Development of a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based GNSS receiver platform has been underway at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) ‘SNAP’ lab since 2004. The receiver now has a name; ‘Namuru’ that means ‘to see the way’ in the language of the Eora people who inhabited an area around Sydney, including the UNSW campus, before the arrival of the British. The receiver was introduced in the Coordinates January 2006 edition and in this article we first provide a brief recap and then look at the latest developments and results from testing. But before launching into this, the question of why such a research and development platform is desirable must be answered.

he Japanese Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) represents an innovative multi-service satellite system able to provide positioning for mobile users over Eastern Asia and Australasia. The integration of the QZSS with the present GPS and the European GALILEO will improve accuracy, availability and capability over a wide area. Throughout a collaborative research program, the space technology group of AIST, Japan and the University of NSW…