GNSS Hotspots

1. PAPER, PLEASE.
Silver Spring, Maryland USA
√ The USA will stop printing nautical charts next April, the end of a 150 year tradition. Why? “Declining demand, electronic and digital charts and federal budget realities,” said NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey. They will maintain and update PDFs of more than a thousand coastal charts and refer those who admire traditional lithography to private printers who can do the job.

Rohde & Schwarz GNSS Simulator Now Supports Chinese BeiDou Standard

Rohde & Schwarz has added BeiDou functionality to its GNSS simulator integrated into the company’s R&S SMBV100A vector signal generator. With the R&S SMBV-K107 option the GNSS simulator now covers the BeiDou standard as well as those for GPS, Galileo, and GLONASS.
 

China Satellite Navigation Conference 2014 Planned for Nanjing

The organizing committee for the fifth China Satellite Navigation Conference (CSNC 2014) is inviting papers for presentation at the event, scheduled May 21–23 in Nanjing.

The annual event is China's largest and most comprehensive high-level satellite navigation academic conference. Abstracts need to be submitted by November 30 and full papers, by December 30.

RF Spectrum Protection

EDITOR'S NOTE: Jules McNeff answers additional questions on the subject of spectrum protection and sharing in a special “GNSS Forum” extension of this installment of the "Thought Leadership Series" in this issue of Inside GNSS.

As Mark Twain once famously told a petitioner for investment advice: “Buy land. They are not making it any more.”

So it is with radio frequency spectrum, a limited and finite resource.

Integrated Navigation

Due to the huge success of GPS in both military and civil applications, several other GNSSs have been developed, built, and operated in the last few decades. GNSS, regional, and augmentation systems are comprise a growing family that also includes GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, and Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS). New members, such as the Global Indian Navigation System (GINS), are preparing to join in next decade.

Urban Positioning on a Smartphone

The poor performance of GNSS user equipment in urban canyons in terms of both accuracy and solution availability is a well-known problem that arises where there are tall buildings or narrow streets. This situation is worse in the cross-street direction than in the along-street direction. (See Figure 1.)

FCC Examines Shortcomings in E911 Calls’ Location Data

Prompted by reports of a sharp deterioration in the quantity and quality of 911-caller automatic location information, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is weighing new requirements for phone companies to help emergency personnel find cell phone users in need of aid.

Data from emergency providers show that a rapidly declining number of 911 calls from mobile phone users come in without the accurate location information needed to find the person calling for help.