In looking ahead at what milestones we may expect to see during 2008 in the world of GPS and GNSS it is easy to be caught at one of two extremes. The first extreme would be to make the mistake of the shortsighted person who in the late nineteenth century proposed that the US Patent Office should be closed because everything conceivable had already been invented. The other extreme would be to look ahead at the promise of new constellations, signals and capabilities and claim that the door is only just beginning to open on the full wonder of the utility of satnav technology, and that myriads of amazing and unexpected applications and benefits will continue to spew forth in unbounded torrents from the creative fountainheads of the global satnav community.

To be sure, it is a bit difficult to expect or imagine truly revolutionary developments in the actual hardware of satellite navigation. GPS engines and chip sets are now available at commodity prices and in sizes and configurations small enough to allow full satnav capability to be built into almost any appliance or device. In some ways, satellite navigation has become more of a feature to be incorporated or even expected in a wide range of devices, rather than a stand-alone piece of equipment in the mass market. So, while revolutionary developments in hardware are not likely to be major milestones in 2008, we no doubt can expect to see a continuing impressive evolution of satnav hardware, bringing improved performance in signal processing, interference rejection, power consumption and a host of other metrics, required by the ever increasing demands of integrating satnav capability with a growing array of other technologies and systems in a wide variety of applications.

Now don’t get me wrong, evolutionary development in satnav capabilities can be quite exciting. One of the most exciting frontiers and biggest challenges is integrating the actual satnav function with other technologies and sources of communications, data and information to forge truly unique and revolutionary “milestones” in applications. As we see in the other articles addressing the topic of milestones in this issue of Coordinates, individual companies are continuing to pour resources into R&D efforts that will bring some very interesting and valuable products to market in the coming year. The industry and market are dynamic and vibrant, the breadth of applications is stunning, and the prospects exciting. There will undoubtedly be impressive and even astonishing new applications emerging, some from unanticipated directions. This is the most thrilling aspect of satnav: vitality that knows no bounds, and the freedom to incorporate or adapt satnav capability into almost any area. The limits seem to be bounded only by imagination, creativity, financing to a degree, and in some cases, the laws of physics. The laws of man, and their regulations have placed few, if any, obstacles or barriers to this dynamic global effort.

Another strong possibility in the coming year is that we will see some tangible milestones in the progress, and perhaps even initial deployment of new satellites with new capabilities. This may take place as existing operational systems such as GPS and GLONASS continue to update and modernize. We may also see emerging and proposed systems such as GALILEO, Japan’s QZSS, India’s GAGAN and China’s COMPASS move closer to reality. Any milestones reached by these systems during 2008 are likely to raise further questions of just how they will contribute to the global satnav mix of options, and whether they will prove to be valuable commercial assets.

One of the key questions as these new systems approach reality is whether their technological milestones will contribute and add to the innovative vitality and global commercial success that GPS has provided to the worldwide satnav community. For over 20 years, the GPS model of open technical standards, license free access to information, and fee-free market development has stimulated adoption of satnav technology in almost every conceivable aspect of public infrastructure and consumer life with revolutionary results. Technological milestones have been impressive, many, and truly global. The pressing question now is not whether the new systems will reach their milestones, but instead, as they do achieve their technical, and more importantly their administrative and political milestones, will they continue the open environment for technological development and global acceptance of satellite navigation.