March/April 2013

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We have an explosion of sensors that can be combined for reliable pedestrian wayfinding. Cameras as a versatile sensor for position fixing and dead reckoning. New GNSS signals and systems that improve precision and combine with other technologies for jamming resistance and improved robustness. 3D mapping of cities and buildings that helps solve the puzzle of urban navigation. Context-adaptive navigation systems. Peer-to-peer positioning. The art of navigation has never had so many tools to work with.

Miami of Ohio engineering students build a lawn mowing, snowplowing robot and navigate it with GNSS in national competitions.

In a milestone for Europe’s GNSS program, the European Space Agency reports the first successful 3D position determination using only Galileo satellites.

GPS and the U.S. Air Force provided this engineer with a path to his wide-ranging career in integrated navigation systems.

A letter from James L. Farrell

The latest Orwellian theme: “The sky isn’t falling — it’s watching!”

It’s spring and privacy proposals are popping up in abundance, threatening to complicate the lives of law enforcement officers, spoil the landscape for some location-based businesses and choke off the U.S. market for commercial unmanned aerial systems before it gets off the ground.

eCall is the EU initiative aimed at reducing road casualties by increasing the speed and efficiency of emergency response. It involves a device installed in cars that will automatically dial the EU’s ‘112’ emergency phone number in the event of a serious road accident.

Peformance analysis of GNSS signal properties and components is well defined in the technical literature. Terms such as code tracking noise, multipath error envelopes, and S-curve bias are widely used by scientists. However, the performance of GNSS data messages has yet to be fully assessed and compared. This article proposes well-defined “figures of merit” that can be used to better evaluate GNSS system performance.

In this issue: Late Launches, Losing the Orbit, India Joins the Club, Coca Cola No-No, and a Formal Engagement

Unmanned aerial systems have a long association with military uses. So, plans to expand their civil applications are generating a lot of heat.