In 2011 the European GNSS Agency (GSA) awarded GMV the EEGS2 project (EGNOS Extension to Eastern Europe). The main objective of the project is to demonstrate through flight trials the benefits of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) in areas of Eastern Europe where it is not yet available, such as Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and Russia, and to prepare the civil aviation authorities and air navigation service providers for future use of the system.

GMV’s magicSBAS solution.

In the context of this project, after the tests conducted in Spain, the maiden flights have been successfully carried out in Moldova, using the equipment and tools developed by GMV. The Moldova demonstrations have given pilots and service providers a clear idea of the potential benefits of EGNOS and the flying procedures of the near future, GMV said.

Four flights had previously been conducted in Spain in November, December and February. The satisfactory results of these flights then paved the way for the demonstrations in Moldova.

The magicLPV system, developed under this project, enables LPV approaches (localizer performance with vertical guidance) to be carried out using the signal generated by the magicSBAS application. This test environment allows any region of the world to analyze the air-navigation benefits to be obtained with deployment of a Space Based Augmentation System (SBAS). This signal is read by Internet and transmitted by radio frequency in the vicinity of the airport, allowing LPV approaches to be made in places where SBAS is either completely unavailable or available only on a very limited basis.

Eight flights in all were carried out in various Moldovan airports, including Chișinău International Airport. Test results were highly satisfactory, demonstrating the simplicity of equipment configuration and operation, and the performance of the magicSBAS signal, GMV said.

“These trials are an important milestone for GMV, for the project and, fundamentally, for the use of EGNOS in the countries of Eastern Europe in the near future,” said Miguel Romay, executive director of GNSS–Aerospace.

GMV will continue with these demonstrations in other countries of Eastern Europe. The next trip in two weeks will be to Romania, where new flights are expected to be just as successful.

The next GPS satellite launch is scheduled for May 15 with the launch window extending from 21:39 to 21:58 UTC. An Atlas 5 rocket will be used to place the satellite, GPS IIF-4, into orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

This is the first time in almost 28 years that an Atlas rocket will be used to launch a GPS satellite. All of the prototype or Block I satellites were orbited with Atlas rockets. Since then, Delta rockets have been used exclusively for GPS launches. The IIF satellites are being launched with a mixture of Atlas and Delta rockets.

The IIF-4 satellite, also known as SVN66, will operate as PRN27. SVN66/PRN27 will eventually occupy the C-2 slot, replacing SVN33/PRN03, a Block IIA satellite launched in 1996. Reportedly, SVN66/PRN27 will go through an extended period of testing following launch, and is not expected to be set healthy until August. SVN33 will become a reserve or backup satellite.

Ground Stations: ER = Eastern Range; BOSS = Call sign of New Hampshire Station, New Boston Air Force Station, New Hampshire; LION = call sign of Telemetry & Command Station, Royal Air Force Oakhanger, Hampshire, U.K.; Diego Garcia = Diego Garcia Station (call sign REEF), British Indian Ocean Territory; Guam = Guam Tracking Station (call sign GUAM), Dededo, Guam.
TDRS: Tracking and Data Relay Satellite
MES1: Centaur first main engine start
MECO1: Centaur first main engine cutoff
MES2: Centaur second main engine start
MECO2: Centaur second main engine cutoff
At spacecraft separation, the GPS satellite’s orbit will be circular with a height of 11,047 nautical miles or 20,459 kilometers and an inclination of 55 degrees.

(Courtesy of SpaceFlight Now) This is the 45th Launch Support Squadron crew patch for the GPS 2F-4 mission, which is Boeing’s Space Vehicle (SV) #5. Each SV is a named for a navigation star and its constellation. SV-5 is named Vega, with constellation Lyra. On the patch, they are the large star and constellation in the background of space. The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket is shown lifting the satellite from the Eastern Launch Site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The Squadron mascot is a gator, and a lyra is a Greek harp. SSgt Thomas Hogan drew a “Toga-Gator” and Lt Ken Stuart did the patch design.

“A billionth of a second equals a nanosecond, a time interval far beyond our own human capacity of appreciation,” explains Marco Falcone, ESA’s Galileo System Manager.

The prediction error for the offset between Galileo System Time and UTC, expressed in nanoseconds. The UTC value available to the user via Galileo is expected to be accurate within 26 nanoseconds, but in spring 2013 it has been even better, with a prediction error in the last two months of less than five nanoseconds.

“A single lightning flash across the sky during a thunderstorm lasts about ten milliseconds, which is already 10 000 000 nanoseconds. But for high-tech applications, as well as navigation services, nanosecond accuracy is essential.”

The replacement for Greenwich Mean Time, UTC is part of all our daily lives: it is the timing used for Internet, banking and aviation standards as well as precise scientific experiments, maintained by the Paris-based Bureau International de Poids et Mesures (BIPM).

The BIPM computes UTC based on inputs from collections of atomic clocks maintained by institutions around the world, including ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

‘Galileo time’ is derived independently of UTC but is being kept close to it, with a precise ‘offset’ between the two values being calculated continuously and then disseminated through Galileo’s navigation message.

Galileo, like all other satellite navigation systems, is based on the highly precise measurement of time. A receiver on the ground pinpoints its position by calculating how long signals from satellites in orbit take to reach it.

Matching the receiver and satellite clocks then multiplying the time taken by the speed of light gives the range between user and satellite, allowing the receiver to fix its own location relative to four or more satellites.

“Each navigation system has its internal reference system time used to synchronise all system clocks and maintain overall coherence,” adds Marco.

Galileo’s navigation message embedded in its signals include precise timings based on Galileo System Time, kept close to global time standard UTC with a precise offset given, accurate to at least 26 nanoseconds.

INRIM has been supporting ESA’s Galileo development since the early phases of the project. More recently INRIM has overseen the creation of a ‘Time Validation Facility’ for Galileo in collaboration with five other European time-measurement institutions: the Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt in Germany, the National Physics Laboratory in the UK, the Systeme de References Temps Espace/Observatoire de Paris in France, the Real Instituto y Observatorio de la Armada in Spain and Observatoire Royale de Belgique.

Galileo’s Ground Control Segment (GCS) in the Fucino Control Centre in Italy oversees Galileo navigation services and satellite payload operations.

Each day, the most precise European clocks and national time scales are compared to GST and the offset compared to UTC is estimated and provided to the Galileo Control Centre. This offset is then uploaded to the Galileo satellites for transmission in the navigation message available to users.

As explained by Patrizia Tavella from INRIM, “The UTC value available to the user via Galileo is expected to be accurate within 26 nanoseconds, but in the last two months it was even better, with a prediction error in the last two months of less than five nanoseconds.”

Applanix AP50 GNSS-inertial system.

The Applanix AP50 GNSS-inertial system is a GNSS-inertial sensor plus inertial measurement unit (IMU) in a compact form factor. It features a high-performance precision GNSS receiver and the Applanix IN-Fusion GNSS-inertial integration technology running on a powerful, dedicated inertial engine (IE) board.

Riegl’s VQ-820-G airborne laser scanner.

On board an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the system is capable of penetrating areas that may be too dangerous for piloted aircraft or ground patrols. This can provide additional safety and security for its users.

“We really appreciate the professional and amicable cooperation with Applanix, which allows us to offer user-friendly and powerful, fully integrated solutions for dynamic data acquisition to the marketplace,” said Jürgen Nussbaum, Riegl director of international sales.

In addition, Applanix will be a Gold sponsor at Riegl LIDAR 2013, Riegl’s international user conference taking place in Vienna, Austria, June 25-27.

Navsys assisted in the development of the Colorado Department of Transportation’s Emergency Vehicle Location System Mayday platform in 1995. To address the need for faster notification and responsiveness during emergencies, Navsys was contracted to integrate GPS positioning into a cell phone so that location information could be sent to a communications center for mobile 911 calls.

One of the enabling technologies Navsys developed for this system was LocaterNET. When activated by a user’s in-vehicle unit (IVU), LocaterNET collects a snapshot of raw GPS information. That information is then sent to a remote processing system to determine the user’s location. This technique allowed for low power consumption and processing requirements for the IVU, which is vital for small form factor personal navigation and communication devices.

“We are honored to be a part of this exhibition and for the awareness it creates for how GPS technology has advanced many other technologies we use today,” said Alison Brown, president and CEO of Navsys.

The Smithsonian exhibition covers a multitude of navigation and timing innovations and opens on April 12. A detailed description of the LocaterNET Mayday platform can be found here.

“Time and Navigation is an ambitious exhibit because it traces the development of very complicated technologies and makes us think about a subject we now take for granted,” said Gen. J.R. “Jack” Dailey, director of the museum. “Today, the technology needed to accurately navigate is integrated into mobile computers and phones: hundreds of years of technological heritage tell your handheld device where you are in a seamless manner. This opens up new possibilities and challenging questions for the next generation of scientists and explorers who visit this exhibit to start thinking about.”

Don Jewell discussed the exhibit in depth in his March Defense PNT column.

The gallery is organized into five sections and spans three centuries of efforts to travel on Earth and through the solar system. In each section the visitor will learn about pioneer navigators facing myriad issues, but one challenge always stands out: the need to know accurate time.

Sections

This timekeeper was the first American-made marine timekeeper taken to sea. William Cranch Bond, a 23-year-old Boston clockmaker, crafted it during the War of 1812.

Navigating at Sea is an immersive environment that suggests a walk through a 19th-century sailing vessel. Visitors will learn how centuries ago navigators at sea relied on chronometers and measurements of celestial objects to determine location. This section includes a mariner’s astrolabe, dating from 1602; a Ramsden sextant and dividing engine; several chronometers; a model of Galileo’s pendulum clock; and the earliest sea-going marine chronometer made in the United States, produced by Bostonian William Cranch Bond during the War of 1812. It also features an interactive display that allows visitors to use a sextant to navigate with the stars.

Navigating in the Air relates how air navigators struggled with greater speeds, worse weather and more cramped conditions than their sea-going predecessors. It tells the story of the innovations that overcame these challenges, as represented the gallery’s largest artifact, the Lockheed Vega “Winnie Mae,” flown by Wiley Post and Harold Gatty, shattering the around-the-world record in 1931. Visitors will learn that Charles Lindbergh required navigational tutoring after he flew to Paris and how he paved the way for a new system of navigation in the process. A personal account by a WWII navigator highlights wartime innovations. This section ends with an explanation of how clocks with tiny quartz crystals opened an entirely new era of navigation in the form of LORAN (LOng RAnge Navigation).

Wiley Post’s Winnie Mae circled the globe two times, shattering previous records. The first time was in 1931 with Weems associate Harold Gatty as lead navigator. The second was a solo flight in 1933 assisted by “Mechanical Mike,” one of the world’s first practical autopilots.

Navigating in Space traces how teams of talented engineers invented the new science of space navigation using star sightings, precise timing and radio communications. This section includes an Apollo sextant, a space shuttle star tracker, timing equipment used at a ground tracking station and a flight spare (duplicate spacecraft) of Mariner 10, the first spacecraft to reach Mercury.

Inventing Satellite Navigation describes how traveling in space inspired plans to navigate from space. Innovators found that time from precise clocks on satellites, transmitted by radio signals, could be used to determine location. The U.S. military combined several breakthroughs to create the Global Positioning System. Some of the artifacts in this section are the NIST-7 atomic clock that served as the U.S. time standard in the 1990s, the navigation system from the nuclear submarine U.S.S. Alabama, a satellite from the Transit system used for global navigation before GPS and a test satellite global navigation built at the Naval Research Laboratory.

An official DARPA photograph of Stanley at the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. Stanley, created by the Stanford University Racing Team, won the race.

Navigation for Everyone tells the stories of real people — a fireman, a farmer and a student — who use modern navigation technology in their everyday lives. It also addresses what might come next: the story is not over yet and many new technologies are being developed. This section includes a disassembled mobile phone with a diagram showing all its parts and depicts how hundreds of years of navigation technology are now in the palm of a user’s hand. It also features “Stanley,” the robot car that won the 2005 Grand Challenge, a robot race sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The exhibition is made possible through the support of Northrop Grumman Corporation; Exelis Inc.; Honeywell; National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; U.S. Department of Transportation; Magellan GPS; National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing; Rockwell Collins; and the Institute of Navigation.

The National Air and Space Museum building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is located at Sixth Street and Independence Avenue S.W. The museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is located in Chantilly, Va., near Washington Dulles International Airport. The National Museum of American History collects, preserves and displays American heritage in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific and military history.

America’s First Marine Chronometer.

Bradford W. Parkinson, professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Emeritus at Stanford University, discussed “GPS for Humanity — The Stealth Utility” at a special Smithsonian event Thursday, March 21. If you missed his talk, you can view it now on UStream.

Parkinson’s lecture at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., was part of the introduction of the new Smithsonian exhibition Time and Navigation: The Untold Story of Getting from Here to There, which opens April 12. Don Jewell, GPS World’s contributing editor for Defense, discusses the exhibit in his February column.

According to the Smithsonian, for centuries, nations have invested enormous resources to determine time and place for geopolitical reasons, and their research has changed people’s view of the world. Advanced technology that was once available only to the military has become commonplace in car dashboards, cell phones and a growing number of other portable devices of daily life. The Time and Navigation exhibit explores how revolutions in timekeeping over three centuries have influenced how people find their way. It is organized into five sections: Navigating at Sea; Navigating in the Air; Navigating in Space; Inventing Satellite Navigation; and Navigation for Everyone.

Bygrave Position-Line Slide Rule.

Andrew Johnston (geographer, Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, National Air and Space Museum) gave a presentation about the exhibit at ION GNSS in Nashville, Tennessee.

In the 1970s, Parkinson was the chief architect and original program director for GPS. In his lecture, he will present the history, applications, and future of GPS and the GNSS. Central to operation of GPS is the relationship between time and navigation, and GPS will be explored in the Time and Navigation exhibit.

Unmanned Innovation’s os-Series Autopilots, made commercially available for the first time in November 2012, combine modular hardware with an open architecture, making each autopilot a development platform.

The os-Series Autopilots are offered in multiple form factors with features tailored for various vehicles, payloads, and applications. Each os-Series Autopilot is a complete integrated solution and contains an INS/GPS with air data incorporating the VectorNav VN-100, a datalink radio, payload interfaces, and a Linux computer within one miniature package, starting at 32 grams. The os-Series Autopilots come with professionally written flight control and mission software that Unmanned Innovation provides under a royalty-free license that allows for easy modification, extension, and inclusion in proprietary products.

The partnership between the two companies began during AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems North America 2012 conference in August, where Unmanned Innovation was introduced to VectorNav’s VN-100 and recognized it as an attractive alternative to its existing inertial measurement sensors due to its small form factor, low-cost, and high-precision calibration. Unmanned Innovation’s flexible architecture allowed for quick integration of the VN-100 and VectorNav provided custom firmware with a faster update rate to make the IMU compatible with Unmanned Innovation’s requirements.

The VN-100 IMU, calibrated for bias, scale factor and misalignment errors at room temperature or over the entire thermal operating range of the sensor increased the accuracy of the os-Series Autopilot navigation solution. After a short development cycle, testing and verification, VectorNav’s VN-100 IMUs are now fully integrated within Unmanned Innovation’s os-Series Autopilots. The complete os-Series product line is shipping to customers in the USA and abroad and is free of ITAR restrictions.

“We are very pleased to be working with Unmanned Innovation on their os-Series Autopilot, which we find to be a very unique and high-value product that fills a significant gap in this market,” said John Brashear, VectorNav’s president. ”We hope that the VN-100 adds to this value by allowing Unmanned Innovation to focus on its strengths improving the os-Series while securing a long-term, dependable sensing solution and partnership with our company.”