Android, lidar experts to deliver addresses at ION GNSS+

Steve Malkos

Steve Malkos of Google, and a GPS World contributor, will address the ION GNSS+ plenary session at the technical meeting and showcase, to be held Sept. 24-28 in Miami.

Malkos will address “Emergency Location Service in Android.” When emergency services get a call, they need to know the caller’s location to send help and save lives. More than 80 percent of calls to emergency services come from mobile phones, but locating these mobile callers can be a major issue.

Current emergency solutions rely on cell tower location (which can have a radius of several kilometers) and, in some countries (like the U.S. and Japan), on A-GNSS. But A-GNSS can fail with weak signal reception, in urban canyons and indoors.

Malkos will discuss how Emergency Location Service in Android is delivering more accurate location (computed from fusion of Wi-Fi, cell, GPS and sensors) to emergency services when an emergency call is detected.

Paul LaRocque

Also speaking is Paul E. LaRocque, Teledyne Optech‘s vice president of Special Projects. In his presentation, “A Lidar History: From Ship to Air to Space,” LaRocque will give a historical review of the airborne laser mapping systems that Teledyne Optech has designed and built over the years.

Optech has been active in laser radar systems beginning with marine lidars and later moving to airborne and spaceborne systems. Navigation has been an important subsystem in these developments, and its role will be described as part of this story.

LaRocque has been involved in the development of Optech’s lidar systems since the late 1980s. Dr. LaRocque was instrumental in the design of Optech’s airborne lidar bathymeters, airborne lidar terrain mappers (ALTM), and waveform digitizers, as well as other special lidars.

Both Malkos and LaRocque will speak during Session P: ION GNSS+ Plenary Session on Tuesday, Sept. 25, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Read more ION GNSS+ news.