GNSS

New command successor for GPS Directorate

Col. William T. “Bill” Cooley will take up the role of Senior Materiel Leader at the Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition office for developing and producing GPS satellites, ground systems, and military user equipment. Cooley currently serves as the director of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Space Vehicles Directorate and as the commander of the Phillips Research Site at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. www.marinelink.com/

Joint UK-US statement regarding GPS Intellectual Property

The Governments of the UK and the USA have reached a common understanding of intellectual property rights related to the GPS and will work together to address broader global navigation satellite systems’ intellectual property issues. This understanding is part of a broader shared effort to advance compatibility and interoperability among civil satellite navigation systems and transparency in civil service provision. The two governments afô€‚¿ rmed their joint commitment to ensuring that GPS civil signals will remain perpetually free and openly available for users worldwide. As part of this effort, the UK is dedicating all government held patents and patent applications relating to U.S. GPS civil signal designs and their broadcast from GPS and other global navigation satellite systems to the public domain. The UK has committed to not pursue or assert intellectual property rights over any aspect of these signals, now or in the future. www.gps.gov/

China’s BeiDou system is GLONASS ally, not competitor – Russian expert

The beginning of the commercial operation and active development of China’s BeiDou navigation system poses no threat to Russia’s GLONASS, technical director of M2M Telematics holding group Alexei Kutsenko has said. “No, the development of the Chinese satellite constellation poses no threat to Russia. The world now is moving to multisystem navigation equipment both on the market of professional equipment and on the consumer market,” he said. He said that the consumer does not care how many navigation systems his navigation device supports. The main thing for him or her is reliable positioning. “The more systems equipment is going to support wherever it is produced – in China, Russia or Europe – the more all interested participants will gain,” he said. M2M Telematics is Russia’s largest holding group comprising developers, manufacturers, system integrators and turn-key solution vendors in the market of vehicle telematics and satellite navigation based on GLONASS and GPS technologies. http://rbth.ru/news/

NYPD uses GPS to combat Painkiller Bandits

Police in New York City plan to combat the theft of painkillers and other highly addictive prescription medicines by asking pharmacies around the city to hide fake pill bottles fitted with GPS devices amid the legitimate supplies on their shelves. The New York Police Department believes the so-called “bait bottles” could help investigators track stolen drugs and locate suspects. http:// www.sci-tech-today.com/news/

Roscosmos: Plans for GLONASS programme

Russia will build and launch 13 GLONASS-M and 22 GLONASS –K satellites between now and 2020, according to an outline of the nation’s space program published on the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) website. The document, “Space activities of Russia in the years 2013–2020,” described plans for the GLONASS program’s 326.5 billion– ruble (US$10.77–billion) budget during those years. The programme has a stated goal of providing 1.4 meter positioning accuracy by 2015 and 0.6-meter accuracy in 2020. http://www.un-spider.org/

BeiDou now opened for public usage

China opened up for public use its homebuilt GNSS System, the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS). Currently BeiDou has 16 navigation satellites that offer coverage in the Asia Pacific rim, down to Australia. the China Satellite Navigation Office expects to provide worldwide coverage by 2020 with additional satellites. This public opening also materializes through the release of an Interface Control Document (ICD) for the Open Service. This document will finally allow international providers of GNSS chipsets to support BeiDou with their products along with the existing GPS and GLONASS constellation. www.gpsbusinessnews.com/

Russia and India join global satnav augmentation meeting

More than 50 of the specialists overseeing the world’s five regional satnav augmentation systems met at Toulouse in southern France for the latest meeting of the Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems (SBAS) Interoperability Working Group (IWG). The gathering was the ô€‚¿ rst to be attended by Russia’s space agency and the Indian Bureau of Civil Aviation, to discuss their own SBAS systems. The meeting was jointly hosted by ESA’s European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) and SBAS Division with the French space agency, CNES. http://www.esa.int/

The GNSS market positions itself for the future

Frost & Sullivan analysis forecasts increasing prominence of Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) data derived from GNSS) and associated Value Added Services (VAS) in the next 10 to 20 years. As US and European stakeholders continue to demonstrate growing interests in the region in collaboration with regional systems/service providers, APAC will continue to represent as the fastest growing region through 2021, as forecasted in a recent Frost & Sullivan Market Insight entitled: “Global Navigation Satellite System Market Assessment – In Pursuit of New Business Opportunities.” Frost & Sullivan forecast shows that the APAC market is anticipated to more than double in 10 years, from EUR22.10 billion in 2012 to EUR56.07 in 2021, with one of the fastest growth rates among regions at 10.9 per cent. The European market value is estimated to grow from EUR16.90 billion in 2012 to EUR28.54 billion in 2021. www.frost.com

GNSS charges by Russia– a cause of concern

It had always been ICAO’s intent that civil user services provided by the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) should be free of charges or user mandates, except for certain optional applications such as fee-bearing accuracy enhancements with performance guarantees. Europe’s Galileo is expected to offer such optional enhancements. But Russia has announced that it will mandate the carriage of receivers for its Glonass constellation in all aircraft on its civil aircraft register. GPS may also be used, but only when integrated with a Glonass receiver and its adjuncts. Publicly, ICAO has acknowledged that Russia’s mandate is within its sovereign rights, but individual national representatives at the ICAO Air Navigation Conference in November’12 were unwilling to comment openly on the Russian position. Possibly, according to one representative, there is an underlying concern that Russia’s action might encourage other GNSS constellation owners to impose mandates. The unnamed but most likely candidate is China, which is making rapid progress toward completion of its GPS-like Compass global system. www.ainonline.com/