The USA moves ahead with GPS III.
China takes a leap forward with five satellites of COMPASS last year.
And promises four more this year.
GALILEO appears for a compromise of 18 satellites as of now.
And Japan assures of a steady progress with MICHIBIKI in place.
GLONASS suffers a massive setback with of loss of three satellites.
But the zeal continues with GLONASS K in place.
Many such voices were made and heard.
At recently held Munich Satellite Navigation Summit in Germany.
And also was heard.
A loud silence on Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System.

The year 1978 saw the launch of the first Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite. Today, GPS, as the first and currently only operational global navigation satellite system (GNSS), is widely used and is a vital technology for many of society’s economic, scientific and social activities. Applications can be found everywhere, such as spacecraft navigation, geodesy, surveying and mapping, precision navigation, machine guidance, vehicle fleet management and “intelligent transport systems” (ITS), emergency services and “location based services” (LBS). Clearly the development of GPS has revolutionised what are now termed “positioning, navigation and timing” (PNT) activities.

Whenever there is a need for continuous navigation, radio-technical systems are usually integrated with inertial navigation systems (INS) or dead-reckoning systems (DR). Due to large dimensions and power consumption, as well as high prices, INS systems have been traditionally applied in high-end or military applications. Recently an unprecedented decrease of all the above mentioned factors have been witnessed, making inertial navigation suitable for a wider set of applications. However, the dead-reckoning method is still the preferred choice in low-cost land navigation systems.

The Indian Naval Hydrographic Department, with its rich traditions in the field of hydrography, wide ranging experience, a good infrastructure coupled with an excellent Human Resource, has the entire requisite wherewithal to be ranked amongst the best in the world. This has not happened overnight; the initial foundations have been laid by our predecessors and we who man and run the department now have been blessed by a good beginning. In the last five years, we have only added on to its already established stature.

Best practice implementations needs to reflect experience: with cost effective world leading operational national systems; several generations of change i.e. experience with different models of private sector and public sector collaboration; in creating and extending systems of policy, regulation and governance; of the affects of different governance regimes, cultures and from international programmes. They therefore need to cover:

Continuous high precision navigation
Multisystem real time precise-point-positioning
Seamless WLAN/GPS hybrid localization
SDI framework

“The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said, ‘This is mine,’ and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society.” (from Discours sur l’Origine et le Fondement de l’Inégalité Parmi les Hommes, 1754, – Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

Around the transit area between the indoor and outdoor environments of buildings, it is anticipated that the number of available measurements may not be sufficient for localization and the undesirable non-line-of-sight (NLOS) and multipath errors would severely deteriorate the localization accuracy. To estimate user location reliably where measurements from global positioning system (GPS) receivers are corrupted or not available, network-based methods have been actively investigated.

Nowadays, a growing number of GNSS users demand highly-accurate positioning with minimal latency. PPP is a new positioning technique providing centimeter-level error. Precise Point Positioning (PPP) processes measurements from a single user receiver, using detailed physical models and corrections, and precise GNSS orbit and clock products computed beforehand.

March 2011
International Hydrographic Seminar
3 – 4 March
Delhi, India
www.hydrobharatnic.in/HYDROIND_2011.htm

GEOFORM-2011
15-18 March
Moscow, EcoCentre Sokolniki
www.geoexpo.ru/defaulteng.stm