NextNav has successfully tested its positioning and timing solution that combines the company’s assured position, navigation and timing (PNT) TerraPoiNT system with existing LTE and 5G network signals. The test, which took place in San Jose, California, demonstrated how TerraPoiNT signals can be integrated with existing cellular signals to deliver accurate 3D positioning and timing information that is not reliant on GPS and GNSS signals.

Using dedicated terrestrial transmitters and LTE/5G signals, NextNav’s system delivers accurate and reliable 3D positioning and timing information and can augment or complement GPS in places where GPS signals may not be available. Integrating TerraPoiNT with LTE and 5G signals provides a rapid and cost-effective approach to scaling resilient PNT solutions in GPS-denied environments.

“Whether its utilities, banks, data centers, transportation, or emergency services, critical infrastructure today is reliant on GPS for position, navigation and timing services, making it highly vulnerable to GPS as a single point of failure” said Ganesh Pattabiraman, co-founder and CEO of NextNav. “With this integration, we have demonstrated a highly scalable and lower cost alternative — a 3D PNT solution which overcomes the vulnerabilities of GPS with a complementary ground-based resilient PNT layer that extends PNT capabilities in urban and indoor environments.”

L3Harris has completed a fully autonomous launch and recovery of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) from an underway submarine, referred to as Torpedo Tube Launch and Recovery (TTL&R). The launch used Iver4 AUV technology from L3Harris.

The L3Harris team worked closely with the U.S. Navy to demonstrate AUV launch and recovery through a test program aboard submarines and Navy support vessels.

The recovery of AUVs into an underway submarine allows the host platform to remain covert while the AUV performs surveys and missions in areas inaccessible to the host platform. The AUVs return with data that can be used for tactical and navigational planning — delivering manned and unmanned teaming to a fleet.

According to L3Harris, the company welcomes the continued opportunity to support the Navy in the development of manned and unmanned operational concepts. This capability will increase operational effectiveness and allow SSN-class submarines to serve as an AUV mothership.

Thales and the European Space Agency (ESA) will be working together on the cybersecurity aspects of the Galileo Second Generation (G2G) program.

Under the partnership, Thales’ scalable and flexible architecture, and security equipment will enable the G2G program to strengthen its ability to detect and respond to new cyberthreats. The end-to-end solution Thales proposed will contribute to the development of greater security and resilience of satellites.

In addition, Thales Alenia Space has partnered with the ESA to design and build the G2G ground mission segment, as well as support system engineering and technical assistance activities. The company also will provide six of the 12 satellites of the constellation.

The second-generation ground mission segment is designed to generate and connect the navigation services to the Galileo satellites and to keep the satellites synchronized with a common time reference. The first version will arrive in time for the launch of the first second-generation satellites and for the validation of the system’s in-orbit capabilities. The second version will be responsible for the missions of both the first- and second-generation Galileo satellites.

The new ground mission system, which includes several major technological innovations, will provide more than four billion users worldwide with improved performance in terms of positioning, navigation and synchronization.

Four T300’s from ComNav Technology have been used as active control GNSS points on the top of Sweden’s tallest building, Karlatornet, during its construction to deliver 3D coordinates to total stations and one was used as a base station. The building is set to be complete this month.

The T300 is a receiver with radio frequency, a baseband chip built in, and a unique quantum-real-time kinematic (RTK) algorithm. It supports full constellation systems including BDS-2, BDS-3, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS and NavIC.

The receiver is designed for demanding surveying tasks, features tilt compensation, 4G/Wi-Fi connection, 8-GB internal memory and an easy survey workflow with Android-based Survey Master Software. It is designed to make collecting accurate data easy and fast, whether done by a beginner or experienced professional surveyor, the company said.

A report by CNBC — based on a paper published by Harvard’s’ Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and written by Sarah Sewall — noted a growing concern that China’s BeiDou is technologically superior to GPS and serves much of the population better.

Experts in the CNBC report explained that BeiDou supports China’s military ambitions, has spurred economic growth in the country, and has increased its diplomatic leverage.

The first BeiDou satellite was launched in 2000 and served only mainland China. The system now consists of 45 operational satellites with 30 of them being the latest generation BDS-3 satellites.

In 2020, China launched the last BeiDou satellite, completing the constellation. Since then, the influence of BeiDou has grown, with an estimated 1.1 billion people now using the system.

One feature in the latest BeiDou satellites is two-way messaging that is mainly available in China and requires special chips that are not widely available in the consumer market. It enables users to send short messages in areas without ground network cell coverage and can be used for search and rescue operations.

Surveillance fears

The CNBC report noted the fear that, with its enhancements, the BeiDou system could be used as a surveillance device — as the two-way messaging feature reveals a user’s locations as well as other types of data.

Additionally, with the growing number of apps for cellphones and an increase in autonomous vehicles that use the BeiDou system, more and more user data is being transmitted.

The bottom line

Satellites in the United States’ GPS constellation do not yet have those kinds of features.

There are 31 operational GPS satellites, 6 of which are GPS III satellites.

GPS satellite modernization 

In 2008 Lockheed Martin beat out Boeing — the manufacturer of older GPS satellites — to build the GPS III satellites, the last of which was delivered in February. GPS III satellites deliver enhanced performance through a variety of improvements, including increased signal protection with improved accuracy.

GPS III SV07, SV08, SV09 and SV10 (SV stands for “space vehicle”) are awaiting launch at Lockheed Martin’s GPS III processing facility in Waterton, Colorado.

Lockheed Martin is now working on 22 GPS IIIF satellites — contracted in 2018 — that will feature more advanced capabilities. These satellites are expected to launch in 2026.

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

The entire fleet of GPS satellites is expected to be modernized in 2032 or 2033. However, for now, President Biden’s National Space-Based Positioning Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board recognizes the need for a resilient national PNT architecture and acknowledges that BeiDou is technologically superior to GPS.

Galileo’s ground segment has gained a new asset, the Telemetry, Tracking and Control (TT&C) facility — a 13.5-m parabola dish mounted on top of a 10-m high building structure of made of steel and concrete. It is based within Europe’s launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, beside TTCF-2.

The TT&C antennas are uncrewed and operate on a fully automated basis from the two Galileo control centers located in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, and Fucino, Italy. The TT&C antennas are crucial to regular communication with the Galileo satellites.

This latest antenna will play an important role during the upcoming modernization activities of the earlier TT&C antennas in the station network, which have been in service for several years. TTCF-7 will take over their tasks during the maintenance activities when they need to be taken offline.

It is hard to believe that Italy’s “floating city” could be underwater soon.

Predictions for the future of the city vary, but most scientists agree that the sea level is rising due to climate change. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, an interdisciplinarity  journal of the European Geosciences Union, published a report in 2021 suggesting the average sea level could be between 17 cm and 120 cm higher in Venice by 2100.

Venice was built in the middle of a shallow lagoon in the Adriatic Sea. Therefore, it has always been at risk of flooding or “acqua alta,” meaning high water. There is evidence of severe flooding dating back to around the 8th century.

The Venetian lagoon is more than 500 km2 in total, but has an average depth of only 1 m, according to Royal Museums-Greenwich. High tides and severe storms have a devastating impact on the wetland environment on which Venice is built.

In November 2019, Venice experienced the second-worst flooding event in almost 100 years. The tide reached 187 cm (6.1 ft) above sea level, covering 80% of the city in water, reported the BBC.

City records show there have been 324 intense high-water events since 1872 and more than half of those have been in the past 30 years. Among the many and vast consequences of human-caused climate change may be the end of one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

Only time will tell the fate of Venice.

1Spatial — a global provider of geospatial software and solutions for improved data governance — has launched the 1Capture, a customizable mobile application for data capture.

1Capture is a mobile GIS editing application that is multi-use and configurable. It provides accurate and reliable GIS data collection and editing in the field for a multitude of asset, job, and survey types.

Customizable rules and actions work to improve data quality at the point of capture. This ensures good quality data is captured at source, minimizing re-surveys. The built-in rules engine automatically validates and corrects the GIS and non-GIS data collected, whether working online or offline.

1Capture connects with a variety of GIS environments including Esri ArcGIS and open-source technologies such as PostGIS and Geoserver.

PNT for the warfighter

The Institute of Navigation’s Military Division hosted the 2023 Joint Navigation Conference (JNC 2023) for the Department of Defense and  the Department of Homeland Security, in San Diego, June 12 to 15. JNC, the largest U.S. military positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) conference of the year, was attended by 1,162 people. The theme of this year’s conference was “Enhancing Dominance and Resilience for Warfighting and Homeland Security PNT” and it focused on technical advances in PNT with emphasis on joint development, test and support of affordable PNT systems, logistics and integration. GPS World was one of the event’s media partners. For information on future JNC events, click here.

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Autonomy & sustainability

More than 3,600 professionals, business owners, thought leaders and media analysts from 77 countries met in Las Vegas on June 12 to 15 for HxGN LIVE Global, Hexagon’s largest event of the year. In his opening keynote address, the company’s president and CEO, Paolo Guglielmini, announced an exclusive new collaboration between Hexagon and Nvidia to transform industrial digital twin solutions that unite reality capture, manufacturing twins, AI, simulation and visualization to deliver real-time comparison to real-world models using NVIDIA Omniverse, a platform for developing and operating industrial metaverse applications. The conference included panel discussions, general sessions and break-out sessions with presentations by industry experts, as well as hands-on demonstrations in the exhibit hall, called The Zone. Other events included a Women in Tech lunch and a  huge party on Wednesday night.

We are happy to announce that OSGeo kindly extended an invitation to have a QGIS contributor meeting joining the OSGeo Community Sprint 2023 during the Big Data from Space 2023 conference in Vienna.

The 26th QGIS Contributor Meeting will be held from Monday, November 6th to Thursday, 11th.

For more details and to sign up, please visit the corresponding OSGeo announcement page.

About QGIS contributor meetings

QGIS Contributors Meetings are volunteer-driven events where contributors to the QGIS project from around the world get together in a common space – usually a university campus. During these events, contributors to the QGIS project take the opportunity to plan their work, hold face-to-face discussions and present new improvements to the QGIS project that they have been working on. Everybody attending the event donates their time to the project for the days of the event. As a project that is built primarily through online collaboration, these meetings provide a crucial ingredient to the future development of the QGIS project. The event is planned largely as an ‘unconference’ with minimal structured programme planning. We do this to allow attendees the freedom to meet dynamically with those they encounter at the event. Those sessions that are planned are advertised on the event web page, and we try to enable remote participation through video conferencing software. Although our hosts are not funded and donate the working space to us, we show our appreciation by making one of our software release’s splash screens in honour of that host, which is a great way to gain exposure of your institution and country to the hundreds of thousands of users that make use of QGIS.

About OSGeo

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) has a long tradition of organizing code sprints for developers of Free and Open Source GIS software.

Since 2009, the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) has been organizing a yearly Code Sprint of the “C Tribe” OSGeo projects, which has evolved into a full OSGeo Community Sprint and all “Tribes” are included/welcome. Leading developers of projects like GDAL, PostGIS,
MapServer, GeoServer, GRASS, QGIS, PDAL, pygeoapi and many more get together to discuss new ideas, hack, decide, tackle large geospatial problems and have fun.

The OSGeo Community Sprint is open to all who wish to participate in one or more projects. There is always plenty to do – it’s not all about programming. Translation, documentation, feedback, discussions, testing – all this is also important for projects so everyone is cordially invited to attend the code sprint!

About BiDS

BiDS brings together key actors from industry, academia, EU entities and government to reveal user needs, exchange ideas and showcase the latest technical solutions and applications touching all aspects of space and big data technologies, providing a unique opportunity to discuss and present the most recent innovations and challenges encountered in the context of big data from space. The 2023 edition of BiDS will focus not only on technologies enabling insight and foresight inferable from big data from space. Together, we want to emphasize how breakthrough space data-driven technologies impact society’s grand challenges, such as climate change and the green transition.

The event, organized by the European Space Agency (ESA) together with the European Union Satellite Center (SatCen) and the Joint Research Center (JRC), will take place at the Austria center Vienna, and counts on the support of the partners FFG, Austria in Space and the Federal Ministry Republic of Austria.

Nyhet från QGIS, orginal inlägg