IfEN Receives ESA EGNOS-Related Contract

The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded a contract to IfEN GmbH to develop a “New Generation” receiver breadboard for use at the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) Ranging and Integrity Monitoring Stations (RIMS).

The RIMS New Generation breadboard will be capable of receiving the new L2C and L5 signals, the Galileo E1, E5ab, and E6 signals and the GLONASS L1 signal in addition to GPS L1 and L2P signals.

Less Is More–The Potential of Partial IMUs for Land Vehicle Navigation

GPS provides reliable long-term navigation information but requires a direct line of sight between the GPS receiver and GPS satellites. On the other hand, an inertial measurement unit (IMU) offers continuous autonomous navigation information, but its accuracy degrades over time due to the cumulative errors of the inertial sensors.

The integration of GPS’s long-term stable accuracy with the continuous but short-term accuracy of an inertial navigation system (INS) can provide accurate and uninterrupted positioning for many difficult navigation scenarios.

DoT Rescues NDGPS Project

The Nationwide Differential Global Positioning System (NDGPS) program has been salvaged from the political limbo in which it has resided for more than a year.

Following completion of an assessment by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT), the agency has decided to continue full NDGPS operations. Currently, 86 stations are operating with support from three federal agencies: the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG, 39 sites), the Army Corps of Engineers (9 site), and the DoT (38 sites operated and maintained by the USCG under contract).

Astrium-Allsat JV Launches GNSS Reference Network Services across Europe

Astrium Services and Allsat GmbH network+services have created a joint venture, AXIO-NET GmbH, to offer precise navigation and positioning services across Europe.

The companies, which formed a JV in September 2007 to operate the German ascos service, have created a trans-European brand — AXIO-NET  — to extend the service, based on a network of reference stations that generate high-accuracy differential corrections of GPS and GLONASS satellite signals.

President’s 2009 Budget Proposal Directs DHS to Implement eLORAN

The Bush administration appears to have finally made a long-delayed decision to complete implementation of an enhanced LORAN (LOng RAnge Navigation) system to serve, in part, as a back-up to GPS.

Late in the drafting process of the Fiscal Year 2009 (FY09) budget proposal that went to Congress earlier this week (February 4), officials added language “migrating” the LORAN-C system from the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) to the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD). A $34.5-million budget and 294 positions would take part in the migration.

WAAS coverage expands to Canada and Mexico

On September 28 2007, Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) coverage was expanded
into Canada and Mexico, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

This achievement was made possible by the integration of nine new international wide-area reference stations (WRS) into the WAAS network. In addition to extending WAAS coverage to users throughout large portions of Canada and Mexico,
this expansion also benefits the U.S. WAAS users within the U.S., formerly on the fringes of WAAS coverage, are now well within its coverage boundaries.

Call for Papers: International Symposium on GPS/GNSS 2008

Abstracts for the 2008 International Symposium on GPS/GNSS are due on Monday, June 16.

This year, the conference, which rotates throughout the Asia-Pacific region, will take place in Tokyo, Japan from November 11 through November 14.

Presenters who choose to have their papers refereed and published in the proceedings must submit their full papers with payment by July 15. Non-refereed papers must be submitted by September 15.

Authors will be notified of acceptance by July 31.

India’s GAGAN Passes Its Final Test

The Raytheon Company has announced that it successfully completed the final system acceptance test to augment standard GPS signals over India.

GAGAN stands for GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation-Technology Demonstration System. It monitors GPS satellite signals for errors and then generates correction messages to improve positioning accuracy for users.

GNSS, the Book

SpringerGeosciences has announced release of the latest book by Bernhard Hofmann-Wellenhof: GNSS — Global Navigation Satellite Systems: GPS, GLONASS, Galileo & More. Coauthors are Herbert Lichtenegger and Elmar Wasle.

Trimble Snares USCG DGPS Contract; NDGPS Imperiled

Even as the fate of the inland portions of the Nationwide Differential GPS (NDGPS) reference network hangs in the balance, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has awarded a contract to Trimble for up to 400 high-accuracy GPS reference receivers.

The Trimble NetRS reference receivers will be installed over the next three years as part of the coast guard’s modernization of the Maritime DGPS Service, which is not part of the NDGPS elements that being considered for termination.