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GPS Inside -- March 2005

March 1, 2005 GPS World

The Robots' Great Race

$2 Million Desert Derby

Double your money, double your fun. That rationale seems to work for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). When the $1 million Grand Challenge 2004 prize for autonomous navigation of a 150-mile course went unclaimed, the agency boosted the 2005 Challenge purse to $2 million. By the February 1 initial application deadline -- only the first hurdle in a long steeplechase to the October 8 finish -- 195 teams had signed up for the contest, nearly twice the 106 applicants who entered in 2004.

photo: Team ENSCO entered a modified Honda Rincon all-terrain vehicle carrying a NovAtel receiver with Omnistar HP DGPS corrections in the 2004 Grand Challenge. DAVID had the fastest start of all 15 finalists, and correctly sensed and avoided a concrete barrier in the first 100 feet. Several vehicles hit the barrier and were eliminated. DAVID did hit a berm at the edge of the desert dirt road, tipped over, and finished ninth overall.

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DARPA will award the $2 million cash prize to the team that builds a completely autonomous ground vehicle that travels the fastest time in under 10 hours across approximately 150 miles of mountain desert roads and trails. The agency launched the competition in 2003 to stimulate creative thinking and lead to the development of a vehicle capable of resupplying troops in the battlefield. The Defense Department has set a goal of having a third of combat vehicles operating without drivers by 2015.

The initiative stalled with conventional large contractors, but the Grand Challenge idea has sparked innovation from smaller, less encumbered groups. 2005 entrants come from 37 states and three foreign countries. Thirty-five university-based teams and three high schools teams have toed the starting line.

The next qualifier for this year's contestants falls on March 11, when teams must provide DARPA with more detailed information about their entries, including a vehicle specification sheet and a video demonstration of their vehicle in action.

Teams that pass the vehicle and video review will receive an in-person site visit in May. DARPA will then select 40 vehicles to advance as semi-finalists to the National Qualification Event in Fontana, California, September 27 through October 6. There, semi-finalist vehicles will go through a series of competitive tests. DARPA will select 20 finalists to compete in the October 8 Grand Challenge event, on a 150-mile course across a Southwestern desert. Race start and endpoints will be known in advance, but racing teams will not learn the exact track their vehicles must follow until the early morning hours of race day.

Last year's entrants integrated an array of technologies, in all cases centered around GPS. Ancillaries included inertial navigation systems, laser rangefinders, Lidar systems, radar, stereo video, satellite imagery, and mapping suites. In most cases, GPS technology functioned as expected. The strongest entry completed 7.2 of the 146 miles before coming to grief on a switchback turn above a steep drop. Platform rocking and jarring from the rugged terrain, disturbing sensor functions, may have been the prime factor that defeated most contestants.

DARPA expressed great satisfaction with the 2004 event and mounting excitement over this year's tourney. After all, they're getting a bargain: cutting-edge technology R&D at a fraction of the cost of normal channels. Some observers estimate that the teams themselves -- for pride, prestige, or developmental reasons of their own -- spend more than the prize money they might take home in getting their robotic vehicles to the starting line.

Gentle engineers, start your engines.

Enhanced GPS from Trimble, Cambridge

Sunnyvale, California-based Trimble has partnered with the United Kingdom's Cambridge Positioning Systems Ltd. (CPS) to develop Enhanced GPS (E-GPS) location solutions for wireless networks and mobile device markets.

E-GPS technology will harness Trimble GPS technology and CPS' software-only Matrix solution to deliver timing assistance to GPS-enabled devices in asynchronous networks such as GSM and WCDMA. According to the companies, this integration of two traditionally independent positioning methods will enable them to provide a single solution for location "everywhere" applications; they claim faster, more-accurate location fixes with lower power consumption.

CPS' Matrix is designed to improve satellite-based location signal reception and accuracy indoors and in city centers, and provide a more-accurate GPS fallback option than cellular ID. When Matrix is coupled with Trimble technology in an E-GPS, signal reception delays and disruptions indoors and in dense urban areas can reportedly be averted. The E-GPS seeks to capture the best-quality signals from either satellites or cellular base stations, whichever has a preferred position fix at that precise time.

The companies state sub-three-second location fixes for E-GPS, by assessing satellite signal strength in a given environment. If signal strength is insufficient, E-GPS switches to Matrix, delivering sub-300 feet accuracy in seconds. This places less demand on power usage in the GPS chipset, presenting the possibility of using simpler and lower-cost GPS chips.

SiGe Enhanced Too. SiGe Semiconductor of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, announced a similar collaboration with CPS to provide network operators and cellular service providers with an enhanced GPS solution for the delivery of location-based services.

The companies demonstrated their coverage by interfacing a GSM cellular handset equipped with SiGe's SE8901L GPS receiver IC to a network powered by the CPS Matrix system at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France. Preliminary tests demonstrated consistent positioning within seconds, continuous tracking, and satisfactory accuracy in indoor locations. The system also provides time synchronization that allows the SiGe SE8901L GPS system to return a position faster and with higher accuracy compared to alternative approaches, the partners stated.

GPS Manufacturers Report Sales Growth

Garmin, Leica, NovAtel, SiRF, and Trimble all reported revenue growth in their last fiscal quarters.

San Jose, California-based SiRF Technology, Inc. reported a 60-percent hike in annual revenues ($117.4 million versus $73.1 million); net income rose ten-fold to $30.7 million in fiscal 2004 (FY04). SiRF posted fourth quarter (Q4) sales of $27.5 million, a 5-percent increase from the same period a year earlier.

Garmin Ltd. (Cayman Islands) announced record Q4 revenue, up 30 percent to $220.9 million. A $25.3 million foreign currency loss contributed to a Q4 net income decrease of 12.8 percent, to $47.6 million. Yearly revenue rose 33 percent to $762.5 million; annual net income rose to $205.7 million.

A 24-percent gain in annual revenue to $668.8 million bolstered Trimble's (Sunnyvale, California) yearly net income 76 percent to $67.7 million. Q4 revenue grew 20 percent to $162.7 million, and Q4 net income 8.7 percent to $16.4 million.

Leica Geosystems of Heerbrugg, Switzerland, reported an 11.9-percent revenue gain to CHF 194.9 million (US $160 million), driving a more than seven-fold increase in net income to CHF 12 million (US $9.9 million).

Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based NovAtel, Inc. reported preliminary FY04 unaudited results: Annual revenue of CDN $53.5 to $54 million (US $43.75 million), up nearly 40 percent. FY04 net income of CDN $9.2 million to CDN $9.7 million, up more than 160 percent from FY03. Q4 net income doubled to CDN $2.2 to $2.7 million with revenue of CDN $13.9 to $14.4 million, up 23 to 27.5 percent over 2003.

CMC Takes NovAtel Profit, Divests

CMC Electronics Inc. of Saint-Laurent, Quebec, Canada, the former majority owner of NovAtel Inc., has reduced its holding in the GPS manufacturer from approximately 55 percent to 16 percent.

The change took place between January 3 and January 11, as CMC sold approximately 3.2 million common shares of NovAtel. The company's shares had climbed steadily in value over the preceding two months to a historic high at the end of the year.

Effective February 8, the two CMC representatives on NovAtel's board, Gregory Yeldon, CMC chief financial officer and a NovAtel board member since May 1998, and Gregory Baylin, a principal with ONCAP Management Partners, in turn a majority holder of CMC Electronics, both resigned from NovAtel's board.

CMC acquired a 58.3 percent majority ownership of NovAtel in May 1998, shortly after NovAtel began supplying CMC with OEM GPS technology in the form of ASICs and RF designs for avionics. In May 2003, NovAtel acquired CMC's non-aviation GPS OEM product line, adding midlevel single-frequency L1 designs to its high-precision single- and dual-frequency offerings.

Over the past five years on the NASDAQ exchange, NovAtel did not reach above $10 per share until December 2003. It traded between $10 and $15 for the first 10 months of 2004, before launching a steady climb in late October to reach $50.35 at the end of the year. CMC sold its stock shortly after the peak, before or perhaps during its fall to the $20 to $25 range, where it has traded since.

LAUNCHES
Leica, NovAtel SmartStation

Leica Geosystems AG of Heerbrugg, Switzerland, has developed a high-performance total station with integrated RTK GPS technology. Leica's SmartStation consists of a TPS1200 total station and SmartAntenna located collinear with the vertical axis of the TPS1200.

Once the SmartAntenna is connected to the TPS1200, all operations are conducted through the keyboard of the total station, and data from the GPS reference station providing RTK positioning of the SmartStation is received through a communication device clipped onto SmartStation (radio modem, GSM, GPRS, TDMA, CDMA) or via a Bluetooth wireless connection between the TPS1200 instrument and a mobile phone.

GPS RTK positioning is integrated into the normal total station set-up procedure and simply conducted with as little as single-keystroke access to the RTK GPS position. The SmartStation can be located at ranges of up to 50 kilometers from a reference station and still provide stated position accuracy of 10 millimeters + 1 ppm horizontal, and 20 millimeters + 1 ppm vertical.

As a result of a 2002 cooperative agreement between Leica and NovAtel (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), the SmartStation incorporates a NovAtel GPS engine and antenna components, based on NovAtel's OEM4 and GPS-702 technology, in a new configuration offering simultaneous terrestrial and satellite surveying from a common instrument.

u-blox TIM-LL Low-Power Mod

Thalwil, Switzerland-based u-blox has released its TIM-LL GPS receiver module with Antaris positioning technology. An upgrade of u-blox's TIM-LP module introduced in 2003, the 16-channel TIM-LL delivers high sensitivity and DGPS and WAAS/EGNOS support at a 4 Hz update rate.

The 25.4 x 25.4 x 3-millimeter TIM-LL features a built-in low noise amplifier for integration with passive or active antennas. The receiver's integrated flash EPROM allows storage of user configuration settings, firmware updates, and customized software. Power consumption of 162 mW or less at an operating voltage of 2.7?3.3 V, and a FixNow power-saving mode make the module suitable for handheld and battery-operated devices. Stated times to first fix are 34 seconds cold and less than 3.5 seconds hot.

Cobra Upgrades In-Vehicle Nav

Chicago-based Cobra Electronics Corp. has upgraded its NavOne 3000 Mobile Navigation System embedding a 12-parallel channel SiRFstarIIe/LP GPS receiver with SiRFXTrac high sensitivity software for stated position accuracy within 10 meters. Attaching to a vehicle's windshield via suction, the portable NavOne reportedly offers times to first fix of eight seconds hot, 38 seconds warm, and 45 seconds cold.

The plug-and-play navigation system provides real-time tracking and onscreen guidance or turn-by-turn voice directions in English, Canadian French, or Spanish. The system's onboard 20 GB hard drive comes with NavTeq maps and points of interest for U.S. and major Canadian cities.

Maptuit Geofencing

Maptuit Corp. of Burlington, Massachusetts, has integrated geofencing capabilities into its FleetNav and TrackServ ASP technologies. Designed for hazardous material transporters requiring security of their assets at all times, the geofencing technology sends automatic alerts when assets deviate from expected courses. Customers typically use Qualcomm, PeopleNet, and Aether or Nextel GPS-enabled mobile communication platforms.

Fugawi Software Map of America

Toronto-based Fugawi has released its Map of America GPS mapping software, with versions for Palm OS and Pocket PC handheld devices. With United States Geological Survey (USGS) topographic maps covering the continental United States, Map of America offers printing at any scale and size, search capabilities with 1.8 million listings, and support for real-time GPS navigation via enabled devices.

Ricoh GPS-Ready Digital Camera

Ricoh Corp. of San Bernardino, California, has developed a GPS-enabled 3.34 megapixel digital camera designed to provide GIS users with a way to integrate images into mapping applications. The Pro G3 automatically embeds captured images with GPS coordinate data obtained from either its WAAS-enabled GPS card inserted into the compact flash card slot, or from external GPS devices delivering NMEA data streams via Bluetooth.

The camera's compact flash slot accepts GPS, Wi Fi or Bluetooth cards. Ricoh offers a bundled accessory package that includes a PocketMap GPS flash card (SiRFstarIIe/LP 12-channel GPS), and the slot also accepts most other aftermarket GPS flash cards including those manufactured by Holux and TeleType.

The camera also offers built-in field data collection, a serial port to connect to GPS devices, WiFi and Ethernet options for sending photos via FTP and email, and GPS-Photo Link and ArcGIS software plug-ins for photo processing.

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) uses the Pro G3 to document storm damage; archeologists scout dig sites; the military overlays images from Iraq with position information; and other users from advertising agencies to museums have put the device to use in GIS workflows.

DEALS
WebTech Acquires GlobeTrac LBS

Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada-based WebTech Wireless has acquired GlobeTrac Inc.'s location-based services (LBS) and fleet telematics services accounts in Europe for an undisclosed amount. Formerly a distributor of WebTech solutions and services, GlobeTrac plans to pursue opportunities in other fields. WebTech has opened offices in London, England, and Milan, Italy, to service former GlobeTrac accounts and expand its business in Europe.

In other transactions, Tracking World Pvt. Ltd. of Pakistan recently purchased 200 locator units with embedded SiRFstarIIe/LP chipsets from WebTech Wireless in a deal valued at CDN $2 million (US $1.62 million) for the equipment and one year of fleet tracking services. Motabei Electronics Systems Co. Ltd. of Saudi Arabia will distribute WebTech GPS locator systems and services in the region under a two-year purchase agreement for GPS tracking equipment and services valued at CDN $2.2 million (US $1.78 million).

CBSi to Bounce GPS With Panther Trak

CBSi Holdings Inc. has ordered $3 million worth of Panther Trak GPS tracking devices with embedded GPS receivers from Irvine, California-based DataLogic International Corp. to support the launch of start-up subsidiary BounceGPS.

Panther Trak comprises a SiRFstarIIe/LP GPS receiver and a wireless modem that communicates with personal communication system (PCS) networks such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Cingular, and Nextel. Through its collateral protection application, CBSi's BounceGPS will use Panther Trak to reduce borrower's delinquency rates and speed the recovery of delinquent collateral such as vehicles.

DataLogic also recently signed an agreement with a major distributor in Mexico that plans to use Panther Trak GPS locators on armored cars in the country for continuous real-time tracking and integrated emergency service dispatching. Under terms of the agreement, the armored car company's name must remain confidential.

LSI Logic Licenses Athena Technology

LSI Logic Corp. of Milpitas, California, has executed a license agreement with Athena Group of Gainesville, Florida, giving LSI and its clients access to Athena Digital Excision Processor Technology. Athena's ADEPT is designed to remove GPS signal interference, particularly in noisy environments.

EasyPocketNav.com Selling OnCourse

EasyPocketNav.com will sell OnCourse Navigator 4 GPS software. Based on Navigon's technology platform, OnCourse turns Microsoft-powered Pocket PCs into voice-guided navigation systems for in-vehicle and pedestrian applications. Navigon receivers embed SiRFstarIIe/LP 12-channel GPS chipsets with integrated SiRFXTrac high-sensitivity software.

Industry Bytes

CSI Wireless Inc., a Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based manufacturer of wireless and GPS systems, recently shipped its 500,000th wireless device.

EVENTS
ICECom 2005

The 18th International Conference on Applied Electromagnetics and Communications (ICECom 2005) will be held in Dubrovnik, Croatia, October 12-14. Organized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Royal Institute of Navigation, ICECom will feature a special satellite navigation and location-based services (LBS) session covering satellite navigation system architecture and receivers, Galileo, EGNOS, and mobile and personal communication systems. The event also will spotlight marine navigation applications, land navigation (including road-toll systems, telematics and ITS), and air and personal navigation systems. See www.rc.fer.hr/icecom/.

Call for Papers IEEE-UFFC/PTTI

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE's) Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control Society (UFFC) holds its international frequency control symposium and PDA exhibition jointly with the Precise Time and Time Interval (PTTI) 2005 applications and planning meeting at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, August 29-31. The meeting has issued a call for papers, with a deadline of April 15; topics span research, development, and applications for frequency control and precision timekeeping. See www.ieee-uffc.org/2005fcs-fcp.pdf.

ERRATUM

The GPS Receiver Survey published in the January issue incorrectly attributed L2C capability to the 5700, 5800, 5800 Rover, 5700 Total Station, and BD950 Trimble receivers. That capability is featured only on Trimble R8, R7, and Net RS receivers. The company's Lassen PT has been replaced by Resolution T.

Contact information for Tyco Electronics was incorrectly listed. The correct information is:

Tyco Electronics

Power Systems

Finsinger Feld 1

85521 Ottobrunn, Germany

Phone +49 89 6089-0

Fax +49 89 6096345.

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