It is no secret that the world has been burning for months. Devastating wildfires have encompassed Greece, Canada, the United States, and other parts of the world. These wildfires have incinerated entire communities, taken lives, and has had disastrous environmental effects. This wildfire outbreak can be attributed to several factors, but mainly the global climate crisis.

Why are these wildfires a monumental problem?  

Widespread wildfires displace of thousands of people from their homes, raze entire communities and cities, wipe out farmland and other essential resources, create horrific air pollution — that causes inflammation of lung tissue and increases vulnerability to infections — and many other devastating effects. 

As reported by NASA, July has been the hottest month on record since the 1880’s. This has caused extreme dry conditions that are ideal for wildfire outbreaks, among other natural disasters. 

Flames engulfed parts of Hawaii the morning of Wednesday, August 9, which destroyed a centuries-old town and killing at least 106 people as of August 16. The wildfires took natives and tourists on the island by surprise. Residents and tourists were forced to evacuate the area – including some who reportedly jumped into the ocean to escape the flames. The National Weather Service stated the combination of high winds and low humidity is what caused the dangerous fire conditions across the island. The devastating fire left behind burned-out cars on once busy streets and smoking piles of debris where historic buildings once stood.  

The Greece wildfires swept across the island of Rhodes, Corfu and Evia in July, creating thick clouds of smoke and forcing thousands of people the evacuate. These fires were caused by several human imposed factors such as campfires, arson and sheer negligence. However, the deadly heatwave that scorched Europe this summer — caused by carbon emissions — has not helped prevent the start and spread of these wildfires.  

The Air Quality Index (AQI) measures the density of five pollutants: ground-level ozone, particulates, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. It was originally established by the Environmental Protection Agency to communicate the cleanliness of the air Americans are breathing every day. The index runs from zero to 500 — the higher the number the more polluted the air is. Effects of air pollution can range from mild symptoms, such as eye and throat irritation, to serious ones such as heart and respiratory issues. Pollution can cause inflammation of the lung tissue and increase the vulnerability to infections. 

During wildfires, fine particles in the soot, ash and dust can fill the air. The AQI identifies the concentration of particles smaller in diameter than 2.5 μM. When these particles are inhaled, the tiny specks can increase the risk of heart attacks, cancer, and respiratory infections — especially in children and older adults. 

Based on data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, there are 1037 active fires in Canada: 652 are out of control, 161 are being held in place, and 224 are under control as of August 23. Many of these fires were caused by lightning; however, with above-average temperatures this year and dry conditions, wildfires have been breaking out in Canada since May.  

About the Author: Matteo Luccio

Matteo Luccio, GPS World’s Editor-in-Chief, possesses more than 20 years of experience as a writer and editor for GNSS and geospatial technology magazines. He began his career in the industry in 2000, serving as managing editor of GPS World and Galileo’s World, then as editor of Earth Observation Magazine and GIS Monitor. His technical articles have been published in more than 20 professional magazines, including Professional Surveyor Magazine, Apogeo Spatial and xyHt. Luccio holds a master’s degree in political science from MIT. He can be reached at mluccio@northcoastmedia.net or 541-543-0525.

About the Author: Matteo Luccio

Matteo Luccio, GPS World’s Editor-in-Chief, possesses more than 20 years of experience as a writer and editor for GNSS and geospatial technology magazines. He began his career in the industry in 2000, serving as managing editor of GPS World and Galileo’s World, then as editor of Earth Observation Magazine and GIS Monitor. His technical articles have been published in more than 20 professional magazines, including Professional Surveyor Magazine, Apogeo Spatial and xyHt. Luccio holds a master’s degree in political science from MIT. He can be reached at mluccio@northcoastmedia.net or 541-543-0525.

In September, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) released the Complementary PNT Action Plan: DOT Actions to Drive CPNT Adoption. On October 16, Matteo Luccio asked a few questions about the plan to Karen Van Dyke, Director for Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) and Spectrum Management in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology (OST-R). Below are Luccio’s questions and Van Dyke’s responses.

What is your office’s charter within the federal government to advance the development and deployment of complementary PNT?

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is the lead for civil PNT requirements in the United States and represents the Federal civil departments and agencies in the development, acquisition, management, and operations of GPS. The DOT Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) and Spectrum Management program (within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology) coordinates the development of Departmental positions on PNT and spectrum policy to ensure safety, mobility, and efficiency of the transportation network. The Department also provides civil PNT system policy analysis and coordination representing Federal civil agencies responsible for critical infrastructure in the requirements development, acquisition, management, and operations of GPS.

These efforts support Federal policy governing PNT programs and activities for national and homeland security, civil, commercial, and scientific purposes. These include Executive Order 13905, Strengthening National Resilience Through Responsible Use of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Services (EO 13905), and Space Policy Directive 7, The United States Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Policy (SPD-7).

Which GPS vulnerabilities and at what scale is this plan addressing?

The DOT Complementary PNT Action Plan addresses disruption, denial, and manipulation of GPS for critical infrastructure sectors. These vulnerabilities of GPS include unintentional and intentional jamming and spoofing (both measurement and data spoofing) of the GPS signal and physically impeded environments in which the availability of the GPS signal is impacted (e.g., indoors, underground, and urban canyons). This plan is intended to address vulnerabilities/limitations of GPS on both a widespread and local scale.

How and when will this action plan move the federal government’s posture on CPNT from study to action?

In 2020, the DOT Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center) conducted field demonstrations of candidate PNT technologies that could offer complementary service in the event of GPS disruptions. The purpose of the demonstrations was to gather information on PNT technologies at a high technology readiness level (TRL) that can work in the absence of GPS.

While this demonstration was a snapshot in time, there were two central recommendations from the demonstration:

1. U.S. DOT should develop system requirements for PNT functions that support safety critical services.
2. U.S. DOT should develop standards, test procedures, and monitoring capabilities to ensure that PNT services, and the equipage that utilize them, meet the necessary levels of safety and resilience identified in Recommendation 1.

The culmination of the demonstration program was the 2021 Report to Congress, Complementary PNT and GPS Backup Technologies Demonstration Report (2021 Demonstration Report). The PNT resiliency recommendations distilled in the 2021 Demonstration Report were vetted through a Federal interagency review process. During the same period, SPD-7 (directed to U.S. Federal Space-Based PNT service providers) and EO 13905 (directed to PNT users) were issued in a coordinated effort to strengthen U.S. PNT policy.

As part of its ongoing responsibilities as civil PNT lead, the Department has developed a Complementary PNT Action Plan to drive CPNT adoption across the Nation’s transportation system and within other critical infrastructure sectors. The plan describes actions that the DOT plans to pursue over the next several years, including engaging PNT stakeholders; monitoring and supporting the development of CPNT specifications and standards; establishing resources and procedures for CPNT testing and evaluation; and creating a Federal PNT Services Clearinghouse. Taken together with efforts of other Federal partners, these initiatives will continue to strengthen the resilience of the Nation’s PNT-dependent systems, resulting in safer, more secure critical infrastructure.

It should be noted that the U.S. Government is not procuring CPNT systems for non-Federal stakeholders, and as always, all activities are subject to the availability of appropriations.

How does DOT intend to engage PNT stakeholders?

DOT held a PNT Industry roundtable on August 4, 2022 that included representatives from Complementary PNT Technology vendors and critical infrastructure sectors. https://www.transportation.gov/pntindustryround

Feedback from this DOT industry roundtable informed the development of the DOT Complementary PNT Action Plan.

On September 11, 2023, DOT issued a Request for Information (RFI) as one of the steps to drive adoption of Complementary PNT services to augment GPS for the Nation’s transportation system, and through the Executive Branch Interagency Process, for other critical infrastructure sectors. U.S. DOT is planning a resiliency test, evaluation, and performance monitoring strategy for PNT-dependent transportation systems. Taken together with efforts of other Federal partners, these initiatives will strengthen resilience of the Nation’s PNT-dependent systems through the U.S. Government’s purchasing power as a demanding customer of Complementary PNT (CPNT) services, along with critical infrastructure owners and operators, resulting in safer, more secure critical infrastructure for the nation.

The DOT Volpe Center issued this RFI seeking information from industry about availability and interest in carrying out a small-scale deployment of very high technical readiness level (Technology Readiness Level (TRL)≥8) CPNT technologies at a field test range to characterize the capabilities and limitations of such technologies to provide PNT information that meet critical infrastructure needs when GPS service is not available and/or degraded due environmental, unintentional, and/or intentional disruptions. This deployment is intended to test these technologies against CI relevant requirements in order to gain confidence in performance and foster user adoption.

It is likely that DOT will hold future industry roundtables with Complementary PNT technology vendors and critical infrastructure sector owners and operators.

An exclusive interview with Stef van der Loo, market access manager, Septentrio. For more exclusive interviews from this cover story, click here. 

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What are your key markets and how does this port project fit in?

We have many markets, of course, but we have a big focus on machine automation, mainly for large industrial machinery. Think of agriculture and construction. Port logistics is a newcomer in a sense. In the last 20 years, there’s been a lot of testing with GPS receivers in terminals, but not as much as in construction because the two environments are very different. In a container terminal or port, everything is interconnected and, therefore, complex.

You can equip an excavator with a 3D system and import this data into a building information modeling (BIM) system, but sometimes data is missing and the system breaks. If that happens in logistics the whole chain breaks and you’re stuck. Lately, GNSS has become more popular, especially when coupled with inertial navigation, because the technology has become more capable of delivering centimeter-level accuracy even in challenging environments where the line-of-sight to GNSS satellites may be partially blocked by containers or structures.

So, GNSS is becoming more of a fit for the logistics market.

What have been the drivers of higher accuracy in the past 20 years?

The terminal operators want to increase their throughput of containers. Automation will not always speed up the handling of containers, because autonomous  vehicles might move slower than those operated by experienced human operators.

In logistics they started looking at positioning to deal with the loss of containers. Every year, every terminal stacks a certain number of containers, but not all the information about them is given to the terminal operating system (TOS) automatically. If you keep on stacking but with missing data every container on top of a missed one will be wrong, so you fill your system with wrong data. Sometimes, operators must search for misplaced containers, which may require stopping operations and deploying additional personnel. Additionally, it is not very safe to go into these yards. This is one reason why ports began to deploy positioning systems. However, ten years ago, with meter accuracy, they were failing all the time. Now, improvements in the technology have enabled GNSS to become fit for the challenge.

Nowadays, in terminals, you see many non-GNSS positioning systems, such as radar systems, to steer cranes and position containers. We’re replacing many of these systems. There are also transponders in the roads, for vehicle traffic management and for area guided vehicles (AGVs), which are fully autonomous and need centimeter-precision everywhere. GNSS does not work everywhere. You always have some disruptions or gaps in coverage. However, the newer inertial systems can compensate for short GNSS outages so that you get reliable centimeter accuracy. Additionally, the cranes are increasingly automated. Gantry cranes, for example, are on rubber tires but constrained in their movements. Reach stackers, forklifts, and terminal tractors, on the other hand, have free movement. These vehicles are typically equipped with the GNSS or INS systems for traffic management or container and cargo positioning.

The next step would be to move to semi- or fully-autonomous vehicles, of course. GNSS is not enough for that; autonomous technology needs to have different sensors. It’s extremely difficult to prove and to test a new system in a terminal, because it’s an uninterrupted chain of interconnection between the sea, the stacking of the containers, and ground transportation. You cannot just go in with an autonomous forklift or an autonomous reachstacker and try out something. However, you can only prove it when you do it in that chain. Otherwise, it’s a standalone kind of test. So, that’s the biggest obstacle.

Don’t containers have a barcode you can scan or a serial number you can see with a camera?

Yes, they do. The problem is not so much the number on the container but its virtual number in the terminal’s layout. Let’s say that you put container A on square C1. What if you deviate half a meter and TOS puts it automatically in the system in C2 instead? That’s often where mistakes occur. So, you can have OCR scanners and easily scan the code on the container. The problem is where you place the container.

What about the virtual image of all the container stacks?

Yes, the digital twin, like in construction. However, in construction you don’t need the infrastructure. You don’t need to install a radar in a certain place, calibrate it, enter it in the maps, et cetera. That’s more the survey part of construction. The biggest win is when you can equip a vehicle with a standalone system. It needs RTK, but it is standalone for the port. You don’t need large  infrastructure, you don’t need to drill holes every two meters to place transponders in the roads in the whole area, perhaps just a small part. That saves them a lot of investments and maintenance.

In terminals, you can use GNSS or INS systems for vehicle traffic management, autonomous vehicles and tasks, or to get the position of a container. For example, when a reach stacker reaches into a stack and locks a container in place, it’s crucial to have a very reliable centimeter-level position. Errors grow as the data is processed from the control systems to the TOS. To know for certain the position of a container when it was placed in a stack errors must not exceed half a meter. Therefore, the reliability and accuracy of the GNSS/INS is crucial for container positioning.

Many AGVs carrying containers still work with road transponders. But if we can assist with our GNSS and INS products, they may be able to make a hybrid form of terminal. In perhaps 80% to 90% of the terminal, GNSS/INS works fine because you have a relatively clear view of the sky.

We already play a big role with Kalmar. They are replacing all legacy positioning systems, which are often heavy on the infrastructure side. So, they’re stuck in their layout, they are not flexible anymore. To handle the positioning of the containers, they preferably do not use any fixed infrastructure. That’s one of the drivers within their SmartPort automation service. So, it’s for flexibility, for traffic management, automation and to position the containers.

The autonomous side is a whole other category. There are many semi-autonomous terminals and they’re partly closed, so nobody can enter them. There you need to do everything fully autonomously, of course, because there are no people inside. Here, too, the Septentrio systems play a role, similar to that of other autonomous vehicle markets. Yet the autonomous terminal evolution is still in its early days. The non-container logistics might take a leap here. We have an increasing number of customers who are developing or retrofitting autonomous logistics vehicles such as the terminal tractors, reach stackers and forklifts mentioned before, specifically for yards and factory plants.

About the Author: Matteo Luccio

Matteo Luccio, GPS World’s Editor-in-Chief, possesses more than 20 years of experience as a writer and editor for GNSS and geospatial technology magazines. He began his career in the industry in 2000, serving as managing editor of GPS World and Galileo’s World, then as editor of Earth Observation Magazine and GIS Monitor. His technical articles have been published in more than 20 professional magazines, including Professional Surveyor Magazine, Apogeo Spatial and xyHt. Luccio holds a master’s degree in political science from MIT. He can be reached at mluccio@northcoastmedia.net or 541-543-0525.

Pasternack has launched its new line of IoT multiband combination antennas. Designed for vehicles, fleets and pivotal base stations, the technology aims to revolutionize how industries perceive and use mobile connectivity.

The antennas integrate 4G, 5G, Wi-Fi and GPS bands to offer emergency teams, on-the-move fleets and first responders an unwavering link, even in harsh environments.

Facilitated with both FAKRA and SMA connectors and extended 17-foot cable leads, users can seamlessly integrate the technology. It also has an IP69K rating, certifying it for both indoor and outdoor deployments.

MIMO capabilities improve data transmission speeds and reliability, ensuring consistent high-bandwidth connections. The antenna’s GPS/GNSS component, enhanced with LNA and amplified by a 26 dB gain, offers users improved navigation and tracking precision.

About the Author: Matteo Luccio

Matteo Luccio, GPS World’s Editor-in-Chief, possesses more than 20 years of experience as a writer and editor for GNSS and geospatial technology magazines. He began his career in the industry in 2000, serving as managing editor of GPS World and Galileo’s World, then as editor of Earth Observation Magazine and GIS Monitor. His technical articles have been published in more than 20 professional magazines, including Professional Surveyor Magazine, Apogeo Spatial and xyHt. Luccio holds a master’s degree in political science from MIT. He can be reached at mluccio@northcoastmedia.net or 541-543-0525.

The United States Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) has assigned 21 launch service mission assignments for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 Launch Service Procurement contract. This is the fifth and final order year in the Phase 2 contract.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) received 11 mission assignments and SpaceX received 10. These missions are scheduled to launch over the next two to three years and focus on a variety of mission areas.

The 11 missions assigned to ULA are:  GPS III-9, NROL-73, NROL-56, STP-5, SILENTBARKER 2/NROL-118, GPS IIIF-1, NROL-100, USSF-95, NROL-109, SDA T2TL-B and USSF-25.

The 10 missions assigned to SpaceX are:  SDA T1TL-F, SDA T1TR-A, USSF-57, NROL-77, SDA T1TR-E, GPS III-10, USSF-75, SDA T2TL-A, SDA T2TL-C and USSF-70.

NROL-77, NROL-73, NROL-56, NROL-109, and NROL-100 are missions being conducted in partnership with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

T1TL-F is the last mission of six Space Development Agency (SDA) Tranche 1 Transport Layer launches. T2TL-A, T2TL-B and T2TL-C are the first three Tranche 2 Transport Layer launches. SDA’s Transport Layer aims to provide assured, resilient, low-latency military data and connectivity worldwide to the full range of warfighter platforms.

T1TR-A and T1TR-E are the last two SDA Tranche 1 Tracking Layer launches. The Tracking Layer aims to provide global indications, warning, tracking and targeting of advanced missile threats, including hypersonic missile systems.

The GPS III-9 and GPS III-10 missions are the final projected GPS III missions. The GPS IIIF-1 is the first launch of the follow-on GPS III satellites. GPS Block IIIF introduces several improvements and novel capabilities compared to previous GPS satellite blocks.

USSF-57 will launch the first of three next generation overhead persistent infrared GEO satellites. These satellites will deliver survivable, resilient missile warning, tracking, and defense in a highly contested and congested space domain.

SILENTBARKER 2/NROL-118 is a joint NRO and SSC Space Domain Awareness mission to meet U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and intelligence community space protection needs.

USSF-25 will launch the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO). The goal of the DRACO program is to demonstrate nuclear thermal rocket in orbit.

USSF-95 will be the first launch of a missile track custody (MTC) prototype satellite. The MTC prototype effort will evaluate the ability of various next generation overhead persistent infrared sensor designs to meet missile tracking requirements.

STP-5 is the latest mission in support of SSC’s Space Test Program (STP). The STP performs mission design, payload-to-bus integration, space vehicle-to-launch vehicle integration, and on-orbit operations for science and technology payloads that exhibit potential military utility. STP-5 will launch two satellites in support of the DOD’s Strategic Capabilities Office.