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

By Tony Murfin.

As consolidation of GNSS and related companies continues throughout the industry, it may be useful to look at some of the notable steps taken by some of the key movers and shakers. Trimble, Hexagon, and recently u-blox have used an acquisition strategy to accelerate their growth. As companies are absorbed and product lines merge, it’s interesting to look at where some companies came from and where they might be headed.

Acquisitions, mergers, IP and product-rights buy-outs, and joint ventures — all signs of consolidation in the GNSS Industry — are everywhere nowadays. Its not unusual to hear of someone absorbing someone else, or two or more organizations joining together to take on a particular market segment; we hear these reports almost every week. Now that the industry is becoming more mature, start-ups-that-were are becoming acquisition targets for the bigger fish as they become profitable or have unique technology and/or market access.

The industry’s acquisition machine — Trimble — had apparently already acquired four companies by June during this year alone. Since 1989, according to Trimble’s website, the company has acquired 47 companies, bought four company IP/product-rights, and formed seven joint-ventures (JVs) — some of the most notable recent JVs being with agency-companies in Russia and China.

Trimble’s BD920-W3G receiver and communication module, part of Trimble’s GNSS OEM portfolio.

If we think back over the years at how we may have gasped at some of the companies Trimble acquired, some still stand out to me — maybe more so because they may have had personal impact, or because I was close to the market segment at the time:

• The Spectra Precision Group acquisition in 2000 helped Trimble become a leader in positioning solutions for the construction, surveying, and agricultural markets, and brought laser and other optical capability to the emerging industry leader.
• In 1990, when Trimble became the first GPS company to go public on NASDAQ, we all recognized that the GNSS industry had arrived.
• When Trimble and Caterpillar formed their joint venture in April of 2002, we knew that ag and machine control would never look the same again. They went on to strengthen this JV with another in October 2008.
• I was working on inertial/GPS integration in Canada in June of 2003 when Trimble acquired Applanix Corporation — also Canadian and market leaders in integrating inertial navigation systems (INS) and GPS technologies.
• The acquisition of Pacific Crest in January 2005 really shook the differential and RTK wireless link requirements of the GNSS industry. Where were we going to buy our wireless links now?
• Acquisitions continued through the intervening years, but in May of 2009, the JV between Trimble and the China Aerospace Science & Industry Academy of Information Technology (CASIC-IT) signaled a significant change in the Chinese market and presumably gave Trimble a leg up to address Compass. This was followed by another JV for the Chinese railway segment.
• An equally market-changing JV followed with the Russian Space Systems Rusnavgeoset which was announced on June 1, 2010. Our own commercial efforts in Russia at the time cooled very quickly as a consequence.
• I was working on an article on Locata and its ground-positioning infrastructure in the summer of 2011, and the earlier Trimble acquisition in October 2010 of the similarly functioning Novariant Terralite assets created a great deal of conversation during those discussions.
• The recent April 2011 acquisition of Ashtech’s technology, resources and facilities has established an enviable foothold for Trimble in Asia, Europe, and Russia, and significantly added to its technology inventory. Who would have ever thought during the early days of GNSS that Ashtech would eventually become part of Trimble?
• And just as I got immersed into the world of unmanned vehicles, Trimble’s April 2012 acquisition of Gatewing in Belgium has the potential to influence the market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for photogrammetry and rapid terrain mapping applications.

Since 1999, Trimble’s revenues have grown from approximately $270 million to more than $1.6 billion in 2011, so its not hard to see how they have had sufficient “fuel” to maintain their aggressive acquisition strategy, and to continue to expand their extensive technology and product portfolios.

Alongside this GNSS acquisition marathon, the rest of the industry appears to be ultra-conservative, but there are several other stories which we might want to consider.

With headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, and London, UK, Hexagon has subsidiary companies around the world, and has become a leading global provider of integrated design, measurement and visualization technologies.

When Ola Rollén joined around 2000 and became president and CEO, he identified measurement technologies as a focus area, and subsequently the Hexagon acquisition strategy has gone on to pull a significant portion of our industry into the Hexagon family. With 13,000 employees in more than 40 countries, net sales are reported to be around €2.2 billion ($2.8B US).

Hexagon’s focus has been on high-precision measurement technologies, which also rapidly provide access to large amounts of complex data via engineering and geospatial “visualization” software. As the Hexagon’s website says, an extensive range of products and services work together to provide a constant flow of data, and transform raw data into useful information and actionable intelligence. Acquisitions form part of Hexagon’s long-term growth strategy.

The Hexagon foray into our neck of the GNSS “measurement” business really seems to have begun in 2005 with its acquisition of Leica Geosystems in Switzerland. Leica has become one of the big movers in geomatics/survey, and has capabilities that reach across almost every industry that has the requirement to measure anything, and GNSS has become only one portion of the technology involved.

However, as the relationship between Leica and NovAtel grew over time, it was probably inevitable that Hexagon would want to have the source of a significant part of Leica’s GNSS receiver technology within the Hexagon/Leica group. So this was cemented in 2007 as Hexagon acquired NovAtel along with 15 other measurement-related companies. Notable other GNSS companies acquired in those 2007 acquisitions included Allen Precision Equipment in the U.S. and Elcome Technologies in India.

Then in 2010 one of the largest acquisitions in the industry followed when Hexagon brought Intergraph into the company bull-pen at a cost of $2,125M US. Today, Intergraph geospatial products include industry-leading desktop GIS, remote sensing, and photogrammetry software, as well as the synthesis of these technologies in server-based products specializing in data management, spatial data infrastructure, workflow optimization, web editing, and web mapping.

Heavy stuff, but the recent acquisition that caught my eye was the purchase of Fastrax in Finland by Swiss u-blox. Founded around 2000, Fastrax has provided the market with ultra-low power, high-sensitivity, small form-factor GNSS modules which have helped revolutionize the market and facilitate the explosion in mass-market positioning and tracking applications. This was ongoing virtually in parallel with u-blox’ development efforts — the company released its first surface-mount GPS receiver in 1998. Fastrax brings a seasoned team of GNSS experts to u-blox, as well as new products and technologies such as multi-GNSS modules with integrated GPS/GLONASS antenna.

In the late 1990s, u-box management saw that there would be a major market for low-cost GNSS module solutions and set out early to establish its own in-house semiconductor IP. This has led u-blox to become a leading fabless semiconductor provider of embedded GPS/GNSS receiver chips and modules for the consumer, industrial, and automotive markets. As it succeeded with this strategy, u-blox set out on a parallel activity with embedded wireless 2G and 3G modules that work seamlessly with their positioning products to support applications such as vehicle and asset tracking, which rely on a tight integration of the two technologies.

u-blox’ MAX, NEO, and LEA-7 GPS/GNSS modules support all available satellite positioning systems.

Their market has evolved so that today u-blox addresses fleet and asset management, vehicle, marine and personal navigation systems, consumer electronics, smartphones, recreational devices, industrial machine-to-machine (M2M) and security systems, and industrial precision timing. Products include both chips and modules based on u-blox 7, the company’s seventh generation GNSS satellite positioning platform with extremely low power consumption and really fast acquisition time. The company’s global positioning receivers are compatible with GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and Compass, and also support the WAAS, EGNOS, and MSAS satellite based augmentation systems.

Since the company’s founding in 1997, u-blox’ GNSS R&D strategy had been organic and internally driven, and remained that way through its IPO in 2007 on the SIX Swiss Exchange, until its first acquisition in 2009 of Italy-based NeonSeven. That acquisition added wireless 2G/3G module know-how to the company’s IP. That’s a long time on their own, during which they established a large customer base that today has grown to more than 3,500 OEM manufacturers worldwide in the consumer, automotive and industrial markets. The company estimates its products are currently integrated into more than 10,000 types of devices used by 40,000,000 people and machines around the globe.

Additional purchases in the wireless domain quickly followed, with San Diego-based Fusion Wireless (CDMA modules) acquired in 2011, and UK-based Cognovo and 4M Wireless (4G chip and stack technologies) in 2012. This has allowed u-blox to quickly accelerate growth in the wireless modem market. And then with the u-blox acquisition machine fully primed, u-blox brought the complementary GNSS capabilities of Fastrax on board in October 2012.

But why go after Fastrax now? Well, clearly profitable with 2011 revenue of $133M US, u-blox has achieved the structure and capabilities to achieve a higher growth rate. Fastrax gives them the means to grow even “Faster”. Fastrax modules exploit the best of four leading GNSS chip vendors and include advanced antenna modules, something the company did not have prior to the acquisition. Its products complement u-blox’ existing product and technology portfolio and will benefit from u‑blox’ economy of scale. Adding u-blox’ advanced R&D capabilities, semiconductor technologies, global sales channels, established supply chain, and high-volume manufacturing capabilities provides customers a more attractive choice, while streamlining operations and lowering costs. At a purchase price of $13M US, u-box may have found an ideal, cost-effective way to accelerate its business expansion.

This is just a snapshot of some notable and recent consolidations that our industry has experienced. There are other acquisitions and mergers, maybe on a larger or smaller scale which have already happened, and even those which are probably being negotiated right now. We should expect this to continue, and hopefully our industry will become stronger and the careers of the people in it will thrive.

Some acquisitions don’t work because the adjustments required by the organizations are too big, too difficult, and as a consequence too costly to overcome. But good groundwork and hands-on research prior to the deal means most acquisitions are between compatible organizations, and integration is successful and everyone benefits. But as everyone hopes in the acquisition business, the sum of every acquisition has the potential to be significantly larger than its constituent parts. Let’s hope there are more of these positive benefits as we move forward with the evolution of the GNSS industry.

Tony Murfin
GNSS Aerospace

There were a lot of the familiar faces at the Institute of Navigation GNSS 2012 convention in Nashville September 18-21. The show activity level was around the same as last year with a few more companies exhibiting. The format of workshops/panel discussions has really helped make program updates more comprehensible and accessible, but there weren’t a large number of technical/product papers by manufacturers.

The global panel discussions/workshops were popular, providing constellation status overviews on GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and Compass/Beidou, as were the SBAS updates on the European EGNOS, US WAAS, and Russian SDCM. We also heard of key EGNOS and WAAS L5 implementation plans.

The exhibit hall was somewhat busy, with several new companies attending, and there were new products around if you looked for them, even if some had already been announced prior to ION. Manufacturers now have a number of market-segment product showcase shows where they can pitch new applications and products, so they don’t always save these for ION. ION still presents the opportunity for international industry/agencies/academics to get together and meet face-to-face, and this is still a key ingredient that pulls people in. Nashville this year was as ever a great venue — you could almost hear the music on Broadway from the exhibit hall.

Some snippets of news I collected during the show included:

• Russia is still moving forward with next-generation GLONASS capability plans, and build-out of the System for Differential Corrections and Monitoring (SDCM) — the Russian SBAS. With one Luch GEO already on orbit, recovery is well underway to replace an apparent recent launch failure of the second Luch GEO, and the ground network continues to grow with 19 reference sites inside Russia and five outside. The Russian space industry is apparently undergoing a phase of consolidation, with fewer stronger organizations emerging. Plans for a new generation of SDCM multi-constellation reference receivers — including use of GPS, Galileo and other SBAS signals — are apparently being considered.

• EGNOS in Europe is also moving right along, rolling out GNSS aircraft approaches, mostly in Germany and France, with LPV precision approach development well advanced in France, Germany and UK. Thirty-seven ground reference sites are up and running with step-by-step improvements in accuracy, integrity and coverage planned out to at around 2014/2016.
• U.S. WAAS now has virtually 10 years of operational experience, with 38 ground reference stations and three operational GEOs. The FAA said that WAAS is achieving 99 percent availability over the continental U.S., and good service coverage extends well into South America and up into Alaska and Canada. Phase IV WAAS during 2014-2028 will see the change-over from use of L2 to L5 for measuring and generating ionospheric corrections, and a new GEO is planned for procurement around 2015-2018. Almost 2,000 LPV precision approaches have been commissioned at 1,900 U.S. airports — +60,000 aviation users appear to be largely general aviation and to some extent scheduled airlines. The FAA is targeting expansion of the number of approaches by 2016 to more than 5,000.
• Beidou has aspirations to provide “sole-means” navigation capability in Western China where nothing else currently exists, and with 17 ground reference sites hopes that CAT I approaches could be supported.
• Todd Walter of Stanford University is working with the FAA, preparing for definition of the service to be provided by the coming L1/L5 dual-frequency GEOs — a long and winding road through pending RTCA committee discussions — but Todd had some good proposals to eliminate redundant data and achieve high-integrity aviation navigation when L5 SBAS service comes on line. The FAA needs industry to look at these proposals and provide feedback so that L5 WAAS signal definition is available for when they want to get their L1/L5 GEOs procured, developed and online.

The third GPS IIF satellite with L5 was launched October 4 and is undergoing on-orbit check-out.

That’s where we have a problem right now, as on-orbit GPS L5 initial operational capability (IOC) was being projected at the show to have slipped all the way out to 2020. So manufacturers are not ready to put resources and money into this effort until some hint of commercial return might be possible. But with GPS dual-frequency L1/L5 being a cornerstone of the FAA’s NextGen, we have to expect that there will be continued pressure to keep launching satellites, that RTCA L5 definition activities will have to move forward, and heck, we should even expect to see people making use of those L5 signals that are available in novel and unexpected ways. Manufacturers who have already taken the plunge and started up L1/L5 receiver development also need specs to be firmed up so they can field these receivers when there is service, so the FAA, Todd, and others need RTCA to move along and industry to support the activity. It would also help to see a firmed-up L5 constellation launch schedule, too.

Tony Murfin
GNSS Aerospace