The European Space Agency has issued an intriguing Intended Invitation To Tender, “Weak GNSS Signal Navigation on the Moon.” The study will investigate use of weak-signal GPS/GNSS — and of course ESA is interested primarily in the use of Galileo — for real-time position, navigation and timing information to various future lunar assets such as automated landers, rovers, Earth-Moon transportation vehicle, in-situ navigation, and so on.
When the last English inhabitant of Virginia’s Lost Colony succumbed to hunger or swamp fever or local assimilation in 1588, Chesapeake chief Powhatan may have turned to his council and said, “Well, that’s the last of that. No more will we be troubled by outsiders infringing on our territory. Let’s get back to doing what we do best.”
Last week’s Supreme Court ruling on GPS use for tracking criminal suspects makes U.S. law clear on this issue going forward, but it does not address tracking for commercial aspects. One U.S. newspaper editorialized, “the unanimous decision failed to resolve troubling questions about the privacy rights of Americans in the face of intrusive modern surveillance technology.” The privacy picture in other large markets — Europe, Japan, Korea, Russia, China, and elsewhere — remains even less clear. If GNSS should be perceived as a tool of Big Brother (government) or Big Broker (industry selling and buying consumer location data), then all navigation systems acquire a big PR problem, which translates into big funding and modernization problems.
LONDON — Technical conferences usually feature hits: advances in technology, new form factors, improved signal processing. But the opening day of the European Navigation Conference in London has dwelt instead on misses: vulnerabilities, threats, weaknesses that leave GNSS increasingly open to attack and disruption. Gaps in our armor, with scant help in sight.
We published a news story recently suggesting that Albert Einstein, the Mighty Hip Einie, got one thing wrong, or at least not quite totally right: the universal upper limit constituted by the speed of light. Precise-timing GPS receivers in a Geneva lab helped indicate that subatomic neutrinos can travel at a velocity just a smidge faster than the speed of light. Someone at a burning idea factory in the Netherlands riposted that the scientists erred in their conclusion because they failed to take into account the relative movement of the GPS clocks in space and thus miscalculated the neutrinos’ time of flight. We hereby refute that assertion with our heavy-lifting Innovation columnist, Richard B. Langley.
China’s GNSS, Compass or Beidou, intends to publish its signal interface control document (ICD) in October. Representatives of the system made an unprecedented showing at ION GNSS in Portland, and referred frankly to “internal deliberations” that may be at the root of much of the public uncertainty about the system’s planned structure and timeline. Meanwhile, representatives of other navigation satellite systems also delivered updates on their status and plans. Everyone is concerned about LightSquared interference, but everyone continues to move forward.
This month’s column is a two-parter: a guest appearance by Len Jacobson, editorial advisory board member for GPS World magazine and president of Global Systems and Marketing Inc. Len writes on the “Harmonizing GNSS” aspect, the briefings by all systems and their efforts to achieve compatibility and interoperability. Then I’ll return with an account of the Compass panel that formed part of the CGSIC meeting immediately preceeding ION.
The difference between navigation and communication signals — a key point not well or not at all understood in Washington — and an FCC rule that could cause LightSquared to foot substantial GPS refitting bills even if it prevails to interfere, were two of several subjects that came to light in last week’s “LightSquared Watch” webinar. As the Federal Communications Commission goes through its deliberations, two inside-the-Beltway experts joined me to speculate on what may happen, what we might do about it at that time, and the long, strange trip that brought us to this point. These matters, and your questions answered, in this month’s column.
You’ve got to put some in yourself, to get some out.
Don’t expect the FCC to make a rational decision in the Lightsquared versus GPS case. As clear as the conclusions may seem to an engineering mind examining the Technical Working Group’s report on the subject, the Federal Communications Commission does not maintain engineering minds at its top level. That’s the level that makes the decisions, and it is driven by money and politics in equal measure. The only things that will get the FCC’s attention are legislators and strong opposition from citizens. Comments in the FCC docket so far come largely from the surveying and agriculture communities. The rest of the GNSS industry has not shown up. Individuals count, too, not just companies. Here’s how to make your voice heard, and why. Time’s a-wastin’.
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