March 2006

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Michael S. Braasch got his GNSS start trying to crack Selective Availability. But that’s not all — he is the cofounder and technical director of GPSoft LLC, which produces a series of navigation “toolboxes” for MATLAB, the engineering software environment used worldwide.

A multinational team of researchers outfitted a building in Tokyo to measure the effects of natural phenomena on structures. But that posed a new challenge: converting diverse data into a common analytical framework. Then a typhoon and earthquake came along and gave them the answers they were looking for.

All GPS receivers are not created equal — especially in matters of power usage. Neither are applications nor operating environments. An engineering team nails down the variables for measuring performance in high-sensitivity receivers.

But GNSS is not just physical science, but political science, too. The sound bite as much as the kilobyte. Economics as well as ergonomics. The nanometric microcosm, but also the macrocosm of nations and cultures. How else do we explain the multibillion-dollar infrastructures, programs, posturing, and policy directives?

Since introduction of the first GPS receivers more than a quarter century ago, GNSS equipment has changed profoundly – from racks of computers and 25-pound “manpacks” into tiny integrated circuit chipsets suitable for inclusion in mobile phones and other portable devices. But the evolution of GNSS form factors is far from ended. Indeed, the appearance of new GPS and GLONASS signals and the arrival of Galileo has injected new vitality into design of GNSS products. This installment of Working Papers traces the trajectory – past, present, and future – of that technological evolution.