INDUSTRY

ASPAARO established

Northrop Grumman Corporation and Airbus Defence and Space, together with seven industrial players, have established ASPAARO, the Atlantic Strategic Partnership for Advanced All-domain Resilient Operations. ASPAARO will bid to undertake the Risk Reduction and Feasibility Studies (RRFS) for the NATO Support and Procurement Agency as part of the Alliance Future Surveillance and Control (AFSC) programme.

The feasibility studies are a key milestone in the AFSC programme which aims to support NATO and NATO nations as they consider the Alliance’s future tactical surveillance, command and control capabilities after the current Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) fleet reaches the end of its service life in 2035. www.airbus.com

Spytec GPS partners with Google Maps

Spytec GPS has launched Time Machine, a feature providing small businesses a first-of-its-kind historical record of GPS data for their vehicles and mobile assets. This release comes less than a month after the company announced its integration with Google Maps, the leading solution in digital mapping technology.

ESA to improve road traffic efficiency

HORIBA MIRA in collaboration with GMV NSL will develop new and improved passenger car platooning solutions on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA), which will move into a live trials phase in Q1 2022, encompassing both simulated and physical testing during 2022.

The project aims to advance platooning – the process of optimizing the co-ordination of traffic streams – by embracing a number of advanced technologies. The first of these is cooperation between all the cars in the platoon to share information about their respective positions on the roadway. Cooperative positioning is enabled with a variety of range-finding sensors, such as radar, with data being shared between cars via low latency wireless communications. Finally, for this data to be ‘trusted’ to inform the management of the positions of the cars in the platoon, it is evaluated by an integrity algorithm.

A platoon automatically optimizes the flow of vehicles along highways and prevents the characteristic phenomenon of waves of braking and acceleration events, known as perturbations, transmitting through streams of traffic when vehicles are manually driven at high levels of density, such as during rush hours.

Topcon announce new machine control solutions

Topcon Positioning Group has announced its MC-Max machine control solution. Based on its MC-X machine control platform, and backed by Sitelink3D — the company’s real-time, cloud-based data management ecosystem — MCMax is a scalable solution for mixedfleet heavy equipment environments. It is designed to adapt to owners’ machine control and data integration needs as their fleets and workflows expand. www.topconpositioning.com

SoftBank Corp. and u-blox collaboration

SoftBank Corp. and Swiss-based u-blox AG have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to cooperate in GNSS augmentation services for global markets. SoftBank provides the “ichimill” GNSS augmentation service in Japan, its subsidiary ALES operates a business that generates and delivers positioning correction data, and u-blox is a leading global provider of positioning services for the automotive, industrial and consumer markets. www.u-blox.com

Rohde & Schwarz joins Car Connectivity Consortium

Rohde & Schwarz has joined the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) to support the organization’s mission to foster industry wide standards for communications between vehicles and smartphones. The company will contribute its broad expertise in mobile device and automotive technology testing. In particular, the company will provide its solutions for the development and production of UWB devices and modules for automotive applications such as keyless vehicle access. www.rohde-schwarz.com

RadioWaves introduces new GPS / GNSS timing antennas

RadioWaves’ new series of GPS/GNSS timing antennas provide top-of-the-line axial ratio and higher accuracy for the reception of satellite timing signals and reference frequencies for enhanced phase synchronization in precision network deployments. The high gain, low noise figure of 2 dB plus high, out-of-band rejection provided by these antennas allow for the use of longer and cost-effective cables for easy and flexible installs. They also feature a VSWR less than 1.8:1 and are compatible with several existing mounting brackets. www.radiowaves.com

Ultra-rugged PDA – NAUTIZ X9

Handheld Group has announced a new version of its NAUTIZ X9 PDA: an ultra-rugged enterprise handheld built for fieldwork in the most challenging outdoor and industrial environments. With an upgraded platform, the Nautiz X9 Android rugged handheld runs Android 11 and is Android Enterprise Recommended (AER). Designed to handle the toughest conditions, the Nautiz X9 is built with a sturdy magnesium casing. It is targeted for mobile computing and data collection in industrial and field applications. www.handheldgroup.com

Lockheed Martin contracted for three more GPS IIIF satellites

The U.S. Space Force exercised its second contract option valued at approximately $737 million for the procurement of three additional GPS III Follow On (GPS IIIF) space vehicles (SVs) from Lockheed Martin on October 22, 2021. This contract option is for GPS IIIF space vehicles 15, 16 and 17 (SV15-17).

Spirent Federal launches new flex power capability

Spirent Federal has announced a new positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) test capability commonly referred to as programmable power—or flex power—available at no additional cost to qualified customers under support. Flex power is the reallocation of transmit power among individual signals in GPS satellites, providing a countermeasure against GPS jamming. Spirent simulators fully support programmable power for M-code, Y-code, and C/A (coarse acquisition) code. www.spirentfederal.com

Harxon offers two new GNSS antennas

Harxon is offering two new GNSS antennas for intelligent connected vehicles (ICV). ICVs are equipped with advanced sensors, controllers, actuators and other devices. They are enabled for intelligent information exchanges between the vehicle and everything (car, road, people, cloud), technology known as V2X.

The ICV antennas connect autos with GNSS, 5G, Wi-Fi, ultrawideband and more.

The integrated antennas support dedicated short-range (DSRC) and cellar vehicle-toeverything (C-V2X) communication. The antennas embed a premium GNSS antenna with high gain for consistent and reliable precise positioning service. They also allow for multiple input and output of data to achieve swift internet download speed in 5G networks. https://en.harxon.com

Tallysman offers automotivegrade GNSS signal splitter

Tallysman Wireless Inc. has added the TW162A automotive-grade smart power GNSS signal splitter to its line of GNSS accessories. The splitter supports the full GNSS spectrum: GPS/QZSS-L1/L2/ L5, QZSS-L6, GLONASS-G1/G2/G3, Galileo-E1/E5a/E5b/E6, BeiDou-B1/B2/ B2a/B3, and L-band correction service frequency band. http://tallysman.com

Honeywell launches new navigation systems

Honeywell has launched two new resilient navigation systems: the Honeywell Compact Inertial Navigation System and Honeywell Radar Velocity System. These systems, along with Honeywell partner InfiniDome’s Anti-Jamming system, GPSdome, are designed for commercial and military customers needing reliable navigation solutions with low size, weight and power. The systems will provide multiple layers of protection that allow continued operations even in GNSS challenged or denied environments.

NovAtel’s PwrPak7-E1 supports Nvidia AV platform

The PwrPak7-E1 from NovAtel is now supported on the Nvidia Drive Hyperion autonomous vehicle (AV) development platform. Selected for its robustness and precise position output, the PwrPak7-E1 will be offered with Nvidia’s autonomous driving test fleets worldwide.

The GNSS and inertial measurement unit (IMU) output of the PwrPak7-E1, along with data from other onboard sensors, are recorded and fed into Nvidia’s sophisticated autonomousdriving development infrastructure and processing pipeline. There, data is synchronized, used for training AI models, and used in testing of various software components and autonomous driving behavior. https://novatel.com

MicroSurvey releases FieldGenius

MicroSurvey has released FieldGenius for Android™ 2.0! This release adds instrument support for conventional total stations for users to continue to work where GNSS observations are limited or if higher accuracy measurements are required. Updates to LandXML import routine to support importing of alignments for users to perform station/offset staking constrained to the alignments and any project line figures. A new temporary height function along with some performance improvements to the application to help increase efficiency have also been added.

Galileo OSNMA position opens

The European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) opened the Galileo Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA) Public Observation test phase for the secured signal. The OSNMA is a freely accessible data-authentication function for the Galileo Open Service worldwide. OSNMA provides receivers a firstlevel of protection against spoofing the Galileo Open Service, assuming that the receiver meets requirements. This is realized by transmitting authenticationspecific data in previously reserved fields of the E1 I/NAV message.

Galileo OSNMA improves confidence on the user side by enabling the user to verify the authenticity of the Galileo navigation parameters required for positioning, navigation and timing. www.gsc-europa.eu

Unicore Communications GNSS hardware available through Rx Networks

Unicore Communications is a sistercompany to Rx Networks within the BDStar group of companies, and is headquartered in Beijing, China. Unicore will deliver affordable High Precision GNSS technology into the North American market through Rx Networks – a key supplier of high accuracy services and assistance data to a growing list of GNSS hardware manufacturers. As high precision GNSS becomes ubiquitous, those seeking precise positioning solutions can now have Unicore GNSS Hardware enlightened with Rx Networks data services.

Low-cost anti-jam GNSS antenna

Engineers from MBDA Missile Systems, working in conjunction with Swansea University research staff, have developed an innovative, compact, low-cost GNSS anti-jam antenna specifically suited to smaller calibre-guided weapons.

Prototyped and tested as part of the French/ UK Materials and Components for Missiles Innovation Technology Partnership (MCM ITP) programme, the Novel Null Steering Antenna 2 (NNSA2) project has matured the antenna and associated electronics to a point where it is available for transition to a product. The design – featuring a 150 mm-diameter Slot Based Microstrip Patch Antenna and embedding a ‘scan, monitor, and lock’ algorithm that intelligently steers the null in the direction of arrival of interference – offers a capability in applications where traditional anti-jam devices would be unsuitable owing to their size, mass, and cost. www.janes.com

Trimble establishes Dr. Gladys West scholarship program

Trimble has announced a scholarship program to honor Dr. Gladys West, a pioneer in mathematics, minority advancement and the advent of the GPSone of our most widely used innovations throughout the world. Known today as the hidden figure who helped invent GPS, Dr. West is one of the reasons why consumers can receive driving directions from a phone or tag a photo location on social media. And why professionals in industrial markets such as construction, transportation and agriculture can leverage geospatial technology to realize significant improvements in productivity, quality, safety, transparency and sustainability to transform the way they work with precision.

Dr. West knew from a young age that education would be the key to moving forward from her family farm in rural Virginia. A scholarship recipient herself, Dr. West earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mathematics and was offered a position in 1956 with Virginia’s Naval Proving Ground—now called the Naval Surface Warfare Center. Hired as a mathematician, she was one of only four African American employees at the time and only the second woman of color.

With her intelligence and computational skills recognized, she quickly climbed the ranks and became project manager for the Seasat radar altimetry project in the 1960s. Knowledge gained through that work enabled her to program an IBM computer to calculate an accurate geodetic Earth model— the detailed mathematical model of the shape of the Earth that is the essential building block for GPS.

That tenacity, talent and enterprising fortitude encapsulates the spirit of Trimble’s scholarship program designed to honor Dr. West’s contributions to science and the geospatial industry. www.trimble.com