In January, Adam LeWinter and Dave Finnegan, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), traveled to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to conduct a terrestrial lidar/thermal infrared survey of the elevated station as part of a National Science Foundation-funded project. They used a Riegl VZ-1000 with integrated InfraTec VarioCAM high-definition thermal camera to... read more
Microdrones collaborated last summer with the DLRG Horneburg/Altes Land e.V. (German Lifeguard Association) to simulate a mission to rescue a drowning swimmer, demonstrating the life-saving potential of UAVs. Crowds watched from the banks of the Elbe River as a UAV flew to the person in distress and dropped a compact rescue device called RESTUBE, which automatically inflated. The swimmer... read more
Several jamming incidents in 2016 highlight the increasing reliance on GNSS by commercial aviation and vulnerabilities of PNT-dependent devices and systems to real-world GNSS threats. Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) and other warnings to pilots and crews reported GPS signal jamming near major international airports. Aircraft approaching or flying over these airports were advised to avoid using RNAV technology to plan... read more
Locata Corporation and Hexagon Mining have partnered to bring Locata technology to mines. The JPS (Jigsaw Positioning System) is a radiolocation technology that replicates a highly accurate positioning network system, augmenting GNSS satellites with a ground-based positioning network. Created in partnership with Locata, JPS provides the same positioning accuracy of GNSS, but without the signal drop-out in deep pits and against... read more
DHS Spells Out Receiver Improvements In early January, a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document appeared: “Improving the Operation and Development of Global Positioning System (GPS) Equipment Used by Critical Infrastructure.” The document focuses on receivers used in critical infrastructure, with an emphasis on timing receivers. It provides owners, operators, researchers, designers and manufacturers with information to improve the... read more
A GLONASS ground station was officially commissioned in South Africa on Feb. 27. “Assembling and pre-commissioning work was completed on Nov. 25 to set up a measuring station on the premises of the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) as part of the agreement signed between Russia’s High-Precision Instrument Systems Company and South Africa’s HartRAO on Oct. 29, 2015,” said the... read more
A launch schedule for future BeiDou satellites was reported on a space news discussion board. According to the schedule, the government of China is planning to launch 32 satellites through 2020. The schedule includes nine BeiDou-3 MEO satellites launched this year, and one replacement for a BeiDou-2 satellite, which retires in January 2018. The schedule is below: A PDF of the schedule is... read more
This year, the Munich Satellite Navigation Summit features an interactive session on the topic “Industry Meets Research: Innovation Drivers and Barriers in SMEs.” Fabio Dovis from Politecnico di Torino will chair the session, and GPS World magazine Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Alan Cameron will moderate the discussion. “Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their innovative ideas are an important factor of... read more
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