survey, construction, aerial, GIS, and government/military applications. The StarFire signal is available worldwide but NavCom offers two differently priced services: “Land Only” and “All Area” for non-ag applications. You have to have Navcom or John Deere equipment to be able to use it, but the network and the receivers come from the same people, so the system has been optimized for peak performance and there shouldn’t be concerns about third-party integrators or service providers.

In 2001 in collaboration with JPL, Real Time GIPSY (RTG) was combined with the existing StarFire clocks and orbits algorithms and a StarFire GPS 10-cm service was offered. Nowadays StarFire GNSS has evolved out of that original correction service and claims impressive 5-cm accuracies using its multi-constellation GPS and GLONASS corrections.

The Starfire GNSS network.

StarFire also uses over 80 reference stations with mostly GPS/GLONASS receivers providing carrier phase data for redundant processing and distribution by L-band transmissions over the Inmarsat satellite network.

Then we come to the latest entrant into the land PPP business – TERRASTAR. The parent company Veripos has been around since 1989 and has been extremely successful in its marine business, going public in 2012 on the Oslo stock exchange. Veripos recently launched TERRASTAR to better address the land market for all the same good reasons discussed earlier. TERRASTAR provides two correction services: –M is meter level DGNSS and –D is a decimeter solution using both GPS and GLONASS. All the 80+ owned and operated reference sites around the world have dual-frequency GPS/GLONASS receivers, and there are plans to add Galileo and even COMPASS in the future.

Dual-redundant processing and network servers ensure uninterrupted distribution of GPS and GLONASS orbit and clock corrections, enabling decimeter accuracy for users. TERRASTAR distributes corrections over all seven Inmarsat GEOs, providing most land users with redundant L-band visibility.

Correction quality and availability are largely dependent on the number of reference stations that track the same GNSS satellite. The figures below show the location of satellites at a given time and the number of stations simultaneously tracking those satellites. For the TERRASTAR ground network, there are often more than 30 stations tracking the same satellite. This makes for high-quality clock and orbit corrections, and TERRASTAR-D claims to provide consistent, stable horizontal 5-10 cm and vertical 10-15 cm performance.

The TERRASTAR network.

As a new player, TERRASTAR has yet to corner a whole bunch of customers, but it already has some significant customer applications. It “GEO-Gates” its corrections like other providers to ensure usage on land, but it extends coverage to land areas plus about 6 km beyond the coastline — termed “nearshore.” So TERRASTAR has been able to capture in-shore dredging and construction business in Europe that otherwise might have had to go to more expensive marine correction services.

In addition, a new customer is using TERRASTAR for airborne geophysical applications. There are also ongoing trials on excavators in road construction, on trains, in oil and gas, for GIS/surveying, and with integrated agricultural sprayer-control and harvesters. TERRASTAR plans shortly to offer a web-based e-Commerce System for users to control their subscriptions. TERRASTAR and Septentrio/Altus have long-term relationships for receivers/systems, and Septentrio and Altus also retail the TERRASTAR service.

So, just when you think you have a good picture of PPP, another option for users has started to show up. PPP over internet — or iPPP as Nexteq Navigation in Calgary, Canada terms their service – is designed to provide similar corrections as PPP, but over cellular phone or Wi-Fi connection to the internet, rather than over satellite. With single frequency GPS, Nexteq claims accuracies of around 50cm, and 10cm with dual frequency, although their T5 and T5A handhelds only currently support L1. Of course Trimble has had corrections over the internet for a number of years.

So its clear that PPP services continue to evolve and become more and more sophisticated to match the growing complexity of customer applications. And as achievable accuracies improve, we’re seeing use in higher precision applications which would have seemed impossible just a few years ago, where local RTK base-stations and radio links would have been the only way to go.

With several very capable sources to choose from, GNSS industry customers have several options to carefully assess and fit to their business. Each PPP supplier has specific advantages and features available to meet customer expectations. The market now appears to be large and specialized enough that its inviting for new entrants. And each new entrant seems to bring with them new twists and capabilities which sell their services. As a customer, it’s a good time to trial new precision applications with PPP.

Tony Murfin
GNSS Aerospace

It would appear that the deal has closed, and the Ag and GNSS businesses will be separated and go their own ways. UniStrong Science & Technology Co. in Beijing China has acquired Hemisphere’s precision GNSS business for $15 million. The Ag business will be renamed AgJunction and remain on the Toronto TSX stock exchange with a new ticker symbol, and the GNSS company will in fact become a Canadian subsidiary of UniStrong, with two locations; one in the U.S. and one in Canada. Hemisphere GNSS Inc. will have its business headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the Canadian operation will remain in Calgary, Alberta.

For those of you who have followed the Ag business, you may recall that Hemisphere had recently bought a company by the name of AgJunction, which focuses on analysis and delivery of real-time prescriptions to in-cab controllers on suitably equipped Ag equipment. So the Ag business will now operate under that name.

As far as the precision GNSS business is concerned, I managed to corner Phil Gabriel, who is the new president of Hemisphere GNSS, and Jon Ladd, who is the new chairman of the board, and ask them about the deal with UniStrong.

The Loka for mobile GIS by UniStrong.

Basically, the old Hemisphere had been challenged with limited resources spread over too many programs, with profitability suffering. So, back almost a year ago a decision was taken to focus on ag and look at options for its non-core (GNSS) business. When Hemisphere appointed Rick Heiniger as its new CEO in September 2012, the board also made the decision to find an appropriate buyer for its Precision Products and Core GNSS Development business. A short list of potential buyers was drawn up and the company’s banker, PI Financial, approached this list of companies seeking a strategic investor. After due consideration, UniStrong turned out to have the best overall offer and made the best strategic fit. Hemisphere chose to negotiate exclusively with UniStrong, and UniStrong formed an acquisition team lead by Jon Ladd (ex-CEO, NovAtel), which also included Werner Gartner (ex-CFO, NovAtel), and due diligence and negotiations got underway.

UniStrong is a major GNSS player in China, established in 1994, headquartered in Beijing with eight branches in China, Hong Kong and Singapore, and more than 1,000 employees. UniStrong’s principle GNSS products appear to be high-end handhelds with GPS/GLONASS/Compass capability for navigation, high-accuracy surveying, GNSS post-processing and systems integration. UniStrong went public in China in 2009/2010 and raised around $75 million in capital.

The Dora handheld with high-precision GNSS, by UniStrong.

The relationship between UniStrong and Hemisphere goes back to 1997 when Phil Gabriel first appointed UniStrong as the Hemisphere distributor in China. Things went well over the years as they mutually expanded their businesses. When they began discussing a potential acquisition, it seemed like a natural progression in the relationship. Xingping Guo, president and CEO of UniStrong, took a significant step forward when he entrusted the acquisition to the team lead by Jon Ladd — this enabled a level of trust to be quickly established and allowed for an accelerated acquisition schedule.

The main issue to overcome seems to have been identifying, defining and clarifying how the new companies would manage themselves in relation to the markets they will go on to serve. This issue was overcome, and several cross-licenses have been put in place which will allow both sides to hopefully operate without future conflict. Clearly AgJunction will be agriculture focused, and Hemisphere will address that segment by supplying GNSS product to AgJunction under a long-term supply agreement.

Mr. Guo has given the new Hemisphere GNSS a wide mandate:

• To become a leading global provider of advanced GNSS technology and products across multiple vertical markets, and
• To establish Hemisphere as the cornerstone of a global business expansion strategy.

Going forward, Hemisphere GNSS is planning additional investment including the immediate hiring of around a dozen added staff positions. The Calgary location will retain its product development and engineering capabilities, but manufacturing will be transitioned by May to an existing third-party contract manufacturer. Core engineering and product marketing teams in Scottsdale will see growth, and Hemisphere is expected to begin to leverage the strong product engineering and manufacturing capabilities now available through UniStrong. Hemisphere GNSS will focus on OEM GNSS boards and antennas, marine, survey and mapping, and certain machine control applications.

The Vector series compass product line has already enjoyed considerable success with International Marine Organization (IMO) Wheelmark applications for use on large commercial ships, hydrographic surveying vessels, fishing vessels, leisure boats, work boats, and in other general marine navigation applications. Hemisphere will continue to supply Vector as packaged full-function integrated units, also with dual antennas and stand-alone GNSS unit solutions, and in various flavors as OEM components for integrators.

(Clockwise from top left) Vector V103 and V113 GPS Compass, Vector VS330 GNSS Receiver, A325 GNSS Smart Antenna.

OEM components for integrators will continue to include such receivers as the market-leading L1 Crescent module, GPS/GLONASS Eclipse and miniEclipse, Vector enabled receivers, antenna modules, SBX-4 Beacon receiver and the LX-2 L-band receiver.

Crescent P102/P103 OEM board, miniEclipse P300 GNSS OEM Module, PA300 GNSS Smart Antenna Module.

Survey applications are addressed by the S320 GNSS survey receiver and the XF series data collectors.

Clearly, Hemisphere precision technology will find its way into UniStrong products in China, and COMPASS/Beidou technology will figure largely in Hemisphere’s future. So the transaction will certainly benefit both parties – the basic edict of any acquisition – that the sum of the parts should become greater than they were separately before the acquisition. Good luck to the new international team that is now Hemisphere GNSS!

Tony Murfin
GNSS Aerospace

I’ve always had a soft spot for Hemisphere GPS — it grew up alongside NovAtel in Calgary, the company I worked for over many years. I knew a lot of the Hemisphere GPS people and I watched the company wax and wane over the years as it brought other companies into the fold, struggled and often succeeded with integration, with new product development and introduction, and eventually settled into its position as a leader in the GNSS ag business. The company’s recent announcement to sell off its Precision Products and Core GNSS group almost brought a tear to my eye — but it’s really just another step in their ongoing evolution.

Selective Availability. CSI came into the GNSS game back in 1990 when GPS still had to struggle with the inaccuracies of Selective Availability (SA), and it was an initial approach of overcoming SA with differential GPS that got it started. Steven Verhoeff and Michael McCullough got the original company off the ground with the Data Trakdifferential HF unit that was sold into the offshore oil and gas industry, improving 100 meters SA measurements to an accuracy of 5-10 meters. As the U.S. Coast Guard beacon service came online through 1991-1993, CSI jumped on-board with the MBX-1 beacon receiver and business began to take off in early 1994, with significant sales in marine and the newly developing precision agriculture industry.

In order to maintain the rapid growth that CSI had initially experienced, there followed a series of private placements and public offerings that provided the necessary capital needed to sustain growth. The first private placement in Calgary was followed by an IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange. These funds allowed CSI to not only invest in further beacon receiver development, but also gave it the capability to look at alternative approaches to growth through a series of acquisitions over the next seven years that would change CSI forever.

While the beacon receiver business sustained CSI through many years, by 1999 the talk was that SA would soon be switched off by the U.S. government, putting the need for differential beacon receivers in question. This motivated CSI’s diversification strategy, which saw them acquire Satloc in Arizona. The acquisition added a highly skilled engineering team that had developed the first GPS products for crop duster planes used in the safe and efficient application of chemicals, owning 75 percent of this market. Satloc had also deployed these products into ground-based precision agriculture applications for guidance of tractors, sprayers and other ag equipment.

SBX-4 Hemisphere’s current OEM radiobeacon receiver.

CSI Wireless. CSI became CSI Wireless in July 2000, following the acquisition of Wireless link Corporation in California, which brought on not only CSI’s entry into the wireless communication market, but also into fleet and asset management, fixed and mobile telemetry, and automotive and consumer telematics markets. To handle this diversity of products and markets, CSI Wireless quickly organized itself into two business units, one for the GPS sector and another handling wireless.

The wireless business went well at first, with revenues of around $200 million between 2000 and 2006, mostly in fixed-base wireless phones sold through Motorola in developing countries without wired communications infrastructures. However, margins fell as completion increased, and the wireless and telematics businesses were to be eventually sold off later in 2006. In contrast during this period, the GPS business thrived.

Outback-S.

Outback. Linking up with RHS out of Hiawatha, Kansas, CSI Wireless brought out the Outback-S light-bar guidance systems for retrofit in ground ag. Outback-S quickly became an after-market leader with more than 25,000 units sold. A series of ag guidance derivative products quickly followed as CSI and RHS, operating as a highly successful team, pioneered GPS-based precision agriculture techniques for the mainstream family farm during 2001-2004. e-Dif and COAST  — proprietary software technologies — were added to enhance GPS accuracy and reliability without third-party differential corrections and during periods of GPS signal outage.

During the same period, CSI also introduced the Vectorline of GPS heading sensor (compass) products, which re-established a position in the marine market providing heading corrections for seafaring vessels using a technology that was far less expensive and much simpler than competing gyro-compasses — consistent with the performance/value theme established in the family farm market.

Vector V101 Series GPS Compass.

CSI also introduced a variety of new GPS and DGPS receivers, including the PowerMAX Bluetooth-enabled DGPS receiver, the Seres integrated DGPS/SBAS smart-antenna system and the DGPS MAX, a high-accuracy GPS receiver integrating GPS, SBAS, WAAS and beacon DGPS.

Hemisphere GPS. Building on the successes that CSI and RHS had enjoyed, in April 2005 CSI announced that the marketing and distribution assets of the Outback Business were to be combined with CSI’s GPS Business Unit to create Hemisphere GPS, with three business units: Ground Agriculture, Air Agriculture and Precision Products. With the addition of the RHS business, the agriculture business unit was suddenly the largest in terms of revenues and set up the goal “to be the global leader in after-market GPS guidance products.” Shortly thereafter, Hemisphere announced that a strategic partnership had been established with CLAAS — one of the world’s top agriculture OEMs — providing it with guidance and auto-steering technology and products for integration with its equipment, all based on the newly developed Crescent receiver. Later in that year, the next-generation Outback S2 guidance product was announced incorporating Crescent technology.

With all three businesses poised for growth, everything seemed set for great things to happen. But the agriculture markets didn’t cooperate and with the wireless group still to be divested; internal costs mounted as sales and margins declined. Before the ship could be righted there were casualties, and unfortunately one of them was the founder and CEO Steven Verhoeff, who left the company in May 2006. Chairman Mike Lang stepped in as interim CEO, and CFO Cameron Olson became interim president. While a CEO search got underway, the cleanup related to the divestment and wind-down of the wireless businesses was completed, and new products in each of the three businesses continued to be introduced. By September 2006, Steve Koleswas was installed as Hemisphere’s next president and CEO, closing a difficult chapter in the CSI story and beginning what everyone hoped would be a phase of recovery.

During 2007 in the Agriculture group, the Outback product family grew with the introduction of the Automate and S-Lite.  The Precision Products group also introduced a number of new products, including the LX-1 OmniSTAR-compatible DGPS receiver board and the XF100 receiver for handheld mapping applications.

Total Eclipse. One of the most significant steps forward for Hemisphere came about in 2007 with the release of Eclipse dual-frequency GPS receiver technology. This dramatically extended high levels of precision and reliability into the company’s products. With Eclipse RTK technology, centimeter accuracies were now possible — a dramatic improvement from CSI’s first products that enabled accuracies of around 10 meters.

Making a Beeline. With the return to strong revenues through 2007, Hemisphere felt confident enough to return to its acquisition strategy, and in December it brought Beeline in Brisbane, Australia, into the company fold — adding intelligent high-end GPS guidance and auto-steering solutions for agriculture equipment and autonomous control solutions for other machine control applications. Leveraging highly accurate “steer-by-wire” automatic vehicle steering, the acquisition accelerated the evolution of auto-steering products from hydraulic-based steering to electronic vehicle control, and brought many other talented and experienced engineering employees into the company.

Outback S3.

The agriculture markets were extremely robust in North America in 2008, but there was even stronger growth in offshore international markets for the Precision Products group. During 2009, Hemisphere’s AG group introduced the Outback S3, a touch-screen high-end precision guidance terminal that added important new features and enabling entry into new higher-end segments of the market. In the Air group, the Air IntelliFlow dual-rate system was also introduced for aerial applications and the R220 dual-frequency RTK GPS receiver was announced.

Taking a Hit. Then the economic crisis of 2009 hit, and the resultant global recession impacted Hemisphere’s annual revenues significantly — the company experienced its first decline in annual revenues since it went public in 1997. Fortunately, an existing strong balance sheet helped them weather the storm. In late 2009, a “lean forward” strategy and internal restructuring took place, reorganizing each business with its own dedicated Engineering and Marketing teams.  This accelerated new product introductions, and 2010 proved to be an all-time high for new product releases.

For the ground AG group, products like Outback eDriveX provided a new level of high-precision AG steering applications and opened up significant new market opportunities. The A220 and A221 dual-frequency smart antennas provided farmers and other machine control customers with RTK level receivers. At that time, the Air group introduced Intellistar and quickly followed with the Satloc Bantam next-generation aerial guidance systems, which were all quite successful. The Precision group also went on to introduce more than a dozen new products, including new Crescent L1-based Vector products under the Hemisphere GPS brand and other private label variants. During this period, the Core GNSS R&D group worked very closely with the Precision group on Vector, Eclipse 2 and the miniEclipse. New antennas were also developed for the new receiver designs, establishing Hemisphere’s Precision group as a significant antenna and board supplier in the OEM market.

With all systems firing, Hemisphere came through the recession of 2010 and 2011 relatively unscathed, and emerged in 2012 to continue with its acquisition strategy. In January, it bought Ag Junction in State College, Pennsylvania, to further its Ag business growth. While John Deere was introducing Farmsight as a soup-to-nuts service for farmers, Ag Junction offered Hemisphere the opportunity to grow alongside, with in-cab real-time crop yield analysis and prescription preparation that is becoming the way ahead for the future of farm automation.

However, despite ongoing revenue growth, Hemisphere continued to struggle with profitability. In a move to reposition itself, in September 2012 the Hemisphere Board decided that a pure play Agriculture focus was necessary for the public company to prosper. Rick Heiniger, a board member since the RHS acquisition in 2005, was appointed Hemisphere’s third ^third CEO.  Rick moved quickly to begin repositioning the public company and recently announced intentions to move the public company’s head office to its Hiawatha, Kansas, Ag distribution center and to divest the Precision and Core GNSS R&D activities.

Hemisphere’s company timeline (click to enlarge.)

The Precision/Core business unit remains intact and will continue to be based out of Calgary, Alberta, and Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s understood that new investment is being sought, and that product offerings will continue to be supported and expanded with specific focus on the traditional markets of Marine, OEM, Survey and Machine Control.

So the adventure will continue, but it’s expected to be somewhat different as 2013 rolls forward. As we learn more about the changes at Hemisphere, we’ll be sure to talk with them so we can continue their evolving story.

Tony Murfin
GNSS Aerospace

Whatever happed to Allen Osborne Associates (AOA)? As a 1994 report (seeking a receiver for a “GPS Sounder” task) stated, “Signal-to-noise ratio tests of three high-performance GPS receivers in severe multipath conditions clearly show the Alllen Osborne Associates TurboRogue SNR-8000 is superior in locking and tracking C/A, P1 and P2 codes at very low receiver-to-satellite elevation angles.”

The advanced features of the TurboRogue may well have been key in AOA receivers being used for a large number of ground reference applications, including Monitor Station Receivers for the U.S. Air Force GPS Operational Control Segment (OCS).

Just to refresh your memory, AOA was acquired in 2004, and the GPS group now resides and thrives within the Communication Systems Division of ITT Exelis Corporation (ITT). Those AOA products and technology have contributed to the ITT military GPS receiver group in Van Nuys, California, becoming a leading SAASM receiver supplier.

ITT Exelis also has a Geospatial Systems group headquartered in Rochester, New York, which is home to the GPS Payload, Receiver and Control Systems group who are currently developing the ground reference receiver as part of the Raytheon team for the next-generation GPS Operational Control Segment (OCX).

Geospatial Systems has also been continuously involved in the supply of GPS payloads on every GPS satellite launched and has accumulated more than 500 years of on-orbit payload life.Geospatial Systems is also part of the Lockheed Martin team that is developing and building the satellite payloads for tomorrow’s GPS III space segment. ITT is developing and integrating the navigation payloads for eight GPS IIIA satellites.

An Exelis SINCGARS radio.

SINCGARS

SINCGARS

So, today, ITT boasts that it is the only GPS systems developer to have been a key contributor to all three GPS program segments (space, OCS and user) with both legacy and modernized equipment.

The receiver guys in Van Nuys have fielded a series of SAASM-based receivers over the years, beginning with the EGR-1020 which has gone into a large number of SINCGARS radio systems.. This adds position and GPS time-sync to each radio terminal. The handheld control display allows each radio operator to see the location in real-time of all SINCARS-equipped friendly force groups, providing active situational awareness on the battlefield.

The EGR-2000 Small Serial Interface (SSI) SAASM receiver.

The next generation EGR-2000 Small Serial Interface (SSI) SAASM receiver has been integrated into “an in-country GPS designed and manufactured system of a U.S. International Ally,” and can be found in terminals, radios and handhelds.

This brings us to the current ITT receiver product — known as the EGR-2500. ITT-funded IR&D investment in more integration and miniaturization has reduced the size of the EGR-2500 to half that of the SSI receiver. With the same capability to track through reduced signal levels and producing high-precision carrier phase and pseudorange, its not surprising that the EGR-2500 has found a few new OEM applications.

Both Geodetics and Technology Advancement Group (TAG) have worked with ITT to integrate the EGR-2500 into their products in order to achieve centimeter-level RTK positioning. The EGR provides high-quality, variable rate observations at up to 10 Hz for up to 24 different satellite signals, and this allows Geodetics and TAG to offer anti-spoofing RTK performance. With the addition of external inertial aiding, the EGR is also able to maintain a high quality RTK solution even under high dynamics.

The ITT EGR-2500.

But the SAASM receiver world is becoming even more competitive, and ITT is responding by maintaining its IR&D investment in yet another generation of receiver. The main objective is to even further improve power consumption and performance. A pair of ARM 9 processors has been added, along with circuitry that is software-controlled to reduce power to blocks not being used, so the next-generation EGR will have reduced size, weight and cost and is targeted to consume 500 milliwatts in low-power mode. The new enhanced correlator array design will also dramatically reduce time-to-first fix, and with today’s operational environment in mind, a front end filter has been added to reduce the effects of interference and jamming.

So anti-spoofing with reduced interference and jamming — sounds like a good solution for UAVs and others operating in a hostile environment. From a rack of monitoring equipment to a single board 1.1 gram OEM module, and more integration underway for the next generation receiver — another example of electronic GNSS evolution in action…

Tony Murfin
GNSS Aerospace

Today’s demand for a wide range of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) has resulted in a lots of different types flying today in many applications. With no apparent standard avionics fit or uniform safety standards, each UAS type is basically configured for specific tasks. As commercial applications for UAS emerge, major market growth is anticipated. One forecast indicates that the UAS market could reach $7.26 billion this year alone. The promise of new and better ways to reduce costs, improve safety, and for more efficient operations is feeding a real market expansion.

However, in the U.S. the FAA currently requires each UAS commercial project desiring access to controlled airspace to obtain an FAA-approved Certificate of Authorization (CoA). While the FAA has made efforts to speed up approvals, this process has put a damper on widespread commercial adoption of UAS. Nevertheless, opportunities abound in pipeline and transmission line inspection, crop spraying, expanded law enforcement/security, and hundreds of other applications. The FAA may have felt some pressure to move forward, because Congress has put in place the Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, which calls on the FAA to fully integrate unmanned systems, including those for commercial use, into the national airspace by September 2015.

Cadence Technologies SR-20.

Meanwhile, a project called the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the National Airspace System (or UAS in the NAS) undertaken by NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California, seeks to reduce technical barriers related to safety and operational challenges associated with enabling routine UAS access to the NAS.

Civil aircraft and UAS may co-exist after September 2015.

NASA Predator test vehicle.

Europe is also undertaking a study on the integration of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in non-segregated airspace for the future “Single European Sky”. The study, known as ICONUS (Initial CON OPS for UAS in SESAR), will be carried out by a consortium within the European air traffic management program called SESAR. The group is led by France’s ONERA, and includes AVTECH (Sweden), CIRA and Deep Blue (Italy), ENAC (France), and INTA (Spain) — all have significant experience with UAS. The study will allow the definition of the requirements, capabilities, and the equipment that UAS will need to operate safely and efficiently in the coming European SESAR environment.

In the U.S., the RTCA SC-203 committee is busy drafting UAS operational requirements, and there has been significant progress towards ultimately publishing Minimum Aviation Performance Standards (MASPS), including requirements for navigation. Europe also has similar activities under way aimed at improving UAS access to their airspace.

The big picture is that requirements for unmanned aircraft are being brought into conformance with the standards applied to the performance and behavior of manned aircraft. Navigation requirements for UAS are expected to specify that systems will need to be qualified to Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS). This means that on-board electronics, including GNSS systems, will probably need to be FAA TSO qualified, just as they are now for manned aircraft.

But why do we need to investigate certified avionics now? In the scheme of things, +2 years of breathing space to certify UAS avionics systems is not long before the September 2015 deadline. FAA airborne software and hardware qualification will take mucho time and effort to implement, and reconfiguration of systems, interfaces, and operating procedures may take even longer.

UAS manufacturers have the option to move forward in stages — for instance, by selecting a few existing airborne qualified OEM avionics, they could minimize the internal effort to comply. And as the first UAS with certified avionics emerge, they will probbaly get good support from FAA to adopt the rules of operating in the U.S. NAS. Embedding an existing certified GPS receiver in UAS avionics will reduce the level of internal work needed and will allow more effort for developing commercial market opportunities which are looking to quickly adopt UAS.

And while this is going on, efforts are in full swing to change the navigation landscape in the U.S. and Europe over the next few years. So it would be better to be ready with a capable GNSS receiver that is already built to meet the challenges of the FAA NextGen and SESAR environments.

The L5 civil GPS frequency may likely be operational around the time that UAS unrestricted access becomes possible. GPS L1/L5 dual-frequency operations will enable higher navigation accuracy, reliablity, and integrity. The FAA is already developing NexGen WAAS to include L5, and revisions to the GPS MOPS to include L5 are anticipated to begin shortly, in time for a usable GPS L5 constellation in 2015/2016.

The FAA is already preparing for L5 avionics, and industry investigative work is under way. It’s possible that GPS L1/L5 may well meet the accuracy and integrity requirements for CAT II/III automated landings. And in Europe, Eurocae work is expected to gain momentum for the Galileo E1/E5a MOPS as the Galileo satellite navigation system is launched and becomes operational.

The new GNSS environment also includes WAAS/SBAS precision approach (LPV) capability — LPV is available now in the US and will soon be in wider operation in Europe. And Automatic Dependendant Surveillance (ADS-B) is being rolled out in the U.S. and around the world. ADS-B is being mandated within the U.S. NAS as the means for air traffic control to track all aircraft, so UAS avionics will need to include certified ADS-B Out capability.

The Septentrio AiRx2 receiver comes out of the box as a certified L1 GPS with ADS-B and WAAS LVP, but is also ready for GPS L5 and Galileo E1/E5a.

Septentrio L1/L5 AiRx2 airborne receiver.

And yet, even as greater steps forward are being taken to enhance how GNSS is used in this wider definition of aviation, which will soon include UAS, a team at the University of Texas was busy demonstrating how a UAV could be maliciously side-tracked (see article in the August issue of GPS World). Their recent tests at White Sands Missile Range used a spoofing set-up built in their lab to significantly affect the trajectory of a Hornet Mini UAV. Admittedly, the GPS on this vehicle was not a qualified airborne receiver, but there were other sensors on board the vehicle which may have been able to indicate that the GPS had been hijacked. The spoofing set-up used a high-power directional signal to overwhelm the real GPS signals and “distract” the GPS on-board receiver. Nevertheless, they were able to force the hovering UAV down towards the ground — somewhat reminiscent of the Iranian downing of a U.S. surveillance drone in December last year.

How could this happen when there was also an inertial sensor and a radio-altimeter on the UAV? A good question, which UAV manufacturers will need to consider when they implement their on-board Kalman filters, knowing that spoofing is now an additional threat to combat. But, couldn’t we detect that high-power RF spoofing signal at the front-end of the GPS receiver? Even if only to tell the on-board systems that there could be Hazardous Misleading Information (HMI) about? Or run separate GPS and GPS/inertial position solutions, detect significant divergence, and set the same warning flag? And multi-constellation, multi-frequency receivers, and even controlled radiation pattern antennas — all things to investigate, and even more effort for the aviation receiver guys who are always working tirelessly to improve the integrity of GNSS positioning.

Of course, if you hijack a UAV with a high-power spoofer, you are also spoofing civil transports operating in the same airspace — so now there is the potential to trigger a federal investigation. And it will probably be easier to detect this stuff with moving airborne sensors rather than the fixed ground equipment used to find jammers on trucks at Newark Airport, and lots of pilots likely providing real-time location information on radios if their GPS goes even a little haywire — all would help to quickly locate and shut down any spoofer. Nevertheless, it’s a threat to be mitigated.

In South Korea, the effects of intermittent North Korean jamming of GPS to disrupt navigation at sea, on land, and in the air in the south may have contributed to the recent fatal crash of a Schiebel Camcopter S-100 drone — a 150-kilogram rotorcraft capable of 220 km/h flight, which should have coped with loss of GPS as the Camcopter has multiple inertial measurement units that “allow safe operation and recovery in the absence of GPS signals.”

Schiebel Camcopter S-100.

Schiebel, however, has indicated that information recovered to date indicates that after the loss of GPS signals to the aircraft’s receivers, there may have been incorrect handling and operator errors which resulted in an unfortunate chain of events that ultimately led to the crash.

Emergency procedures “to ensure a safe recovery in such a situation” do not appear to have been “correctly and adequately followed,” Schiebel alleges.

NovAtel may have found one way to help mitigate spoofing on UAVs — they just released a combined civil/SAASM GPS receiver, the OEM625S, aimed specifically at UAVs. Granted, the idea is to add SAASM anti-spoofing capability to a number of UAVs which currently use NovAtel commercial receivers — mostly in military systems. And of course that may well be motivated by the desire to avoid any further Iranian incidents!

BAE Systems has obviously been thinking of giving GPS a back-up for just those situations where jamming or even spoofing is detected. BAE’s system was just announced at the Farnborough Air Show in the UK and is still in the research phase, but looks extremely promising. Known as Navigation via Signals of Opportunity (NAVSOP), it interrogates the radio environment for the ID and signal strength of local digital TV and radio signals, plus air traffic control radars, with finer-grained adjustments coming from cellphone masts and Wi-Fi routers. Mapping the locations of all these sources might be quite an undertaking, and given that these are all non-safety-of-life commercial signals, the sources are subject to the vagaries of power outages, regular maintenance, and breakdowns. Nevertheless, with such a multitude of signals, NAVSOP could well turn out to be a viable back-up for GNSS.

Aerostar 5C UAS.

Meanwhile, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) big show is set to run August 6-9 in Las Vegas. With more than 500 exhibitors, attendance is expected to be more than 8,000 people from all over the world. All the key manufacturers, suppliers, and users of UAS are expected to be there, so it’s a great opportunity to meet people working with UAS and see some of the hardware and systems. Hopefully we will be able to get a feel for how the industry sees the onset of commercial market opportunities and the changes this may mean to systems and vehicles. It will be my first time walking round all these exhibits and seeing the live demos, so I’m very excited to be able to find out even a little about what makes this industry tick! More on this later…

So, shared access to civil airspace, wider applications in commercial operations, and changes in equipment qualification — along with potential solutions for GNSS jamming and spoofing — lots to consider for the UAS industry.

Tony Murfin
GNSS Aerospace

I’ve never felt entirely comfortable with GNSS in agriculture — basically because this is a specialized application area and discussion quickly turns to things like “yield, productivity, efficiency, costs, and inputs.” And if you haven’t lived in Iowa, or worked on a large acreage, or been employed by Deere — you just don’t have the vocabulary or the necessary technical background. But things have moved on in ag and all the technology is now basically enabled by GNSS, so maybe its time to take a new look.

It may be a good idea to try to understand the market drivers before we delve into the applications and who’s doing what. It seems that what drives Ag technology adoption is population growth. And people need food, and food production has to become more efficient for us to just keep up. If we can get 200 bushels (there’s another ag term) of crop per acre in a productive farm in North America, the challenge might be to improve how a typical small holding in India might move up from its current 20 bushels/acre by using ag automation. Or on a more global scale, over the next 50 years the world’s population is expected to require twice as much food, and a significant portion of this growth has to come from greater efficiency in food production from the same land.

So what are the technology drivers? It seems that auto-steer has been a major contributor, but GNSS accuracy improvements from decimeter wide-area networks, and more recently the widespread adoption of centimeter-level RTK, have improved machine guidance significantly. Then you have systems on tractors which can control these huge rigs and respond with complex “prescriptions” so field and crops alike specifically get what improves growth of specific crops. Gathering data as they proceed through these applications, farm databases are created and built upon, growing season after growing season.

Typical Asian farm operations.

Huge automated farm machine operating in North America.

I used to think that “down time” was a term more usual in the oil patch or in aviation, where high-value assets just cannot be left to idle because of a component failure or inadvertent human error. Down time for these huge ag rigs is big money nowadays, and systems are being constructed around their owners and farming customers to minimize non-productive time, lengthen their hours of productive use, and maximize the efficiency of the operation.

Hemisphere has been in the GNSS ag business for more than 20 years, and has evolved products from simpler mass-market light-bar guidance, folding in companies like Satloc, CSI, and Beeline technology and their applications, and growing its customer base in the process. As a consequence, ag systems opportunities in North America are now expanding into Brazil, Argentina, and elsewhere in South America where precision steering and application controls enable “controlled traffic” farming practices, variable rate input control, and simplification of high-value crop systems such as sugarcane where precise placement/spacing is required. An OEM partnership with Brazilian machinery manufacturer STARA has recently allowed integration of the eDriveX precision steering system and the A320/A321 dual-frequency RTK smart antenna with the STARA Topper 4500 application control terminal. Beyond South America, precision agriculture and automation is growing rapidly in China and Eastern Europe and is expected to ramp up over a much shorter period than seen in North America and Western Europe.

Hemisphere is tackling these opportunities with the Outback guidance series of products, which cover most of these different segments and degrees of Ag automation.

Outback S3 guidance display.

Outback AC110 automated rate and section control.

A321 RTK base station.

The Outback S3 combines a color touch screen with Crescent GPS receiver technology. This computer resource is at the core of the system where straight, contour, circle pivot, A+ direction guidance, and update B point is stored, controlled, and implemented. This display and control unit manages the automated steering system that drives the vehicle wherever the pattern requires and also controls automated section and chemical/fertilizer rate control. Automated section control is about preventing overlap and skip of inputs based on current GPS position and comparison with the vehicle’s actual location. Automated rate control is important for applying a constant rate of inputs regardless of changes in vehicle ground speed. Variable rate technology takes this a step further, allowing the system to automatically change the input rate as demanded by a stored application map related to field potential productivity zones. This program is customized for each farm/field and developed over time by gathering data on the growth of crops in response to various applications made in progressive growing seasons. This is where the real payback comes from in savings in previously wasted chemicals applied on the field — helps the economics of the operation, the efficiency of the application versus achieved crop growth, and minimizes the environmental impact of run-off.

RTK technology adoption is also growing in ag and machine control to enable centimeter-level vehicle steering to reduce skip/overlap and minimize soil compaction. In addition, RTK accuracy allows for new applications with accurate Z-positions such as water management and for better drainage, retention, and input management. For instance, more accurate elevation data can enable machine control for drain tile installation, surface ditch/drain installation, land leveling for even water distribution, and levee creation for irrigation retention. And accurate elevation maps combined with mapping layers for yield, soil-type and nutrient levels can give the grower a much clearer direction on how he may need to modify his input applications and drainage/irrigation strategy in order to maximize yield.

Hemisphere is clearly active in many phases of ag automation, including significant investments in the technology revolution which is bringing major changes to how automation can benefit farmers — but more about that later.

Septentrio in Belgium has also become involved in a number ag projects, mostly around the use of their AsteRx2eH dual-antenna receiver system.

Sepentrio is working with customers who have applications in discrete crops such as flower bulbs, vegetables, and other ecological farming. These include mechanical weeding, which is needed in the very intensive and EU-controlled high-density farming in Western Europe. Designed to work with variable base-line lengths, this proven heading receiver continuously self-calibrates for antenna separation and has enjoyed success in many ag applications over the eight years it’s been in the field.

AsteRx2eH dual-antenna receiver.

Then a problem of receiver interference encountered in farming applications in Russia became a practical application for Septentrio’s Advanced Interference Mitigation (AIM+) technology.

Near Tuymen in Russia, a local farming community was equipping their equipment with high-precision (RTK) GPS systems for autosteer and precision-farming applications. They had also set up a local base-station to provide the required correction signals. However, when they were trying to bring up the service, rovers receiving data from this base-station were unable to obtain an RTK position. Equipping the base-stations with Septentrio AIM+ technology, and activating the adaptive notch filtering feature, largely suppressed the interference and cm-accurate positioning became possible.

Case New Holland (CNH), the manufacturer of Case IH and New Holland agricultural equipment, also recognizes the importance of GNSS-based solutions to the future of agriculture production. A growing population will require that more food is grown on an ever-decreasing amount of land. GNSS-based solutions are allowing producers to meet this challenge.

Case IH Steiger 400.

New Holland T9.

CNH is seeing increased adoption of GNSS automation that is driven by the positive impact that agricultural producers are seeing in their operations. CNH partners with producers by providing GNSS solutions necessary for the producer to employ agronomic practices such as “site-specific farming.” This method, combined with machine automation, can improve profitability by applying the exact amount of inputs needed for optimal crop production. With the increased use of GNSS, awareness of how fertilization inputs are applied is proving to be the most accurate prediction mechanism for crop yields and is also increasing the safety of how this is done.

CNH farm equipment comes with options for factory-installed GNSS-based system solutions such as guidance, yield mapping, and product application control. CNH is responding to increased customer demand by providing more extensive GNSS solutions.

Now, whenever anyone thinks of automation in agriculture, it’s impossible not to talk about John Deere. Deere has been in the business of providing automation solutions to farmers on its platforms using GNSS for 16 years. The company felt this was so important to future growth that it integrated its own GNSS company (Navcom) into the Deere family. RTK corrections provided by many dealer networks in the U.S. and the StarFire worldwide correction distribution system form the core infrastructure necessary for its machine automation systems.

The highly accurate SF3000 is the latest addition to the Deere in-house receiver line. It comes with integrated StarFire and RTK capability, and in keeping with the tractor and machine installations it will see, is extremely rugged and reliable. Currently with integrated GPS and GLONASS, Deere intends to upgrade it for Galileo when it becomes available.

Deere SF3000 ag receiver.

      
Deere AutoTrac.

Deere AutoTrac uses high-precision GNSS combined with six-axis accelerometers and gyroscopes to measure vehicle dynamics/attitude and to automatically control vehicle steering. This enables hands-off agricultural operations and leads to large improvements in efficiency and productivity.

Overall, Deere Ag automation is aimed at enabling precision planting, precision seeding, and minimizing overlap — it used to be meters of potential overlap between successive passes down a field with huge rigs; nowadays it’s a matter of inches. These advances improve productivity, optimize water usage, and lead to precision-enabled decision-making, which brings us to the next revolution in ag automation.

Over the past 15 years, users have been collecting data in a manual fashion from in-cab devices such as yield monitors and controllers found in combines, sprayers, and planters. Growers and agricultural service providers traditionally have put this data into desktop application software, making it difficult and time-consuming to maintain and share large amounts of data especially between an ag service provider and the grower.

Deere’s new approach is called John Deere FarmSight enabled by telematics, and Hemisphere has gone as far as buying a company called Ag Junction with similar capabilities to join in this new approach as to how data gathered during automated ag operations is used, and how future operations can be monitored and controlled.

If you put a radio link in the cab of the tractor and use it to connect the system on the tractor to a central server, say at a local dealer’s, then data gathered by the equipment during regular operations can not only be collected in real-time, but can also be analyzed to develop prescriptions for successive treatments. Connecting growers, fertilizer/chemical/seed retailers, agronomist, and machinery supports increasing efficiency and data movement in the ag cycle.

Of course, you can also monitor equipment location and discover that it’s broken or moved from the place it’s supposed to be, so maintenance can be scheduled and theft can be reduced. Everyone will want more real-time support, direct use of data, asset tracking, and all the bells and whistles that being connected can bring to ag operations.

A new era in ag automation for sure, that could hopefully go a long way to achieving those major productivity increases in food production that we all will need in the future. We’ll learn more details about GNSS and ag from several experts in a GPS World webinar which is planned for August 2. Please watch for further announcements from GPS World.

Tony Murfin
GNSS Aerospace