News : November - December 1999

Sokkia announces the rlease of Radian
GPS completes 20 years of existence!
Trimble Launches Eight-Channel GPS Technology
Samsung Enters GPS Market
Ahemdabad Police to get GPS facility
GPS receiver Vaio PCG-C2GPS
Galileo - Europe's Contribution to a Global Navigation Satellite System

Sokkia announces the rlease of Radian

Sokkia announces the release of Radian- its new high accuracy GPS comprehensive surveying solution. Created to use in real-time kinematic applications, such as land survey and construction stakeout, the Radian system claims to combine proven GPS technology with the powerful SDR33 Electronic Field Book and graphical, user-friendly software. The comprehensive system is capable of achieving centimetre level position accuracy in real time and millimetre -level in static applications. At the heart of the Radian system is a state of the art 12 channel GPS receiver, usable in static and real time applications. This dual frequency receiver features a removable memory card, as well as LED status indicators and front panel operation, ensuring flexibility and easy to use.

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GPS completes 20 years of existence!

GPS completes 20 years of existence! On August 21, 1999 the Global Positioning System completed its 20 years of existence. Members of the GPS Joint Action Programme Office (JPO) and the GPS community observed the historic event on monitors connected to receivers while they also honoured few inductees to the hall of fame.

This occassion saw the roll-over from week 1023 back to zero. Apart from few problems in Japan, whose motorists were the earliest adopters of GPS-equipped car navigation systems, the roll-over was quite successful.

This co-called “rollover” should not be confused with the Y2K date roll over. In this event the 10-digit binary data counters used in tracking GPS satellite orbits roll over from 1111111111 to 0000000000. This rollover occurred in the 27 GPS satellites. The roll over event, which is set to occur regularly at 20-year intervals could have an adverse impact on the GPS “receivers” used by private boaters, airplane pilots, shipping companies, and car navigation systems, to a few.

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Trimble Launches Eight-Channel GPS Technology

Trimble Launches Eight-Channel GPS Technology Multinational Giant in GPS Technology, Trimble has recently launched its SveeEight Plus GPS receiver. Trimble claims that this model integrates Trimble’s 8-channel technology in the popular SveeSix Plus form factor, making it a high-accuracy, reliable and low-cost upgrade solution for mobile applications. Trimble 8-channel technology provides rapid start-up times and dependable worldwide, day-night, all-weather position and velocity data. The SveeEight Plus GPS module is a differential GPS (DGPS) in a convenient plug-and-play form factor demanded by today’s vehicle tracking and data collection users. Trimble claims that SveeEight Plus consumes power less than 1.5 watts in 12-Volt application.

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Samsung Enters GPS Market

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., of Seoul, Korea, has joined the GPS race with a 16-channel GPS/GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System) receiver that can also track Wide Area Augmentation System and European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service satellites. Designed in cooperation with JSC Firma Kotlin of St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Russian Institute of Radio Navigation and Time, the Agro-16 receiver’s central processing unit manages an automatic gain control. The unit also offers receiver autonomous integrity monitoring and accepts RTCM differential correction data using its two serial input/output ports. Its one-pulse-per-second output can be synchronized to GPS/GLONASS time or UTC. Power consumption is less than 1.35 watts, and antennas are available for portable, automobile, and marine applications.

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Ahemdabad Police to get GPS facility

In its effort to organise the police force of Ahmedabad city and provide more “teeth” to its arsenal, the Gujarat state government has taken steps towards installation of a satellite-linked global positioning system (GPS) in police vehicle. Police Commissioner P. C. Pandey said that the GPS would be installed in mobile vans and jeeps and a computerised map at a control centre would indicate their exact location so that the team nearest to the scene of a crime could be sent. This would also prevent the policemen in the mobile patrol vehicles from giving false information about their location, the Commissioner said.

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GPS receiver Vaio PCG-C2GPS

Japanese electronics giant Sony Corporation unveils a notebook computer with a handy GPS receiver Vaio PCG-C2GPS at the company’s head office in Tokyo November 25, 1999. The PCG-C2GPS, equipped with 2666 MHz-mobile Pentium II processor on its CPU and 8.1 GB hard disk drive on its 960-gram body, enables to display the operator’s location on the map of the computer’s display. Sony puts it on the domestic market on November 27,1999 with an estimated price of US $ 2,850.

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Galileo - Europe's Contribution to a Global Navigation Satellite System

The GPS Community is agog with rumblings going on in the European land. With their eyes towards the sky they are waiting with bated breath for new parallel Global Positioning System to be setup. This would be called as Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). The European Space Agency (ESA) is funding the GalileoSat study based on the mission requirements set by the European Union.

With new funding, the space mandarins claim that Galileo has entered the “definition Phase”. More than U.S. $81 million would be used to work out the details about ground and space architecture, signal design, cost/benefits, marketability, etc. in the next 14 months.

Two interlaced Galileo definition studies are now taking place. One study, under the auspices of the EU, concerns the total system, infrastructure, and management of Galileo. The second dovetails with the larger Galileo study, but only addresses the constellation and the ground system necessary to control and test the satellites – collectively referred to as Galileo Satellites.

This system is projected to be operational by year 2008

**Four Possible Galileo Frequencies**
Frequency	Option 1	Option 2
Frequency 1	1,561.052 MHz (E2)	1,575.420 MHz (L1)
Frequency 2	1,202.025 MHz (E5)	1,176.450 MHz (L5)
Frequency 3	1,589.742 MHz (E1)	1,595.880 MHz (G1)
Frequency 4	1,278.750 MHz (E6)	1,248.060 MHz (G2)

Few Projected Additional Specifications:

A Galileo user should be able to determine his/her position within a 10-metre radius, 95% of the time once every second.
The tentative time-to-first-fix (TTFF) requirement is less than 15 sec.
For signals in space the accuracy requirement is same except that the position update rate is one minute and a provisional TTFF of 60 sec.
The timing accuracy mandate is 30 nanoseconds with 95% confidence.
The system is to be continuously available worldwide 99.7% of the time.

Satellite Configuration:
Although the draft work statement itself does not specify constellation type, orbital planes or even number of satellites, but a configuration of 21 – 36 mid-Earth orbit and possibly 6 – 9 geosynchronous satellites still appear to be the most likely setup.

Payloads:
The draft invitation indicates to allow room on each of the satellites for a 50 kg. revenue-generating payload that can use as much as 500 watts of prime power.

Galileo would provide the capability to disseminate other data such as weather alerts, traffic information, and accident warnings. With such a system in place, it will be a WIN-WIN situation for the GPS user community worldwide.