Can GPS Modernization Be More Effective and Less Costly?

August 18, 2010 By: James L. Farrell

Just a short time ago I read August's Expert Advice by the Masked Engineer. I wish to lend full unflinching support to everything stated in that tract.

One advantage I have over that author: I'm self-employed — no one tells me to be quiet. At the same time I have bent over backwards to offer full cooperation for corrective efforts, and will continue to do that. What I offer is technical — not administrative — support. I'm not anyone's boss.

As evidence of my complete concurrence, let me cite some manuscripts I wrote or coauthored during the past two decades, in reverse chronological order.

[1] Aging SV's We Have Solutions, ION GNSS 2009 Proceedings, Savannah, Ga .

[2] GPS World, December 2009, pp. 8, 10, 12

[3] Robust Design for GNSS Integration, ION GNSS 2008 Proceedings, Savannah, Ga .

[4] Inside GNSS, Fall 2008, pp.29-32

[5] ADSB (2nd-) Best Foot Forward? (Co-au), Air Traffic Control Journal, v50 n3, Summer 2008, pp 17-18.

[6] GPS World Feb 2008, pp. 8, 10.

[7] Unfinished Business - Glaring Absences from the Achievement List, IEEE PLANS, Monterey, CA, Apr 2004.

[8] Send Measurements, Not Coordinates (Co-au), IONJ, Fall 1999, pp. 203-215.

[9] System Integration: Performance Doesn't Measure Up, NAECON - Dayton Ohio, 1993 — later printed in AES Systems Journal .

[10] That All-Important Interface (Co-au), ION-GPS-90 .

There are more — including several DOZEN unpublished letters sent throughout all levels at DoD + Academia + Government + Industry. A few have responded — but I can easily count those few with no chance of forgetting any. Agreement with the Masked Engineer is exemplified by a passage from the first reference cited above:

" ... despite wide and fully earned acclaim for the excellent 2001 Volpe report [cited as "Ref. 1" of that paper], commitment to a key means of backup for GPS remains unclear at the time of this writing."

Additional glaring issues (no exaggeration — e.g., collision avoidance, motion-sensitive inertial instrument error contributors not tied to any probabilities (or in some cases absent altogether) in IMU specifications, integrity validation, spiraling costs due to proprietary configurations, decisions based on models lacking rigor, etc.. — have consistently met with unwarranted complacency within the industry. Efforts to head off dangerous "surprises" have been unsuccessful.

Rather than repeat myself ad-infinitum I'll close with another blog excerpt.

As a life-long techie I'm constantly amazed at the erratic pacing of change in our industry. Hardware and software lurch at dizzying rates while advanced concepts, with dramatic potential for exploiting improved technology, languish unused for years ... desparately needed solutions await industry's willingness to change old habits ... "

plus the closing statement from {2} cited above:

"The industry can either adopt changes or continue to settle for performance levels at a minor fraction of the intrinsic capabilities available from our present and future systems."

James L. Farrell

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