GPS World - November 2015

Innovation
eLoran at
Your Service
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
GEOREFERENCING
UAV DATA
for
SURVEY
REAL-TIME POSITION AND
ATTITUDE DETERMINATION
FOUR POINT-CLOUD IMAGES

from four UAV flights
BEIDOUS NEW
TMBOC SIGNAL
PNT ROUNDUP:
STOIC SUB FOR GPS
OEM MARKET
WATCH
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NOVEMBER
G P SWO R LD.CO M
2015
Four Point-Cloud Images from four UAV flights
FEATURE
58 INNOVATION
ENHANCED LORAN
A Wide-Area Multi-Application PNT Resiliency Solution
BY Stephen Bartlett, Gerard
Offermans and Charles Schue
Enhanced Loran could furnish the wide-area
complementary solution to GPS that is urgently
needed for critical infrastructure components.
This article highlights the state of current eLoran
technology and discusses future potential.
COVER STORY
44
UAV REAL-TIME
Data Use in a Lightweight Direct Georeferencing System

BY Christian Eling, Lasse Klingbeil, Markus Wieland,
Erik Heinz and Heiner Kuhlmann
Direct georeferencing with onboard sensors is less time-consuming for
data processing than indirect georeferencing using ground control points,
and can supply real-time navigation capability to a UAV. This is very useful
for surveying, precision farming or infrastructure inspection. An onboard
system for position and attitude determination of lightweight UAVs weighs
240 grams and produces position accuracies better than 5 centimeters and
attitude accuracies better than 1 degree.
MARKET WATCH
APPLICATIONS, TRENDS AND NEWS
OPINIONS AND DEPARTMENTS
19 OEM
22 SURVEY
36 MAPPING
40 UAV
SECTOR UPDATES
50 MOBILE
52 TRANSPORTATION
54 DEFENSE
56 MACHINE CONTROL
NOVEMBER 2015
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
GPS WORLD 3
ONLINENOW
NEWSLETTER EXCERPT
Progress Toward Flying

UAVs Commercially?
BY Tony Murfin
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, PROFESSIONAL OEM
inland just published what

are being called the most
liberal aviation regulations in the world for the
operation of unmanned aircraft.
Trafi the Finish Transport Safety
Agency issued a Regulation for
the Use Of Remotely Piloted Aircraft and Model Aircraft that puts
an onus on operators to observe
quite broad safety rules. If you, the
operator, share details of the UAV
and what you intend to do with it,
and then observe some commonsense rules of operation, you are

free to fly.
If you keep a small UAV (less than
15 pounds) at a safe escape altitude,
you are allowed under certain
conditions to operate over populated
areas and open-area crowds, and
to use either Visual Line of Sight
(VLOS) or Beyond Visual Line of
Sight (BVLOS); these are really hotpotato issues in the U.S. and not
currently generally allowed. The
Federal Aviation Administraion has
permitted some exceptions for trial
news gathering, but otherwise flights
over people and densely populated
areas are strictly verboten.
Read Tonys complete column at

www.gpsworld.com/opinions.
WHAT
TECHNOLOGY
WILL WIN
THE INDOOR
NAVIGATION
BATTLE?
Assisted GNSS
A-GNSS plus any one of below
A-GNSS plus more than one of below
Cell-tower triangulation
Beacons (BlueTooth or IMES)
Radio frequency pattern-matching
Sensor-based dead reckoning
Terrestrial ranging system
Two or more of above not incl. A-GNSS
Wi-Fi
9%
4%
9%
4%
9%
24%
4%
2%
11%
24%
Results from reader poll conducted August 2015.
Next Question:
What is the biggest challenge facing
surveyors using GNSS in the field?
GO TO WWW.GPSWORLD.COM/DECPOLL
Complete the survey by November 23.
See Results in our December issue.
HOTTEST PAGES @ GPSWORLD.COM

SEPT. 26 OCT. 25, 2015
MARKET INSIGHTS
China Launches 20th BeiDou Satellite

with Hydrogen Clock
Galileo: Are We There Yet? (EAGER newsletter)
WEBINAR
DECEMBER WEBINAR
ENEWS
INSIGHTS
Introduction to
Using UAVs for Mapping
SkyTraq Launches RTK Receiver for UAVs, Mobile
ENEWS
GPS III Launch Services RFP Released by Air Force
ENEWS
Thursday, December 17
10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. GMT
Establishing Orthometric Heights Using GNSS

Part 3 (Survey Scene newsletter)
INSIGHTS
Speakers: Two private operators and two

commercial UAV/mapping service providers will
cover the basics of UAV operation for mapping,
showing results of their work and giving tips for
successful project completion.
Sponsored by
NEWEST VIDEOS @ GPSWORLD.COM

1
INTERGEO 2015: Using the JAVAD TRIUMPH-LS Camera Offset

Survey Feature
INTERGEO 2015: NVS Technologies AG Showcases OEM

Receivers
ION GNSS+ 2015: NovAtel Debuts New Antennas
ION GNSS+ 2015: Harris Corp. Presents GPS Navigation Payload

Technology
REGISTER AT W W W.GPSWORLD.COM/WEBINAR
4 GPS WORLD
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
NOVEMBER 2015
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OUT IN FRONT
Readers, Marketing Partners
Co-engineer GPS World Redesign
This issue marks the
launch of GPS Worlds
new logo and expanded
GPS/GNSS and PNT
technical coverage.
BY Alan Cameron
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND GROUP PUBLISHER
PS to the power of PNT.

Or, as I like to think of it,
GPSPNT.
We are rapidly entering or we have already entered
the era in which we say GPS but we
really mean so much more.
We mean GNSS: GPS + GLONASS
+ Galileo + BeiDou.
We mean all of the above plus
satellite-based augmentation
systems (SBAS), now encompassing
WAAS, EGNOS, SDCM, QZSS,
IRNSS, and I dont think were done
yet.
We mean all the above plus several
private-sector corrections services,
including but not limited to
OmniStar, StarFire, Veripos, Fugro,
Terrastar, Atlas, and surely more to
come.
We mean all of the above plus backups in the event of jamming or other
interference: eLoran is a prime
candidate, and there are others.
We mean all of the above plus
many technologies that can be
integrated are being integrated
with GPS/GNSS to achieve a
seamless position, navigation and
timing (PNT) solution: inertial
and other MEMS, cell ID, Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth, DSRC, FM and UHF,
and many more. Think of a band of
the RF spectrum (or even non-RF
technology as the mentioned
inertial/MEMS); its probably on
that list or soon will be.
We mean all of the above plus many
6 GPS WORLD
forms of software that go into making

up a geographic information systems
(GIS) backbone, a map-matching
system, a building information
model (BIM) or other application
and extension of the GPS data.
They all work together. They all
need each other. But they all begin
with GPS. Sometime tomorrow, they
will all begin with GNSS. Today, GPS
is the game in town.
Saying we mean, I denote we in the
loose or editorial sense: this magazine.
We treat all of the technologies as ways
to get to the solution: the ubiquitous,
seamless PNT solution. Weve been
wondering recently if the umbrella has
grown too wide for GPS to continue
to be its label.
No matter how professionally and
technically correct both you and we
aim to be by employing the terms
GNSS, PNT and integrated positioning
technologies as appropriate, the world
at large probably will continue to call
all of the above GPS. And the label
remains the easiest shorthand for all
of the above. That is one of the reasons
we have decided to continue calling this
great magazine GPS World.
But we really mean so much more,
and the pages that follow this one, and
will follow in months to come, bring
you so much more fulfilling the
promise of the kicker in our new
name: GNSS, Position, Navigation,
and Timing.
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
EDITORIAL
Editor-in-Chief & Group Publisher Alan Cameron
editor@gpsworld.com | 541-984-5312
Managing Editor Tracy Cozzens
tcozzens@northcoastmedia.net | 541-255-3334
Senior Digital Editor Joelle Harms
jharms@northcoastmedia.net | 216-706-3780
Digital Editor Allison Barwacz
abarwacz@northcoastmedia.net | 216-706-3796
Art Director Charles Park
EDITORIAL & PRODUCITON OFFICES
1360 East 9th St, Suite 1070
Cleveland, OH 44114, USA
847-763-4942 | Fax 847-763-9694
www.gpsworld.com | gpsworld@gpsworld.com
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Innovation Richard Langley | lang@unb.ca
Defense PNT Don Jewell | djewell@gpsworld.com
European GNSS Tim Reynolds | treynolds@gpsworld.com
Professional OEM Tony Murfin | tmurfin@gpsworld.com
Geospatial Eric Gakstatter | egakstatter@gpsworld.com
GeoIntelligence Art Kalinski | akalinski@gpsworld.com
Survey Tim Burch and Dave Zilkoski
Wireless LBS Insider Kevin Dennehy | kdennehy@gpsworld.com
Janice Partyka | jpartyka@gpsworld.com
BUSINESS
INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNT MANAGER Michelle Mitchell
mmitchell@northcoastmedia.net | 216-363-7922
DIGITAL OPERATIONS MANAGER Bethany Chambers
bchambers@northcoastmedia.net | 216-706-3771
WEB DEVELOPER Jesse Malcmacher
jmalcmacher@northcoastmedia.net | 216-363-7925
MARKETING MANAGER Scott Gebler
sgebler@northcoastmedia.net | 216-363-7932
PUBLISHING SERVICES
Manager, Production Services Chris Anderson
canderson@northcoastmedia.net | 216-978-5341
Senior Audience Development Manager Antoinette Sanchez-Perkins
asanchez-perkins@northcoastmedia.net | 216-706-3750
Reprints & Permissions Brett Petillo
bpetillo@wrightsmedia.com | 877-652-5295
Circulation/Subscriber Services
gpsworld@halldata.com | USA: 847-763-4942
NORTH COAST MEDIA, LLC.
President & CEO Kevin Stoltman
kstoltman@northcoastmedia.net | 216-706-3740
Vice President of Finance & Operations Steve Galperin
sgalperin@northcoastmedia.net | 216-706-3705
Editorial Directors
Marisa Palmieri | mpalmieri@northcoastmedia.net | 216-706-3764
Marty Whitford | mwhitford@northcoastmedia.net | 216-706-3766
VP Graphic Design & Production
Pete Seltzer | pseltzer@northcoastmedia.net | 216-706-3737
MANUSCRIPTS: GPS World welcomes unsolicited articles but cannot be held responsible
for their safekeeping or return. Send to: 1360 East 9th St, Suite 1070, IMG Center, Cleveland, OH 44114,
USA. Every precaution is taken to ensure accuracy, but publishers cannot accept responsibility
for the accuracy of information supplied herein or for any opinion expressed. REPRINTS:
Reprints of all articles are available (500 minimum). Contact 877-652-5295, Nick Iademarco. Wrights
Media, 2407 Timberloch Place, The Woodlands, TX 77380. SUBSCRIBER SERVICES:
To subscribe, change your address, and all other services, e-mail gpsworld@halldata.com or call
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Contact e-mail info@gpsworld.com. ACCOUNTING OFFICE AND OFFICE OF
PUBLICATION: 1360 East 9th St, Suite 1070, IMG Center, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA.
GPS WORLD does not verify any claims or other information appearing in any of the
advertisements contained in the publication and cannot take any responsibility for any losses or
other damages incurred by readers in reliance on such content.
Published monthly
NOVEMBER 2015
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TAKING POSITION
Solving PNT Problems on Mars

In the novel The Martian, an astronaut must navigate around a duststorm using his wits
BY Tracy Cozzens
M A N AG I NG EDITO R
ast year, on my way

home f rom ION
GNSS+, I spotted a
bright orange book in the
San Francisco airport. The
Martian, by Andy Weir, is
now a major motion picture a wonderful movie,
but one that left out a unique
PNT adventure.
The Martian explores how
a lone astronaut struggles
to survive long enough to
be rescued from the Red
Planet. Weir sets his story in
the near future, and grounds

it in real-world science. How
can a man survive in a hostile
environment far longer than
the supplies left for him will
hold out? What life-support
systems can he engineer with
the resources on hand?
From page one, I plunged
into a gripping adventure
sometimes on the edge of
my seat, sometimes thinking about engineering and
science in new ways. I found
myself re-reading explanations for astronaut Mark Watneys resourceful solutions
(shades of MacGyver) to
make sure I understood what
he was attempting and how
it might actually work. But
Weir also infuses the story
with humor, so its never dry.
It moves quickly, jumping

between Watneys situation
on Mars and mission control
on Earth.
One sequence in the book
describes Watneys ingenuity
in solving a navigation problem in a truly GPS-denied
environment, with only the
limited supplies he has on

hand. I dont want to spoil
anything, but I will say that
the solution includes oldschool triangulation, with a
few twists. With a fierce dust
storm bearing down on him,
Watney employs his knowledge of position, navigation
and timing to aid in his own
rescue. I was reminded of
this as we at GPS World embark on our own adventure,
reimagining our scope to include PNT and other location
technologies. GPS, while still
in our name, is far from the
only solution.
While the movie is excellent, I suggest anyone whos
fascinated by the science in
fiction pick up a copy of the
novel that inspired it.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Q: Where do you see your efforts and those of your
organization focusing primarily over the next 510 years?

VIDAL
ASHKENAZI
JULES
MCNEFF
TERENCE
MCGURN
CEO
NOTTTINGHAM
S C I E N T I F I C LT D.
VICE PRESIDENT
OV E R L O O K
TECHNOLOGIES
C O N S U LTA N T
U . S . G OV E R N M E N T
GPS, and GNSS generally, will

continue to be a big part of our
work and remain at the core of our
activities. We are not tied to a single
technology, though. We are driven
more by applications and so we do
not rule out the use of other sensors.
As GNSS becomes more widely used
and people expect more from it, we will
make greater use of additional sensors
to fulfil application requirements in
more demanding environments.
A:
8 GPS WORLD
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
GPS was the catalyst for a revolution in the application of precise

position and time (that is, Positime).
But its now 20 years old, and the developed world has become dependent
on access to Positime, still mostly
from GPS but with many likely complements/backups going forward. It is time
to get serious and construct a layered
PNT architecture to bolster GPS with
regional and local/autonomous PNT
sources for resiliency and precision.
A:
NOVEMBER 2015
That we need alternatives to

GNSS is now a given. But I see
little discussion of the strategy for deploying those alternatives. Currently,
we seem to emphasize detection and
mitigation of the cause of a GNSS
outage. To use a medical analogy, the
cause of the patients accident is a nice
to know, but the real issue is to keep
the patient/service alive. So Id like to
see more focus on how and how
quickly we activate the alternatives.
A:
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SYSTEM
OF
Policy and System

Developments
GPS
Galileo
GLONASS
BeiDou
SYSTEMS
New BeiDou TMBOC Signal Tracked

Similar Structure to Future GPS L1C
hinas new third-generation BeiDou satellites

are broadcasting some new signals in space. The
newest signal, which just began broadcasting
from a satellite launched on Sept. 30, is similar
to the future GPS L1C signal with time-division
BOC(1,1) and BOC(6,1) signals. Such a type of modulation
is called time-multiplexed binary offset carrier (TMBOC).
Researchers at JAVAD GNSS have been tracking the new
signals, particularly those from BeiDou-3 I2S, an inclined
geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) spacecraft, NORAD number
40938. I2S is transmitting on three frequency bands.
The JAVAD researchers used the decoding approach
described in their February 2013 GPS World article, Signal
Decoding with Conventional Receiver and Antenna: A Case
History Using the New Galileo E6-B/C Signal by Sergei
Yudanov. As a result, the signals structure was decoded
and L1C TMBOC tracking has been successfully tested on
the JAVAD GNSS TRE-3 receiver.
In addition, new signals on 1575.42+1.023*14 MHz
(B1-2), 1176.45 MHz (E5A) and 1207.14 (E5B) frequencies
for three satellites (PRN 32, 33, 34) also have been decoded
and tested. FIGURES 14 illustrate the experiment.
Researchers Steffen Thoelert and Michael Meurer
from the Deutsches Zentrum fr Luf t- und Raumfahrt
(DLR, German Aerospace Center) have also been busy
tracking the newest BeiDou IGSO satellite. FIGURE 5 shows
a spectral measurement of the complete GNSS L-band
frequency range, which shows the signal transmissions on B1,
B2 and B3 band. The signal was captured with DLRs high-
figure 1: BeiDou TMBOC: correlation intensity (l) of BOC(1,1)

(red), BOC(6,1) (green) and their sum (blue) versus code chips.
figure 2: BeiDou TMBOC: Output of early-late correlator (dI

or derivative of I) of BOC(1,1) (red), BOC(6,1) (green) and their sum
(blue) versus code chips.
figure 3 (left) and figure 4 (right): BeiDou TMBOC Signal: Horizontal axis: 0 minus one chip shift; 327 zero shift;
655 plus one chip shift. C/NO and iono-free range minus phase. Slot BeiDou signal: C/A B1; P1 B1-2; P2 E5B; L2C B3; L5 E5A; L1C L1C.
10 G P S W O R L D
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
NOVEMBER 2015
SYSTEM
OF
SYSTEMS
figure 5: BeiDou Signal: Complete GNSS L-band frequency range, which shows the signal transmissions on B1, B2 and B3 band.
gain antenna in Weilheim, operated

by the DLR German Space Operations
Center in Oberpfaffenhofen.
In comparison to the two latest
BeiDou-3 MEO satellites, launched
on July 25, the IGSO has an additional
signal on the B3 band. The MEO
satellites transmit only the QPSK(10)
while the new IGSO also transmits an
additional BOC(15,2.5) signal. FIGURE 6
shows the B3 frequency band separately
including a combined theoretical
signal (QPSK(10)+BOC(15,2.5)).
figure 6: BeiDou
Signal: the B3
frequency band separately
include a combined
theoretical signal
PSK(10)+BOC(15,2.5)).
IIF-11 Up
Galileos
Chirp
Penultimate GPS
Block IIF Satellite
United Launch Alliance Atlas

V 401 launched the GPS
IIF-11 mission for the U.S.
Air Force on Oct. 31.
GPS IIF-11 is the second to last of
the Block IIF satellites, delivering a
second civil signal (L2C) for dualfrequency equipment, and a new third
civil signal (L5) to support commercial
aviation and safety-of-life applications.
The next generation of GPS satellites
is GPS III.
GPS IIF-11 is the third GPS mission
to rise this year. GPS IIF-9 launched
in March, and GPS IIF-10 in July. The
next satellite, GPS-IIF-12, the last of
its generation, is destined for space in

early February 2016.
NOVEMBER 2015
hortly after the Galileo satellite

using the E24 PRN code started
transmitting on Oct. 10, its
sibling began transmitting using code
E30. Several stations participating
in the International GNSS Service
Multi-GNSS Experiment are tracking
the new satellites; first among those
reporting was the University of Liege,
Belgium, using its Septentrio PolaRx4
and PolaRxS receivers to download
signals.
The two satellites were launched
on Sept. 11. A team of engineers from
ESA and Frances CNES space agency
are preparing for the next launch,
scheduled for December.
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 11
Inertial
Ranging & eLoran
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
RANGING
STOIC Technology to Augment

or Substitute for GPS
he Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) selected Rockwell Collins to develop
technologies that could
serve as a backup to GPS. The research,
being conducted as part of DARPAs
Spatial, Temporal and Orientation Information in Contested Environments
(STOIC) program, aims to reduce
warfighter dependence on GPS for
modern military operations.
Rockwell Collins will develop new
architectures and techniques to enable
communication systems that will
support time transfer and positioning
between moving platforms independent
of GPS, with no impact on primary
communications functionality.
STOIC technology could augment
GPS, or it may act as a substitute for GPS
in contested environments where GPS is
degraded or denied, said John Borghese,
vice president of the Rockwell Collins
Advanced Technology Center. The
time-transfer and ranging capabilities we
are developing seek to enable distributed
platforms to cooperatively locate targets,
employ jamming in a surgical fashion,
and serve as a backup to GPS for relative
navigation.
Borghese added that the goal of
the STOIC program is to develop
positioning, navigation and timing
(PNT) systems that provide GPSindependent PNT, achieving timing that
The X-47B unmanned combat aircraft receives fuel from an Omega K-707 tanker on
April 22 while operating in the Atlantic Test Ranges over the Chesapeake Bay. This test marked
the first time an unmanned aircraft refueled in flight. The X-47B is a tailless, jet-powered,
blended-wing-body aircraft capable of semi-autonomous operation and aerial refueling.
surpasses GPS levels of performance.

The program is comprised of three
primary elements that, when integrated,
have the potential to provide global
PNT independent of GPS, including
long-range robust reference signals,
ultra-stable tactical clocks, and
multifunctional systems that provide
PNT information among cooperative
users in contested environments.
For this third technical element,
Rockwell Collins is tasked with developing multifunction communication
system solutions that yield DARPA
STOIC objective picosecond-accurate

time transfer and enable GPS levels of
relative positioning accuracy in contested environments.
Future applications of STOIC
technology could include a variety of
precision relative navigation operations,
such as autonomous aerial refueling and
cooperative navigation and collision
avoidance within unmanned aerial
vehicle swarms, Borghese said. It also
could support precise time transfer for
networking operations in contested
environments.
Future STOIC applications could include precision relative navigation

operations such as autonomous aerial refueling, and cooperative navigation
and collision avoidance within unmanned aerial vehicle swarms.
12 G P S W O R L D
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
NOVEMBER 2015
Spirent Federal
GPS/GNSS Regional
Training Seminars
Come hear the latest in GNSS simulation at a Spirent Federal training seminar. See and have hands
on experience while discussing simulation developments, test fundamentals, interference testing, and
more! Choose from six locations:
Orlando Feb 9 Los Angeles Feb 11 Dallas/Ft Worth Mar 8

Denver Mar 10 Boston Apr 5 DC Apr 7
Contact us to learn more or visit www.spirentfederal.com/GPS/Training.
Spirent Federal Systems Inc., 1402 W. State Rd., Pleasant Grove, UT 84062
801-785-1448
info@spirentfederal.com
www.spirentfederal.com
ELORAN
Wildwood eLoran Tests Continue
he Wildwood, N.J., eLoran

100-kHz transmitter continuously broadcast a signal from 0900 (EDT) on
Oct. 20 through 1800 on
Oct. 22, with plans to transmit further
eLoran test signals from 0900 (EST)
on Nov. 3 until 1200 on Nov. 6, and
again from 0900 on Nov. 9 until 1500
on Nov. 13.
The purpose of these tests is to
gather data on differential Loran performance in the Boston Metro and D.C.
Metro areas. Besides fixed eLoran
receivers at our N. Billerica, Mass., and

Leesburg, Va., offices, we also have additional fixed eLoran receivers located
at the USNO and at the Harris Corporation offices in Herndon, Va., stated
UrsaNav. The company also plans to
gather temporal and spatial decorrelation data in both Metro areas. Note
that these signals are for test purposes
only and should not be used for any
other purpose.
In May, Exelis, UrsaNav, the
Department of Homeland Securitys
Science and Technology Directorate
(DHS S&T) and the U.S. Coast Guard

entered into a cooperative research and
development agreement (CRADA) for
testing and demonstration at former
Loran-C sites, including Wildwood. The
team will evaluate eLoran as a potential
complementary system to GPS.
The sites are the legacy ground-based
radio navigation infrastructure of the
decommissioned Loran-C service that
could be retained and upgraded to provide eLoran low-frequency service.The
broadcasts will provide a usable signal at
a range up to 1,000 miles.
INERTIAL
MEMS Perspective
on SatNav Gathering
BY Alissa M. Fitzgerald
n September, I attended
the Institute of Navigation
GNSS+ 2015 conference,
where I chaired a technical session on commercial
micro-electro-mechanical
sensors (MEMS). As the
founder of a MEMS product development firm, I was
eager to gain perspective
from the worlds largest
technical meeting and showcase of satnav technology,
products and services.
Overall, the navigation
community is enthusiastic
about integrating MEMS into
navigation systems. They like
the idea of getting more data
from small, relatively lowcost sensors. Recently, U.S.
Secretary of Defense Ashton
14 G P S W O R L D
Carter declared his wish that

we move to MEMS-based
position, navigation and
timing (PNT) information.
What navigators want
from MEMS depends on who
they are.
The high integrity navigators the people whose
systems land airplanes or
steer self-driving cars
would like MEMS sensors
with enough performance
to enable accurate inertial
navigation without GPS for
at least 10 minutes. If a GPS
receiver cant see at least
four satellites in the sky, it
cant produce accurate navigation data. High integrity
navigators are the original
developers of sensor fusion
systems; they know that no
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
one sensor is perfect, so they

design systems to detect loss
of a reliable signal, and then
adeptly switch between sensor data streams as needed
to maintain accurate navigation information. Ten minutes of GPS-independent
inertial navigation buys you
enough time to get to higher
altitudes, out of a tunnel or
around a skyscraper, to a
position that improves your
view of the sky.
The consumer navigators the people who want
you to help them find the
nearest Starbucks in downtown San Francisco would
like better low-cost MEMS
gyroscopes and magnetometers, specifically with improved stability, to improve
pedestrian inertial navigation. Although pedestrians
are relatively slow-moving
compared to vehicles, a key
NOVEMBER 2015
challenge to their accurate

navigation is maintaining inertial position fixes while their
smartphones unexpectedly
change orientation: waving
about in a persons hand or
sliding around in a purse or
pants pocket.
Its clear we MEMS people
need to spend more time
with these end-users, to
first understand how MEMS
will integrate with their
other sensors and GNSS, and
then to derive the essential
MEMS sensor specifications
for each specific navigation
system and use case.
The quest for seamless
navigation has been and will
continue to be an exercise in
sensor fusion.
ALISSA FITZGERALD is managing
member, A.M. Fitzgerald &
Associates, a MEMS consulting
firm serving diverse industries.
LAUNCHPAD | OEM
1
4
1. INTERNET OF THINGS CHIP
CHIP SIMPLIFIES INTEGRATION OF GNSS
INTO LOW-COST PRODUCTS
The Broadcom BCM47748 chip for the

Internet of Things and wearables enables
devices such as fitness bands to deliver
pinpoint location while consuming minimal
power and in some cases can eliminate
the need for a separate microcontroller.
The BCM47748 removes a bulk of the
signal processing from the device MCU by
calculating position, velocity and time onchip, delivering significant system power
savings. The chip uses intelligent firmware
to extend battery life while maintaining
accuracy in speed, distance and position.
By absorbing location computations onchip, Broadcom not only reduces power
consumption but can also dramatically
lower costs for OEMs by replacing
the device MCU and reducing board
space. Firmware inside the BCM47748
automatically adapts to user activity
and context, whether biking, walking or
running, to provide precise location results
to the user, enabling performance that is not
sacrificed for power savings.
Broadcom, www.broadcom.com
2. MULTI-FREQUENCY
RF SIMULATOR
SIMULATION THROUGH REAL-TIME
GENERATION OF GNSS SIGNALS
The upgraded ReGen DIF simulator is

a high-end, low-cost 24-channel GNSS
16 G P S W O R L D
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
multi-frequency RF simulation solution for

academia and research and development.
The Replicator provides users with GNSS
simulation through real-time generation of
GNSS signals; the recording and playback
of dual-frequency GNSS RF signals; and
GNSS RF signal analysis with the JAXA
COSMODE ionospheric scintillation
monitor. Features of the replicator support
various combinations of GPS L1, L2;
GLONASS L1,L2,L3; BeiDou B1, B2; and
Galileo E1 signals, and include ANSI C
API for user access to customizable signal
propagation, orbital, multipath, spatially
correlated, scintillation and other error
models.
iP-Solutions, www.ip-solutions.jp
3. SINGLE-FREQUENCY
RECEIVER
DESIGNED FOR UNMANNED AERIAL
SYSTEMS AND MOBILE PLATFORMS
The S2525F8-BD-RTK is a low-power,

single-frequency RTK receiver with
centimeter-level position accuracy. It
supports GPS, BDS, QZSS and SBAS,
simultaneously tracking up to 28 satellites.
With its 25 x 25 millimeter form factor,
300-mW power consumption and 3 gram
weight, it is designed for any outdoor
applications requiring high-precision RTK
positioning. S2525F8-BD-RTK supports
both base station and rover modes. As
a rover, it receives RTCM 3.0 or 3.1 data
from a base station, or raw measurements
NOVEMBER 2015
from another S2525F8-BD-RTK receiver

serving as base station, and performs carrier
phase RTK processing to achieve relative
positioning with 1 cm + 1 ppm position
accuracy within 10-Km baseline.
SkyTraq Technology, www.skytraq.com.tw
4. THREAT DETECTOR
SPIRENT ROBUST FRAMEWORK
EVALUATES THREATS TO GNSS
The GSS100D Detector is key to a robust

PNT test framework to evaluate GPS and
GNSS security vulnerabilities for position,
navigation and timing systems. The
framework will be used by technology,
system and application developers where
PNT is critical. The framework enables
threats to be detected in the field, taken into
the lab, and re-synthesized along with GPS
and other GNSS signals. Spirents threat
intelligence library of actual and typical
threats provides a wide range of GNSS
segment errors and spoofing attacks, as well
as space weather and other vulnerabilities
for preventive troubleshooting. Developed
in collaboration with Nottingham Scientific
Ltd., the GSS100D Detector enables
detection, characterization and analysis of
real GNSS threats.
Spirent, www.spirent.com
SURVEY & MAPPING | LAUNCHPAD

1
1. RADIO DATA MODEM
PRIVATE RADIO DATA SYSTEM FOR
MEASUREMENT APPLICATIONS
Compact-Proof is a UHF radio modem for

wireless data transfer with a rechargeable
battery, providing a compact and flexible
solution for a wide range of applications,
including land surveying under varying
weather conditions. It supports the radio
protocols of Pacific Crest, Trimble and
other GNSS providers. It has a temperature
range of -30C to +65C and frequency
ranges of 330 MHz420 MHz and 403
MHz473 MHz. Its casing and connectors
are rated IP67, making it waterproof and
secured against dust. With transmitting
power of 1,000 mW, it can be operated fully
autonomously for more than 15 hours as a
repeater station in the field.
Satel, www.satel.com
2. MULTI-GNSS RECEIVER
BASE STATION OR ROVER SURVEY
RECEIVER WITH 864 CHANNELS
The all-in-one TRIUMPH-LS combines

a high-performance 864-channel GNSS
receiver, all-frequency GNSS antenna, and
a modern featured handheld. The 864 allin-view channels include Galileo E1/E5A/
E5B, GPS L1/L2/L5, GLONASS L1/L2/L3,
QZSS L1/L2/L5, BeiDou B1/B2 and SBAS
L1/L5. The TRIUMPH-LS offers GUIDE
data collection, Visual Stake Out (VSO),
navigation, six parallel RTK engines, more
than 3,000 coordinate conversions, advanced CoGo features, and rich attribute
tagging on a high-resolution, bright,
800 x 460 bright display. Two 3-megapixel
cameras enable recording of images along
with GNSS data.More than 100 channels
are dedicated to continuous interference
monitoring. The Triumph-LS monitors
and reports interference graphically and
numerically with patent-pending interference protection. Interference awareness
allows safe GNSS operation in city, airport
and military environments. The unit
can serve as base or rover. It has a GSM
modem, UHF transmit and receive, and
an internal high-performance geodetic
antenna. The TRIUMPH-LS automatically
updates all firmware when connected to a
Wi-Fi Internet connection.
Learn about Beast Mode RTK with
the TRIUMPH-LS on page 23.
JAVAD GNSS, www.javad.com
3. INDOOR MAPPER
TIMMS 2 MORE MANEUVERABLE
THAN PREDECESSOR
The Trimble Indoor Mobile Mapping

Solution (TIMMS) produces fast and
accurate maps of difficult-to-navigate
indoor spaces and translates them directly
into 2D and 3D models of structured
interiors. TIMMS 2 is a fusion of
technologies for capturing spatial data
of indoor and other GNSS denied areas,
providing both lidar and spherical video
and enabling the creation of accurate,
real-life representations of interior spaces
and all of their contents. The maps are
geo-located; the real world positions of
each area of the building and its contents
are known and can be easily placed and
oriented in a wide area model. Small and
lightweight, TIMMS2 can negotiate tight
corners, closets and catwalks, and can be
carried up and down staircases where no
elevator is available for travel between
building levels.
Applanix, www.applanix.com
4. WEARABLE REALITY
CAPTURE
PORTABLE BACKPACK ALLOWS MAPPING
WHILE WALKING
The Leica Pegasus:Backpack is a wearable

reality-capture technology that combines
five high-dynamic cameras and two
LiDAR profilers within an ultra-light
and ergonomic carbon-fiber chassis. The
ergonomic mobile mapper creates a 3D
view indoors or outdoors for engineering
or professional documentation while using
SLAM (simultaneous localization and
mapping) to determine position in GNSSdenied areas. With its fast and efficient
capture, calibrated images and point clouds
are quickly generated for applications as
diverse as BIM 6D to industrial training
and disaster analysis.
Leica Geosystems,
www.leica-geosystems.com
NOVEMBER 2015
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 17
LAUNCHPAD | UAV
2
4
3
1. UAV-READY LIDAR
LIGHTWEIGHT LIDAR WITH GPS
AND INERTIAL FOR UAVS
The YellowScan is a lightweight lidar

designed for fixed or rotary-wing UAVs.
It has an embedded Ellipse-E, a miniature
inertial navigation system from SBG
Systems, which helps obtaining a clear
and accurate point cloud. YellowScan is
operational at up to 75 meters and delivers
a highly dense point cloud. It includes a
lidar with a 50 degree angle that measures
40,000 points per second, an Ellipse-E
inertial navigation system coupled with a
centimeter-level RTK GPS, an on-board
computer and an integrated battery. LED
lights provide useful information, such
as whether the GPS is receiving RTK
corrections.
YellowScan, www.yellowscan.fr
2. AERIAL PHOTO SHARING

APP ADDS SHARING, EDITING AND
DISCOVERY TOOLS
The DJI GO app is an upgrade to the

previous DJI Pilot app with a redesigned
user interface to make it easier to capture
and share images with DJIs Phantom 3,
Inspire1 and Matrice 100 UAVs. The app
includes expanded in-app editing tools to
18 G P S W O R L D
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
make it easier to adjust photos and videos

before uploading to social networks. DJI
Director, which automatically edits the best
moments from flights into short videos,
has also been upgraded to include video
speed control, additional templates and
background music options.
DJI, dji.com
3. CAMERAS FOR UAVS

LIGHTWEIGHT WITH THE RESOLUTION
OF A MEDIUM FORMAT SYSTEM
TheiXU-R camera series for UAVs is

available in 80 MP, 60 MP and 60 MP
achromaticversions. The cameras feature
dedicated interchangeable 40-mm, 50-mm
and 70-mm Phase One Rodenstock
lenses equipped with central leafshutters
that can be quickly changed in the field,
offeringflexibility in aerial applications.
The Phase One iXU-R systems have
been designed to address the aerialdata
acquisition markets needs with highperformanceoptics, flexibility to fit into
small places and Phase Ones fastest80 MP
platform. Phase One aerial cameras offer
directcommunication with GPS/IMU
systems and the ability to writedata to the
image files.
Phase One Industrial,
industrial.phaseone.com
NOVEMBER 2015
4. MILITARY UAV
VTOL UAS DESIGNED FOR INTELLIGENCE
GATHERING
The Aeryon SkyRanger introduces a new

airframe and integrated system design to its
Aeryon sUAS (small UAS) platform, based
on thousands of hours of flight time and
successful customer exercises and missions
around the world. The SkyRanger is suited
for both land and maritimeapplications,
and is designed to military and government
specifications for immediate aerial
intelligence gathering. Vertical Take-Off and
Landing (VTOL) enables continuous eyeson-target, operations in confined or hardto-reach environments, and low-risk launch
and retrieval without peripheral equipment.
Features include up to 50-minute flight time,
single operator transport and deployment
with no launch or recovery equipment,
reliable flight performance in demanding
environments such as high winds, and an
intuitive touchscreen interface. Microsoft
has chosen the SkyRangerto demonstrate
aerial image and data capture for its new
Microsoft Advanced Patrol Platform
(MAPP) vehicle.
Aeryon Labs, aeryon.com
MARKET
WATCH
Segment Snapshot:
Applications, Trends & News
OEM
STMicroelectronics Provides
Enhanced Support for 3D Apps
TMicroelectronics has
lau nched enha nced,
always-available, alwaysaccurate 3D positioning
on its TESEO III automotive-navigation integrated circuits.
The new TESEO DRAW firmware
for STs multi-constellation positioning chips enables navigation devices to
provide continuous, accurate location
and turn-by-turn instructions even
when satellite signals are poor or unavailable, such as in tunnels, covered
car parks, or multi-level highways,
according to the company. TESEO
DRAW also enhances performance in
built-up areas, such as in urban canyons, where conventional navigation
systems can lose accuracy.
TESEO DRAW merges the satellite
information with data from vehicle
sensors, such as the gyroscope, accel-
TESEO DRAW
HIGHLIGHTS
Flexible firmware solution,
supporting different
configurations:
- Classic
- CAN (controller area network)
gyro
- Mixed
- Differential wheel pulse (DWP)
Sensors over universal
asynchronous receiver/transmitter
Automatic free mount
Automatic sensors and
temperature compensation
3D dead reckoning
Map-matching feedback
erometer and wheel-speed sensors, to

calculate location accurately in three
dimensions, including elevation. If the
satellite signal is poor, TESEO DRAW
compensates for the loss of accuracy,
and if the signal becomes unavailable,
navigation continues uninterrupted
based on calculated location (dead
reckoning).
URBAN CANYON TESTS

Road tests carried out by ST in difficult undercover and urban environments have demonstrated continuous
tracking from entry to exit in complex
multi-level car parks, and at street level
between tall buildings, where conventional systems have been unable to track
the vehicle.
By enabling high-accuracy 3D dead
reckoning, TESEO DRAW expands
the opportunities for developers to
NOVEMBER 2015
commercialize new applications by

strengthening GNSS performance
and eliminating barriers to continuity,
STMicroelectronics said in a statement. Existing services such as fleet
tracking, eCall or ERA-GLONASS
emergency response, usage-based
insurance, road tolling and anti-theft
systems should also see improvements,
the company said.
TESEO DRAW firmware has multiple modes and is capable of referring
to sensors on the vehicles CAN bus
or discrete sensors such as the odometer, reverse sensor, micro-electromechanical (MEMS) accelerometer
and gyroscope, or MEMS inertial
module connected to the TESEO III IC.
TESEO III ICs with the new TESEO
DRAW firmware are sampling now,
and will enter mass production in the
first quarter of 2016.
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 19
MARKET WATCH
OEM
Unicore Announces High-End Board

nicore has released
a new high-end
GNSS board, the
UB380.
The multi-GNSS receiver
is designed for high-precision positioning, navigation
and GBAS applications. With
384 channels, UB380 supports GPS, GLONASS and
BeiDou Satellite System
(BDS), based on Unicores
multi-GNSS system on a
chip.
The UB380 features
Unicores latest real-time
kinematic (RTK) engine,
which can process triplefrequency BDS and GPS and
dual-frequency GLONASS
FEATURES OF UB380
384 channels
Supports BDS B1/B2/B3, GPS L1/L2/L5 and GLONASS
L1/L2
Better than 1 mm carrier phase precision
Centimeter-level high-precision RTK positioning
Better than 0.2 heading accuracy
Compatible with industry-standard GNSS boards
UB380 on display at ION GNSS.

observation data.This can
significantly reduce initialization time, improve position accuracy and enhance
reliability in difficult environments such as city canyon and canopy, as well as

make the long baseline RTK
possible.
The receiver board can
support GPS L1, L2, and L5;
GLONASS L1, L2; and BDS
B1, B2 and B3. The sup-
port of GPS L2P and L2C can

satisfy the high-precision
requirements of GBAS reference station equipment.
The UB380 is compatible with industry-standard
GNSS boards in size, interfaces and electrical standards.
NVS Technologies Releases

L1 RTK Receiver
Tallysman Introduces
High-Gain Timing
Antennas
NVS Technologies AG has launched

an L1 RTK+Heading GNSS receiver.
The NV08C-RTK-A is fully integrated
multi-constellation satellite navigation
receiver with embedded RTK functionality and compatibility with GPS,
GLONASS, Galileo and BeiDou.
NV08C-RTK-A is specifically
designed for use in high-accuracy
applications, demanding low-cost,
low-power consumption, small form
factor and high performance, such as
construction, mining and industrial;
A n t e n n a m a k e r Ta l l y s m a n h a s
introduced a family of high-gain (50dB) and high-rejection timing antennas.
The TW3150/52 antennas are
designed for timing applications in highdensity cell/telecommunications tower
applications where high levels of nearout-of-band interfering signals can be
expected. They feature a 50-dB lownoise amplifier gain to handle long cable
runs often associated with installation
on telecommunications towers.
The antennas cover the GPS L1 and
SBAS (WAAS, EGNOS and MSAS) frequency band, and employ
Tallysmans Accutenna
technology to provide excellent
cross-polarization
rejection and multipath rejection.
MORE FEATURES
L1 GPS, GLONASS and SBAS
Centimeter-level positioning in
RTK mode
Enhanced RAIM for 3D and RTK
modes
20 G P S W O R L D
environmental and structural monitoring; machine control and automation;

parallel driving systems; precision
agriculture; UAVs; and robotics and
intelligent machines.
Three-stage filtration for high outof-band interference immunity
Industrial operating temperature
range -40C to +85C
Low power consumption
Integrated MEMS-sensors (INS)
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
NOVEMBER 2015
MARKET WATCH
OEM
UNAVCO Chooses
Septentrio for GNSS
Reference Stations
networks operated by UNAVCO.

UNAVCO is a non-profit universitygoverned consortium that facilitates
geosciences research and education
using geodesy. UNAVCOs GAGE

Facility includes more than 2,000
continuously operating GPS/GNSS
reference stations around the world.
UNAVCO has selected Septentrio to be

the preferred vendor of next-generation
GNSS reference stations for the Geodesy Advancing Geosciences and EarthScope (GAGE) Facility. The preferred
vendor status is valid through the duration of the GAGE Facility Cooperative
Agreement with the National Science
Foundation (NSF).
The selection of Septentrio was
made following a rigorous competitive
selection process. Under the agreement, Septentrio will supply GNSS reference stations to upgrade and expand
the continuous GNSS reference station
PCTEL Launches HighRejection Antennas

PCTEL Inc. has launched a GNSS multisatellite antenna portfolio for mobile
and base-station timing applications.
PCTELs new SkyLink antenna technology features out-of-band rejection
characteristics that provide exceptional GPS/Galileo and GLONASS
L1 support and performance in heavy
RF traffic environments for fixed and
mobile timing and asset tracking applications.
SkyCompass for fleet management
and asset tracking applications comprises six new configurable antenna
platforms, including single-band or
multiband GNSS options that address
the majority of fleet management installation needs.
SkyStamp base-station antennas are
for timing and synchronization of 4G
LTE cellular networks, and offer two
timing reference and synchronization
antenna models that provide maximum mitigation of the effects from
nearby LTE interference sources.
NOVEMBER 2015
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 21
MARKET WATCH
SURVEY
GNSS Monitoring Scrapes the Sky

High-Rises in South Korea, Manhattan Built Straight
he supertall skyscraper
Lotte World Tower so
far built to the 103rd of
123 total floors in Seoul,
South Korea is using
GNSS to measure the impact of lateral
forces on its vertical alignment.
Lotte World Tower will be Seouls
first supertall skyscraper, the tallest
building on the Korean Peninsula and
the sixth-tallest building in the world
at 1,821 feet (555 meters). Lotte World
Tower is the nations first building to
use both a GNSS and structural behavior monitoring system by inclinometer
at the same time, said Park Hong-ki
of Gachon Universitys Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.
The GNSS technology serves a dual
purpose: it allows the builders to manage the buildings straightness and
allows the builders to shorten the
construction period, Park said.
LONG-TERM MONITORING
Moreover, the GNSS system enables
stable maintenance and management
of the building through steady longterm monitoring. GNSS measurements
showing how much the building tilts
will be monitored to ensure the overall vertical geometry of the structure.
Based on these measurements, the Korean tower will be constructed with the
highest accuracy possible, reflecting the
movement of the building, according to
a statement from Lotte Engineering &
Construction Co.
After reviewing the measurement
data of Lotte World Towers structural
verticality, we have found out that it is
within acceptable standards. Through
advanced measurement technologies
like GNSS, the straightness of the skyscraper is being strictly controlled.
22 G P S W O R L D
A GNSS receiver on the top of Lotte World Tower, now under construction in Seoul.
Similar GNSS technology is also

being used to monitor the supertall
Burj Khalifa of Dubai (163 floors and
the tallest building in the world) and
One World Trade Center in New York
(104 floors and fifth-tallest).
In another project, the Extell luxury
high-rise being constructed in Midtown Manhattan, concrete contractor
Pinnacle Industries invested in a corewall alignment system that consists of
advanced GNSS and robotic total station solutions. The Vertical Alignment
System from Leica Geosystems will be
used as each floor is constructed to ensure the overall vertical geometry of the
structure. With an overall roof height
of 1,479 feet (1,775 feet to top of spire),
the Extell building will be the tallest
residential building in the world.
Once completed, Lotte World Tower
will become the fifth-tallest building in the
world, with retail space, offices, residences,
a luxury hotel and, at the top, a public-access
observation deck.
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
NOVEMBER 2015
MARKET WATCH
SURVEY
Beast Mode RTK: 5-Hz Corrections

BY Matt Sibole
JAVAD GNSS J-TEAM MEMBER
e are all looking for ways to

become more
productive and
more efficient in the course
of our fieldwork. Here is one
such way.
Beast Mode RTK from
JAVAD GNSS supplies 5-Hz
corrections from the base
station. With typical RTK
GPS receivers, an epoch is
counted at 1 second, which
means 1 Hz corrections.
With Beast Mode, an epoch is
0.2 seconds, producing 5-Hz
corrections. So, for surveyors who typically measure
your control and your property corners for 180 epochs,
which is typically three minutes, now it will only take 36
seconds with no discernible
loss in accuracy or precision.
This means that a surveyor
can spend more time on
quality control and less time
just sitting there waiting to
get a fix.
For instance: With the
combination of Beast Mode
and Cluster Average feature,
you can shoot in all of the
property corners on a proj-
Figure 2 Cluster average
Figure 1 TRIUMPH-LS screen running Beast Mode

ect, then shoot the property
corners again on the way
back. Once you have located
all of the property corners
(two times in this scenario),
you can use Cluster Average
and average all shots that are
within a user-defined tolerance, giving increased relative
precision for each individual
point. All of this is being done
in less time than a typical
RTK survey, with increased
relative precision and having
redundancy to verify that all
property corners are exactly
where we say they are.

FIGURE 1 is a screenshot of the
TRIUMPH-LS running Beast
Mode. You can see that the
epoch count on this shot is
130 epochs. Right beside
the epoch count, you will
notice that it only took
39 seconds to get all 130
epochs. The 0.110 and 0.161
at the bottom of the screen
is the peak-to-peak error
over the 130 epochs for this
one shot. The horizontal root
mean square (HRMS) value of
this shot is 0.02.
Figure 3 Statistics of the averaged point.

NOVEMBER 2015
FIGURE 2 is a screenshot after

using cluster average. I located this same mag nail four
times over the time span of
two days. You can see in this
screenshot that the overall
spread or peak-to-peak error
among all four points is 0.10
in the north and 0.05 in the
east.
FIGURE 3 is a detailed statistics screenshot of the averaged point. It gives a total
number of epochs recorded
with the overall RMS value.
All of this information and
more can all be exported in
HTML format for documentation. The redundancy of
this point was completed in
a relatively short time. With
all of this said, the bottom
line is efficiency and redundancy.
For more on J-Field software and TRIUMPH-LS, visit
www.javad.com.
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 23
MARKET WATCH
SURVEY
Carlson SurveyGNSS 2016 Out Now

arlson SurveyGNSS,
Carlson Softwares
data post-processing s of t w ar e , i s
now available in a 2016 version. It debuted at INTERGEO in Stuttgart, Germany,
held Sept. 1517.
Designed for surveyors
and positioning professionals, Carlson SurveyGNSS
post-processing software
achieves high-accuracy results for computing quality
vectors and resultant positions. SurveyGNSS works
with Carlson SurvCE and
SurvPC data collection software, and with Carlsons office design software.
New features include a

second-generation postprocessing engine, which
now accepts data in enhanced RINEX 3.x formats.
Users will also determine
candidate vectors for simultaneous calculation.
Previously, vectors were
calculated individually.
Other processes have
been sped up or enhanced.
With detached processing, users will be able to
start another task while
SurveyGNSS is still working
on a computation.
New constellation and
more reference networks
are another enhancement.
Observations from the Chinese BeiDou and European

Union Galileo join GPS and
GLONASS, with future constellations in the works.
For supported Active
(Online) Reference Networks,
the International GNSS Ser-
vice (IGS) and the governments of Australia, Brazil,

Canada, Germany, Spain, European Union, France, Great
Britain, Mexico and the Netherlands join the supported
networks in addition to the
U.S. CORS system.
SP80 Under Cover in Chiles Rainforests
n the temperate rainforest of the Los Lagos

region of Southern Chile, where rainfall annually
exceeds 1,500 millimeters and two-thirds of the
days are rainy, the dense forest canopy poses a huge
challenge for GNSS receivers.
Motivazion, a survey firm based in Puerto Montt, just
below the rainforests, makes its living surveying in the
rugged terrain under the densely canopied forest. Motivazion
works primarily for hydropower development companies,
surveying contours, cross sections and longitudinal profiles,
as well as staking out proposed facilities. To ensure it was
using the best GNSS receivers for the conditions, Motivazion
conducted field tests of several sets of equipment this summer.
Motivazion owner Jorge Mesias said he typically
uses a combination of total stations and GNSS receivers for his work. If understory performance could be
improved, efficiency would increase dramatically and
reduce the need for using the more time-consuming total
station, Mesias said.
A light rain fell at all times during the two-day test. The
test routine consisted of surveying a total of 21 points in
two days. Results were compared to points established by
a total station.
24 G P S W O R L D
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
Base stations were set up in a small area cleared for the

purpose, and the rovers moved from point to point under the
canopy. Spectra Precisions SP80 achieved fixed solutions in
less than three minutes 95 percent of the time.
The SP80 achieved remarkable results, concluded Mesias.
Geocom S.A., Spectra Precisions dealer in Chile, provided
the SP80 and technical support.
NOVEMBER 2015
MARKET WATCH
SURVEY
Applanix Offers
POS AVX 210 for
Airborne Mapping
flight operations. Aircraft equipped with

the POS AVX 210 and NanoTrack will be
able to fly missions with reduced sidelap
between flightlines, reducing the require-
ment for ground control points, which

lowers costs and improves the efficiency
of both data collection and the production of finished data sets for end users.
he POS AVX 210 is the latest addition to the Applanix

airborne position and orientation portfolio for direct
georeferencing of airborne mapping
sensors.
Using Applanix GNSS and inertial
technology, the POS AVX 210 enables
airborne surveyors to achieve gains in
accuracy, efficiency and productivity
for low-altitude or small form-factor
sensors, when compared to GNSS-only
point-matching or aerial triangulation
techniques.
The POS-AVX 210 by Applanix.
For photogrammetric applications,

the POS AVX 210 delivers highly accurate exterior orientation solutions
reducing the requirement for ground
control in assisted aerial triangulation of digital single lens reflex (DSLR)
or medium-format photogrammetric
imagery, the company said. For lowaltitude lidar applications, the POS AVX
210 provides the required precision and
accuracy of direct georeferencing to
enable users to generate point clouds
for further refinement in adjustment
software.
The POS AVX 210 is compatible with
POSPac MMS, Applanix post-mission
software for direct georeferencing of
airborne mapping sensors. It also integrates seamlessly with the NanoTrack
system from TrackAir, a commercial
flight management system for survey
NOVEMBER 2015
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 25
MARKET WATCH
SURVEY
Rail Maintenance System Makes

3D Point Clouds without GNSS
eica Geosystems has
released SiTrack:One,
a rail track maintenance and refurbishment system incorporating
the Leica ScanStation P40 to
generate 3D point clouds.
SiTrack:One ensures complete coverage of an entire
rail infrastructure surface
without the need to receive
GNSS signals for position
information, the company
said. With a new mounting
design, the total solution
for rail maintenance and
refurbishment produces
synchronized engineer-
ing, survey-grade 3D point

clouds for accurate as-built
drawings.
The Leica ScanStation
P40 can be mounted ver-
tically in the center of the

rails or inverted directly over
the rail track. Rail bridge
sleeper replacements can
be measured quickly, gen-
erating a numbered as-built

replacement plan for each
individual sleeper on a rail
bridge.
The system is equipped
with two distance measurement instruments that provide accurate positioning in
GNSS-denied areas, such as
underground railway tunnels or underground subway networks. The on-site
calibration process guarantees permanent alignment of
the relative position between
the sensors and its onboard
inertial measurement unit,
ensuring accuracy.
Falcon 8 Gets FAA Exemption

Topcon Positioning Group has received a Section 333 exemption from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that
allows for operation of its Falcon 8 rotary-wing UAS in the
United States.
The Topcon Falcon 8, powered by Ascending Technologies, is designed for inspection and monitoring, as well as
survey and mapping applications. Topcons Sirius fixed-wing
UAV received an exemption in April. The exemption allows
Topcon to provide demonstrations and training as well as
aerial data collection for survey, construction, agricultural,
and emerging inspection applications.
CHC Launches iOS-Ready L1 Receiver

The X20i L1 GPS receiver by CHC Navigation is powered by a high-precision L1 GPS
engine. Its integrated Bluetooth chip enables it to wirelessly collect submeter positions in real time or centimeter post-processed on an iPhone or iPad.
All location-aware apps on the iPhone and iPad are compatible with the X20i.
Immediately after pairing and answering the security question allowing the X20i
to take control of location services on the iOS device, 1 million iOS applications are
capable of utilizing the high-accuracy data of the X20i, and become accurate to
either 1 foot or 1 centimeter. Apps that can make use of the high accuracy include
TerraGo Edge, ESRIs ArcView Connector, and those by CarteGraph Systems.
26 G P S W O R L D
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NOVEMBER 2015
Figure 11 Code Phase multipath removed (cm)
Figure 12 Carrier Phase multipath remove (mm)
MARKET WATCH
SURVEY
2
Fourth Edition of GPS
Surveying Book Published
Mapping with
Bluetooth
BlueStarGPS offers both GPS and
GNSS options in a rugged, lightweight package. The BlueStarGPS
device was designed to meet submeter mapping and data collection
needs in the pipeline and utility
industries. It provides sub-meter precision without postprocessing, and maintains accurate positioning when the
SBAS signal is obstructed. This means it can function under
trees, around buildings and in rugged terrain where other
receivers can fail.
The BlueStarGPS is designed specifically for use with
Android mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets or
notebook computers, as well as cable and pipe locating
tools with a connectivity range of up to 1 kilometer.
fourth edition of GPS Satellite and Surveying

(ISBN-13: 978-1118675571; 840 pages) by Leick,
Rapoport and Tatarnikov, is available through
NavtechGPS (www.navtechgps.com), offering a
comprehensive guide on GPS
technology for surveying.
Updated and expanded to reflect the newest developments
in the field, the fourth edition
features information on GNSS
antennas, precise point positioning, real-time relative positioning, lattice reduction and more.
The authors examine tools and
applications, covering the options
for geodetic surveying using satellite technologies.
NOVEMBER 2015
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 35
MARKET WATCH
MAPPING
Storm Surge Maps

Saving More Lives During Hurricane Season
BY JoAnne Castagna
U. S . A RM Y CO RP S O F ENG I N EER S
urricane Sandy led to

one of the largest-scale
U.S. evacuations in
recent history, according
to Edward Schneyer,
director of Emergency Preparedness,
Suffolk County (N.Y.) Office of
Emergency Management.
During Sandy, we rescued 250
people from their flooded homes,
evacuated two major hospitals and
several adult care homes, Schneyer said.
Schneyer was able to do this effectively
because his agency uses storm surge
maps created by the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, New York District. Storm
surge is when a significant amount of
water is pushed from the sea onto the
land caused by a hurricane.
The maps provide emergency

managers in hurricane-prone states
with an understanding of storm
surge potential that could occur for
worst-case Category 1 to 4 storms,
identifying areas from which people
should evacuate if faced with the threat
of storm surge.
The Army Corps is updating these
maps with higher resolution modeling
and topography performed by NOAAs
National Hurricane Centers Storm
Surge Unit, so agencies will have more
accurate information to educate the
public reducing risk to themselves
and their property.
HAZARD ANALYSIS
Historically, 49 percent of human
causalities from hurricanes are due to
storm surge, said Donald E. Cresitello,
the Corps Hurricane Evacuation Study
program manager for the New York

District. Other impacts like riverine
flooding due to rainfall, falling trees
due to high winds, and indirect impacts
like carbon monoxide poisoning and
electrocution can cause deaths. The
development of these maps is the first
step in the hazard analysis for the
hurricane evacuation study process.
The New York Hurricane Evacuation Study Hurricane Surge Inundation Maps are being produced in
collaboration with the Army Corps
New England and Baltimore Districts
and provided to emergency managers. The Army Corps also guides
emergency managers on using the
maps in the decision-making software
HURREVAC (Hurricane Evacuation),
developed by Sea Island Software for
the National Hurricane Program.
Agency officials can use these maps
USING GIS TO CREATE HIGHER RESOLUTION MAPS

Geographic information systems (GIS), which
capture, store, analyze and display location
information, are being used to create higher
resolution storm surge maps.
To create the maps, the Corps of Engineers
uses the SLOSH model (Sea, Lake, Overland
Surges from Hurricanes) provided by
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA). The SLOSH data is
layered over lidar-based topography in Esri
ArcGIS software.
To come up with the actual depth of water
through GIS, we are overlaying the data out
of NOAAs SLOSH model and subtracting out
the ground elevations using digital elevation
models and coming up with an actual depth of
water in feet, said Donald E. Cresitello, USACE
Hurricane Evacuation Study program manager
for the State of New York, U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, New York District.
36 G P S W O R L D
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
Connecticut shoreline: This example of a storm surge map shows

the extent of surge that can be expected as a result of a worst-case scenrio
that combines hurricane landfall location, forward speed and direction for each
hurricane category. (Credit: USACE)
NOVEMBER 2015
MARKET WATCH
MAPPING
prior to impact from a

storm.
The new maps will
not only show the extent
of inland storm surge,
but also the depth of the
water in ranges of
feet during different
categories of storms,
enabling emergency
managers to better focus
limited resources.
Storm Surge in downtown New York City in the aftermath
In the initial stages of
of Hurricane Sandy. (Photo: USACE)
a response, our recovery
to help reduce risk to the public, resources are limited, especially for an
Cresitello said. They can use them for event the size of Sandy. If resources
evacuation planning, to redefine their are dispatched to areas that were
hurricane evacuation zones, identify not impacted, valuable time is lost
where shelters should be located and mobilizing and reassigning those
identify where assets should be staged resources, Schneyer said.
NOVEMBER 2015
At press time, Schneyers agency is

entering information from the maps
into an interactive program viewable
on its countys website, so the public
can see whether their home is in a
storm surge zone and which designated
shelter is nearby. During Sandy, people
who should have evacuated were
stranded and faced dangers such as
electrocution from downed power lines
and fires from gas leaks.
This very valuable resource is an
excellent tool for public education,
emergency management planning, and
emergency preparedness in general,
Schneyer said.
JOANNE CASTAGNA is a public affairs specialist
and writer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
New York District.
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 37
MARKET WATCH
MAPPING
Katrina, 10 Years Later

n August 2005, Hurricane Katrina
struck the city of New Orleans,
causing devastating damage and
loss of life. A new Esri story map,
Katrina +10: A Decade of Change in
New Orleans, analyzes the damage
from the storm.
The story map is a new Esri
m e dium f o r s har ing no t o nly
data, photos, videos, sounds and
maps, but for telling a specific
and compelling story by way of
that content, wrote Esri Chief
Scientist Dawn Wright in a blog.
This is all done with sophisticated

cartographic functionality that
does not require advanced training
in cartography or GIS. According to
Wright, story maps are applications
built from web maps, which in turn
are built from web-accessible data.
The below map shows the physical
damage in terms of buildings
marked for demolition. In all, 10,317
buildings were tagged for demolition
by the city of New Orleans. Following
Hurricane Katrina, all properties
within the city were reviewed for
damage under Section 106 of the

National Historic Preservation Act.
The heat map shows the
density of houses deemed eligible
for federally funded demolition
through the Federal Emergency
Management Agenc y (FEMA).
Although not all properties on this
map were demolished, the points
illustrate Katrinas extensive and
pervasive physical toll on the city of
New Orleans.
For this and other story maps,
visit http://storymaps.arcgis.com/.
KATRINA AFFECTED THE ENTIRE

CITY, with the Lower Ninth
Ward enduring the most
intense damage. A shipping
channel built in the 1950s
destroyed protective coastal
wetlands that once acted as
a storm surge buffer for the
community.
USERS OF THE STORY MAP can zoom in and click on the
points to see specific data about each tagged site.
A BARGE WAS SWEPT through a breach near

Claiborne Avenue, leveling homes beneath it.
38 G P S W O R L D
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NOVEMBER 2015
MARKET WATCH
MAPPING
Books Explore Lidar,

Earth Imaging
Hexagon Offers Early Access

to Cloud Apps
new book published by Esri

teaches how to use GIS software to analyze and visualize
lidar data. Making Spatial Decisions Using GIS and Lidar: A Workbook
(ISBN: 9781589484290; 264 pages),
by Kathryn Keranen and Robert Kolvoord, presents problems that need to
be solved using lidar data and the geospatial analysis tools in Esris ArcGIS for Desktop. In addition, Essential Earth Imaging for GIS (ISBN: 9781589483453, 128 pages),
by Lawrence Fox III, is a field guide to advanced earth-imaging
technologies, providing guidance to efficiently and effectively
display, manipulate, enhance and interpret features from an
image. It provides hands-on experience working with imagery
in Esris ArcGIS for Desktop and ArcGIS Online.
Both books are available through esri.com/esripress.
Hexagon Geospatial has introduced an early-access

program for technologies associated with the Hexagon
Smart M.App experience.
M.App Chest provides a simple means to quickly upload, organize, and share imagery and point cloud data
in the cloud. It also provides compression capabilities
along with streaming and delivery via web services.
GeoApp.UAS was built by Hexagon Geospatials
partner, Geosystems GmbH, and enables rapid
processing of UAS data at the speed it is captured.
With an intuitive workflow, GeoApp.UAS enables
robust photogrammetric processing of UAS data on
the cloud.
Interested individuals can register to participate in
the early-access program at www.hexagongeospatial.
com/smartmapp.
NOVEMBER 2015
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 39
MARKET WATCH
UAV
Programmed Multicopter Flies

Through the Arctic Autonomously
ow do you successfully
pi l ot a UAV i n t he
remote expanses of the
Arctic Ocean when the
compass cant provide
reliable positioning data? Engineers
on board the Alfred Wegener Institutes
(AWIs) research icebreaker Polarstern
specially programmed a multicopter,
allowing it to navigate despite the
deviations produced by the Earths
magnetic field near the North Pole.
The researchers recently celebrated the
copters first successful autonomous
flight and landing on an ice floe.
At high latitudes, autonomous
navigation is a major challenge, said
Sascha Lehmenhecker, an engineer at
AWI. Navigation systems normally use
magnetic sensors. But near the poles,
the lines of the Earths magnetic field
are nearly perpendicular to the ground,
making precise navigation extremely
difficult. Thats why commercial
multicopter control systems arent
well suited for use in polar regions.
ICE FLOE LANDINGS

Lehmenheckers team refined the
control systems for multicopters
to land on ice floes and fly back to
their mother ship autonomously
several hours later. The particular
task: both the ice floe and the ship are
in motion. The ship has to continue
on its scheduled course to conduct
other research, while wind, waves and
currents cause the ice floe to drift. Its
precisely the direction and speed with
which it drifts that the multicopter
needs to determine.
The team pursued two approaches.
In the first approach, the multicopter
remains in constant contact with
a receiving station, which uses the
40 G P S W O R L D
Researchers conducted an autonomous multicopter flight in the Arctic with its own
test UAV platform that used a u-blox LEA-M8T GPS receiver. (Photo: Alfred-Wegener Institute)
copters GPS data to calculate the

discrepancies. In other words, the
multicopter transmits its GPS position
to the station, which in turn transmits
back the corresponding, adjusted
coordinates, explained Lehmenhecker.
The second option: We use two
onboard GPS receivers to calculate the
actual change in the copters position.
Though this is the better method, its
also much more complex, and were
still just starting to develop it.
The system passed its first test, conducted on an ice floe in the arctic Fram
Strait (79 N parallel). In the test, the
team and copter were left on a floe, clear
of magnetic interference produced by
electric motors on board the Polarstern.
The team manually flew the copter 3kilometers out, to the edge of visual range,
then activated the autonomous return
program. The multicopter flew to the
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
NOVEMBER 2015
preset coordinates and safely landed

on its own.
UNDERWATER ASSIST
Lehmenheckers team came up with the
idea for this development in connection
with the use of sensitive devices under
the ice, such as the torpedo-shaped
autonomous underwater vehicle
(AUV) Paul, which explores the ocean
beneath the sea ice. To optimally
plan its dives, its important to have
precise information on the movement
of the sea ice, Lehmenhecker said.
Conventionally, this was achieved by
deploying ice trackers on floes with the
help of a Zodiac boat or helicopter a
difficult and time-consuming method.
Further, the researchers generally try to
avoid leaving the safety of the Polarstern
wherever possible jagged ice floes
See ARTCIC, page 42
>>
MARKET WATCH
UAV
RIEGL Launches BathyCopter

ollowing RIEGLs
debut of the RiCOPTER at INTERGEO
2014, a fully integrated UAV-based lidar surveying solution, the company
used INTERGEO 2015 in
September to launch its new
BathyCopter.
The BathyCopter is a
small-UAV-based surveying system capable of measuring through the water
surface. Its suitable for
generating profiles of rivers or water reservoirs. The
platform design integrates
a topo-bathymetric green
CEO Johannes Riegl unveils the new RIEGL BathyCopter at the

RIEGL INTERGEO booth in Stuttgart.
laser depth-meter, an IMU/
GNSS unit with antenna,
a control unit and a digital
camera. Applications include
generation of river profiles,

survey of reservoirs and canals, landscaping, support of
construction projects, and
NOVEMBER 2015
surveys for planning and carrying out hydraulic engineering work.

Laser Scanner. RIEGL also
offers the VQ-480-U laser
scanner for UAVs, which
provides high-speed data acquisition using a narrow infrared laser beam and a fast
line scanning mechanism.
High-accuracy laser
ranging is based on RIEGLs
echo digitization and online
waveform processing, which
provides measurement
results even under adverse
atmospheric conditions, the
company said.
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 41
MARKET WATCH
UAV
Maiden Flight Pushes Boundaries
outescene has jointly

developed with Hanseatic
Aviation Solutions an
integrated fixed-wing UAV
and LidarPod solution for
surveying.
Following in-depth customer research,
Routescene identified a gap in the market
for an unmanned aerial 3D mapping
solution capable of flying long distances,
particularly for use in large countries
with great expanses of remote land such
as Australia, the United States, Canada
and Eastern Europe. The integrated
solution would be used for long-distance
surveys, such as powerline inspections in
the utilities sector, biomass mapping of
forests and geophysical surveys.
The successful maiden flight of
the integrated Hanseatic S360 and
Routescene LidarPod took place in July
in Bremen, Germany, and demonstrated
its capability by collecting sample data.
German aviation authorities were so
confident in the product, they gave
The Hanseatic S360 has a wingspan of

3.6 meters and can carry a 6-kg payload.
Routescene permission to fly in the

same circuit as manned aircraft.
BENEFITS
The LidarPod is integrated internally
within the S360 itself, rather than being
wing-mounted, reducing drag and
enabling longer flight and survey times.
Integration of the LidarPod into the nose
A 3D point cloud of
the runway at Bremerhaven Airport.
Arctic
Continued from page 40 >>
and polar bears present additional risks.

During 2012, the group first used a
UAV to assist Paul. The UAV landed
on the ice via remote control, then
used GPS to determine its position and
42 G P S W O R L D
transmit the data back to the research

ship, which was monitoring Pauls dive.
In this way, the multicopter took on an
important role, offering navigational
support for the AUV. Once each dive
was complete, the ship had to return
close to the multicopters position so
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
NOVEMBER 2015
cone minimizes noise and vibration

traveling from the rear-mounted engine,
ensuring the GNSS/INS is not adversely
affected. It also enables more accurate
positioning.
The S360 is fixed-wing and built for
long-distance flights, with four-hour
endurance in the standard configuration,
along with long-range telemetry, an
autopilot system and a mission planning
tool. It works in up to Force 7 winds,
extending the operational window in
which surveys can be performed. Its
significant payload capacity enables
the integration of additional survey
and geophysical sensors as well as the
LidarPod. Because this is an internally
integrated solution, it can be set up
rapidly and is easy to deploy in the field,
Routescene said.
Michael Schmidt, managing director
of Hanseatic Aviation Solutions, and Gert
Riemersma, CEO of Routescene, met for
the first time at INTERGEO 2014. They
immediately understood the potential
power of a collaboration. Routescene
launched the LidarPod at that trade show.
It quickly attracted wide interest and is
now generating business across four
continents, Routescene said.
After exploratory discussions
with clients, the companies started
development of the system in earnest at
the start of 2015. We have already seen
significant interest from the forestry and
geophysical exploration community,
Riemersma said.
the pilot could remotely guide it back

to the ship, which was only possible in
visual range.
Now, the new developments will
expand the service radius of our copters
from visual range to as much as 10
kilometers, Lehmenhecker said.
MARKET WATCH
UAV 2
POSEIDRON Wins at ESNC
multicopter built
to support maritime search-andrescue services
took top honors
in the 2015 European Satellite
Navigation Competition.
POSEIDRON is designed to
reduce the number of fatalities at sea when people fall overboard or are involved in
shipwrecks that occur during illegal immigration. The project consists of one large
drone that is designed to increase the survival possibilities of those stranded at sea
by providing a faster response and better service. The multicopter weighs 80 kg, can
operate for more than 180 minutes, and has a diameter of 4 meters. It is capable of
lifting up to 70 kg and is designed to take off from a mid-size boat. With thermal
cameras and GNSS, the multicopter can locate people in the water, where it will launch
an inflatable dinghy. Depending on the weather conditions, it will tow the dinghy
to a rescue boat or maintain its position to facilitate rescue. The drone will have the
ability to fly safely, maintain its position accurately, and alert emergency authorities.
NOVEMBER 2015
U.S. Will Require

Registration of
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
In October, the federal government announced plans to require anyone buying a drone to register the device with
the U.S. Department of Transportation
(DOT), enabling authorities to track
a drone back to its owner if used in a
dangerous manner. Under the plan, the
DOT would work with the drone industry to set up a structure for registering
the drones. The government has been
concerned about the rise in close calls
between unmanned drones and aircraft
flying into and out of some of the nations biggest airports.
Private drones were also blamed for
hampering aerial firefighting efforts
over a California fire in July.
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 43
COVERSTORY
/
UAV REAL-TIME
Data Use in a Lightweight Direct Georeferencing System
DIRECT GEOREFERENCING WITH ONBOARD SENSORS is less time-consuming for data processing than indirect
georeferencing using ground control points, and can supply real-time navigation capability to a UAV. This is very useful for surveying,
precision farming or infrastructure inspection. An onboard system for position and attitude determination of lightweight UAVs weighs 240
grams and produces position accuracies better than 5 centimeters and attitude accuracies better than 1 degree.
BY Christian Eling, Lasse Klingbeil, Markus Wieland,
Erik Heinz and Heiner Kuhlmann
ata acquisition from

mobile platforms has
become established
in many applications
recently, particularly
using unmanned
aerial systems (UASs). Unlike other
mobile platforms, unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs) can overfly inaccessible and also dangerous areas.
Furthermore, they can get very close
to objects to collect high-resolution
44 G P S W O R L D
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
data with low-resolution sensors, and

they enable approach from all viewing
directions without physical contact.
UAVs now see use in precision farming for phenotyping or plant monitoring, and in infrastructure inspection
and surveying.
This article addresses lightweight
UAV use for mobile mapping and uses
the term micro aerial vehicle (MAV)
throughout. MAVs can generally
be characterized as having a weight
NOVEMBER 2015
limit of 5 kilograms and a size limit

of 1.5 meters.
We focus on the development
of a real-time capable, direct
georeferencing system for MAVs,
since spatial and time restrictions
often exclude the possibility of
deploying ground control points
for an indirect georeferencing. The
demand for the real-time capability
results from the aim to also use the
georeferencing for autonomous
FOUR POINT
CLOUDS,
nonregistered,
of georeferenced
images from four
UAV flights.
navigation of the MAV and to enable

a precise time synchronization of the
onboard sensors. Furthermore, a realtime direct georeferencing also offers
the opportunity to process collected
mapping data during flight.
MAPPING ON DEMAND. The goal of
this research project, funded by the
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG), is to develop an MAV that
can identify and measure inaccessible
three-dimensional objects by use of
visual information. A major challenge
within this project comes with the term
on demand. This means that apart
from the classical mapping part, where
3D information is extracted from aerial
images, the MAV is intended to fly

fully autonomously on the basis of a
high-level user inquiry. During the
flight, obstacles must be detected and
avoided. To extract semantic information that can be used to refine the
trajectory planning, the mapping data
has to be processed in real time. When
the georeferencing information is used
as initial values for the bundle adjustment, the image processing can be
significantly accelerated.
FIGURE 1 shows the current MAV
platform developed in this project.
We customized an MAV kit to a coaxial
rotor configuration, replaced the
centerplates with more stable carbonfibre plates to stabilize the system, and
installed the direct georeferencing and
the mapping sensors. The two stereo
camera pairs, pointing forward and
backward, act as an additional sensory
input for the position and attitude
determination; the 5M-pixel industrial
camera with global shutter is the actual
mapping sensor. The PC board is used
for onboard image processing, flight
planning and machine control; the
Wi-Fi module enables a connection
to a ground station.
Although the direct georeferencing

system must be small and lightweight,
accuracy requirements for its position
and attitude determination are high.
Generally, these accuracy requirements
are different for the machine control,
navigation and mapping purposes.
In our project, the MAV is intended
to maintain a safety distance of about
0.5 meter to obstacles. Hence, a position
accuracy of 0.1 meter is sufficient for
the navigation. The absolute attitude
accuracy should be in the range of
1 to 5 degrees. For machine control,
relative information is more important,
and for this the accuracies should be
slightly higher.
For mapping purposes, the positions
and attitudes have to be known better,
since the absolute georeference of the
final product (for example, a highresolution 3D model of a building) is
based on the positions and attitudes
from the direct georeferencing system.
Therefore, the position accuracy
should be in the range of 13 cm and
the attitude accuracy should be better
than 1 degree. The relative accuracy
of the exterior camera orientation can
be improved by a photogrammetric
FIGURE 1 The MAV with mapping and georeferencing sensors, developed for the research
project Mapping on Demand.
NOVEMBER 2015
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G P S W O R L D 45
UAVSURVEY
SOFTWARE/
HARDWARE
INTEGRATION
FIGURE 2 The direct georeferencing system.
bundle adjustment, but systematic

georeferencing errors should be
avoided.
To summarize:
The weight of the system has to
be less than 500 grams (g), to be
applicable on MAVs.
Especially for the control and
navigation, the system has to be
real-time capable.
All sensors have to be synchronized
and outages of single sensors should
be bridgeable by other sensors.
The system is intended to provide
accurate positions (pos < 5 cm)
and attitudes (att < 1 deg) during
flights.
The integration of data from
additional sensors, such as cameras,
should be possible.
The ability to include additional
sensors to the system was, apart from
the size and the weight constraint,
the main reason for developing a
proprietary system instead of using
a commercial unit with similar
capabilities.
Direct Georefencing
The current version of the system
weighs 240 g without GPS antennas
(see FIGURE 2). To reduce weight, the an-
46 G P S W O R L D
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
tennas were dismantled, reducing their

weight from 350g to 100 g. However,
since the antenna reference point got
lost in this process, the antennas had to
be recalibrated in an anechoic chamber
for further use. By comparison to the
original antennas, the dismantling
led to significant changes in the phase
center offsets (circa 4 cm in the Up, < 1
mm in the North and East component)
and in the phase center variations (< 5
mm) of the antennas.
FIGURE 3 shows a flow chart of the direct
georeferencing system with the sensors
and the main calculation steps. The
system consists of a dual-frequency
GPS receiver, a single-frequency GPS
receiver, an inertial measurement
unit (IMU) and a magnetometer. The
dual-frequency receiver is the main
positioning device. Together with the
GPS raw data from the master station
(carrier phases M, pseudoranges
PM), which is transmitted via a radio
module, the data of the dual-frequency
receiver (R, PR) is used for an RTK
positioning, leading to centimeter
position accuracies.
In collaboration with the data of
the single-frequency receiver (B,
PB), the data of the dual-frequency
receiver is also used for GPS attitude
NOVEMBER 2015
determination. The corresponding

GPS antennas of these two receivers
form a short baseline (baseline
length = 92 cm) on the MAV. The
determination of the baseline vector in
an e-frame (Earth-fixed) enables yaw
and the pitch-angle determination.
The tactical-grade micro-electromechanical (MEMS) IMU, which
includes three-axes gyroscopes,
accelerometers and magnetometers,
provides angular rates (), accelerations
(a) and magnetic field observations (h)
with high rates (100 Hz) for position
and attitude determination. To be
unaffected by the electric currents
as much as possible, an additional
magnetometer is placed on the outer
end of one of the rotor-free MAV arms.
The direct georeferencing system
further consists of a processing unit,
which is a reconfigurable IO board,
including a field programmable
gate array (FPGA) and a 400-MHz
processor. In this combination,
the FPGA is used for fast parallel
communication with the sensors.
Afterwards, the preprocessed sensor
data are provided to the 400-MHz
processor via direct memory accesses,
avoiding delays and supporting the
systems real-time capabilities. Finally,
the actual position and attitude
determination is carried out on the
400-MHz processor.
Methodologies
All position and attitude determination algorithms running on the system
were developed in-house. Generally,
the integration of these steps could
be realized in one tightly coupled approach. Nevertheless, in the current
implementation, we decided to separate the different raw data calculation
steps, and we only use interactions at
the level of parameters. This approach
has the advantage that the integration
is more reliable and more practical in
the real-time programming.
FIGURE 3 Flowchart of the direct georeferencing system.

GPS/IMU INTEGRATION. In this
calculation step, all available sensory
input is fused to determine the best
position and attitude of the system that
is currently available. The GPS and the
IMU measurements complement each
other well, since the IMU provides
short-term stable high-rate (100 Hz)
data, and the GPS provides long-term
stable low-rate (10 Hz) data.
The GPS/IMU integration can
be separated into the strapdown
algorithm (SDA) and the Kalman filter
update. In the SDA, the high-dynamic
movement of the system is determined
integrating the angular rates and the
accelerations of the MEMS IMU in real
time. Because the SDA drifts over time,
the long-term stable measurements
of the magnetometer and the GPS
receivers are needed to correct and
bound the drift of the inertial sensor
integration, which is realized in an
error state Kalman filter.
In the GPS/IMU integration
algorithms, the navigation equations
of the body frame (b-frame) are
expressed in an e-frame. Therefore,
the full state vector x includes the
position x ep and the velocity v ep,
represented in the e-frame. For the
attitude representation a quaternion
q is used. Finally, the accelerometer
bias bba and the gyro bias bb are also
estimated:
The observations in the measurement model are:

the RTK GPS position xea of the
dual-frequency RTK GPS antenna
reference point, expressed in the
e-frame,
the GPS attitude baseline vector
xeb, expressed in the e-frame,
the magnetic field vector h b ,
expressed in the b-frame.
Because the reference point of the
RTK GPS antenna is not identical to
the system reference point, a lever arm
between the system and the antenna
reference point must be regarded
in the measurement model of the
RTK GPS positions. From calibration
measurements, the coordinates of the
lever arm are precisely known in the
b-frame.
In the SDA, a coupling between the
accelerations, measured by the IMU,
and the positions, measured by the
RTK GPS, exists. Due to this coupling
the yaw angle can be observed, but
only in the presence of horizontal
accelerations.
To determine an accurate and
reliable yaw angle for every motion
behavior, the short GPS baseline is
realized on the MAV. A significant
challenge in processing this baseline is
the ambiguity resolution, because only
single-frequency GPS observations
can be used. Empirical tests have
shown that the ambiguity resolution
of a single-frequency GPS baseline
generally takes several minutes. Among
other strategies, we use the additional
NOVEMBER 2015
information from a magnetometer to

improve the ambiguity resolution and
to actually enable an instantaneous
ambiguity fixing during kinematic
applications.
Ferromagnetic material on the
UAV and high electric currents of the
rotors create significant disturbances
of the magnetometer during flight.
While the influence of the material
can be compensated by calibration
procedures, the influence of the
dynamically changing electric currents
are more challenging. To minimize
them, the magnetometer is placed
at the outer end of a rotor-free arm
of the MAV. Also, the measurement
model is arranged so that magnetic
field observations only have an impact
on the yaw determination in our
algorithms.
RTK GPS POSITIONING. RTK GPS
positions are calculated in real time
with a rate of 10 Hz. These RTK
algorithms are in-house developed,
although commercial and opensource solutions are available. The
main reasons for developing custom
software are the following:
Integration of other sensors and/
or solutions is possible, to improve
ambiguity resolution and cycle-slip
detection.
In commercial software, there is
generally no access to the source
code.
In the development of a real-time
capable system, the software must
meet the requirements of the operating system running on the real-time
processing unit.
Generally, the RTK GPS algorithm
complies with a single baseline
determination (one master, one rover),
where the master station remains
ground-stationary and the rover is
onboard the MAV.
To resolve the ambiguities and
finally to determine the RTK GPS
positions, the parameter estimation is
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G P S W O R L D 47
UAVSURVEY
SOFTWARE/
HARDWARE
INTEGRATION
FIGURE 4 Task scheduling of the RTK GPS algorithms.
FIGURE 5 Orthophoto of a wheat field (left) and the difference of the vegetation height,
determined from the results of two MAV flights at an interval of two weeks (right).
performed in three steps: float solution,

integer ambiguity estimation and fixed
solution.
The float solution is realized in an
extended Kalman filter (EKF). Beside
the rover position, represented in the
e-frame, the EKF state vector xSD
also contains single-difference (SD)
ambiguities N j on the GPS L1 and
the GPS L2 frequencies. The reason
for estimating SD instead of doubledifference (DD) ambiguities is to avoid
the hand-over problem that would
arise for DD ambiguities, when the
reference satellite changes.
To allow for an instantaneous
ambiguity resolution, the observation
vector l consists of DD carrier phases
jkrm and DD pseudoranges Pjkrm on the
GPS L1 and the GPS L2 frequencies.
In the current implementation, a
random walk model is assumed as a
dynamic model of the MAV in the
EKF. Even if this is a simple model,
it complies with the movement of
the vehicle, when the process noise is
chosen appropriately.
The float solution procedure
48 G P S W O R L D
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
provides real-valued ambiguities

and their covariance matrix. These
ambiguities now must be fixed to
correct integer values, to fully exploit
the high accuracy of the carrier
phase observables. We applied the
MLAMBDA method for integer
ambiguity estimation.
Finally, a decision must be made
whether or not the result of the integer
ambiguity estimation can be accepted.
This is done by the simple ratio test.
With the ambiguities fixed, the final
rover position xae is estimated with
cm accuracies.
Usually, the time to fix the ambiguities with the algorithm takes a few
epochs, but often the ambiguities can
be fixed instantaneously. Once ambiguity resolution has been successful,
the ambiguities can be held fixed, as
long as no cycle slip or loss of lock of
GPS signals occur.
Due to the GPS/IMU integration,
we have a precise prediction of the
RTK GPS positions between two
epochs. Thus, the integration of the
inertial sensor readings enables us to
NOVEMBER 2015
detect and also repair cycle slips very

reliably.
The observations of the master
receiver must be transmitted via radio
to the direct georeferencing system. In
practice, this data transmission can
only be realized with a rate of 1 Hz. To
be less dependent on this potentially
unreliable master data transmission
and the lower sampling rate, simulated
master observations are used for RTK
GPS position determination. Hence, in
the actual processing, the true master
observations are only used to update
the simulation errors in the master task
(FIGURE 4), which have to be applied to
correct the simulation results in the
rover task.
GPS ATTITUDE DETERMINATION. The
GPS baseline is determined at 1 Hz. In
contrast to the RTK GPS positioning,
both antennas of the attitude baseline
are mounted on the MAV, so that
the complete baseline is moving.
Furthermore, the baseline length is
constant and known from calibration
measurements. The GPS attitude
determination also consists of the three
steps: float solution, integer ambiguity
estimation and fixed solution.
The float solution is also based on
an EKF where the single-frequency SD
ambiguities N j of the attitude baseline
are estimated. Further parameters
in the state vector are the baseline
parameters and the first deviation of
the baseline parameters.
As observations DD carrier phases
jkAB and DD pseudoranges PjkAB on
the GPS L1 frequency are used. To
improve the ambiguity resolution, the
attitude from the GPS/IMU integration
is added to the observation vector,
by transforming the known b-frame
baseline parameters into the e-frame.
Finally, also the known baseline length
can be added as a constraint to the
observation vector.
In the integer ambiguity estimation,
we apply the MLAMBDA method
/
again. Due to the prior information
about the attitude of the baseline,
the float ambiguities can already be
estimated with high accuracies in the
float solution. If the ambiguities could
not be fixed with the MLAMBDA
method, we consider the 10 best
solutions for further processing.
Unreliable ambiguity parameters
are eliminated in a random order,
and the MLAMBDA method is
applied again. Afterwards we use the
ambiguity function method and the
known baseline length to exclude false
candidates of the 10 best solutions.
If only one solution remains, the
ambiguities can be fixed to integer
values. Tests have shown that this
approach leads to an instantaneous
ambiguity resolution success rate of
about 95 percent.
Similar to the RTK GPS positioning, the IMU readings are also used
to detect cycle slips for the attitude
baseline determination, when the ambiguities have been fixed successfully.
With ambiguities fixed, the baseline
parameters can be determined with
millimeter to centimeter accuracies.
This leads to yaw angle accuracies in
the range of 0.20.5 degrees, when the
attitude baseline has a length of 92 cm.
Applications and Results

As mentioned, one goal of Mapping
on Demand is 3D reconstruction from
visual information. The OPENING IMAGE
shows such results. During four flights.
images were collected with a sampling
rate of 1 Hz, and the position and the
attitude of the camera was determined
in real time using the direct georeferencing system. A bundle adjustment
was processed using these positions
and attitudes as initial values. Afterwards, dense point clouds could be
generated from the oriented images
using an open-source software package
(PMVS). Due to georeferencing of the
collected images, the point clouds are
FIGURE 6 A directly georeferenced portable laser scanning system for kinematic 3D mapping.
FIGURE 7 Difference between the results of the directly georeferenced portable laser scanning
system and the results of a terrestrial laser scan, which act as reference solution here.
also georeferenced. The image shows

results of four flights in one scene, to
demonstrate consistency of the georeferencing.
AGRICULTURE. In figure 5, georeferenced images were taken during
a flight over a wheat field. The same
process was repeated after two weeks.
The difference of the respective point
clouds, which were determined using
the software Photoscan by the company Agisoft, reveals the plant growth
at an interval of two weeks. These
results show that the determination of
plant growth rates, which usually result
from time-consuming field work, can
be done easily and with high resolution
using MAVs. With the use of a direct
georeferencing system, this process
NOVEMBER 2015
becomes even more efficient because

the deployment of ground control
points can be omitted.
PORTABLE LASER SCANNING SYSTEM.
The small and lightweight design of
the direct georeferencing system offers several other opportunities for
various applications. One example is
the use of the direct georeferencing
system in combination with a small,
lightweight and low-cost laser scanner.
Terrestrial laser scanning has become
an established technology for 3D data
acquisition in surveying and mapping
because laser scanners provide highresolution data with high accuracies at
high speed. However, for measurement
of a complex scene, the laser scanner
See UAV, page 55
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
>>
G P S W O R L D 49
MOBILEUPDATE
Azuga Founder Rani Brings

Gamification to Fleet Drivers
BY Bethany Chambers
DIG ITA L EDITO R
hen Ananth Rani

began work in 2012
on the Fleet Driver
Rewards app that has
made connected vehicle providerAzuga
a CTIA up-and-comer, he wasnt sure he
was making the right decision.
Frankly, it was a bit of an experience
to see if there was still room in the
market for another vendor, he said
when he took time to sit down at a coffee
shop during CTIA Super Mobility 2015.
I thought, What the hell am I getting
myself into?
The gamble paid off. Azugas app
took second place in the Mobile Cloud
division in the CTIA E-Tech Awards.
Azuga's app is innovative because it
appeals to a unique user: the fleet driver.
A Silicon Valley veteran, Rani used a
principal more likely to be seen in apps
marketed to consumers: gamification.
Fleet drivers earn points based on
things like hard-braking, acceleration,
sustained high speeds and driving in
adverse weather conditions, among
other metrics determined by a Ph.D. in
statistics that Azuga has on staff.
The expectation was that a driver
will naturally move toward a safer
Azugas OBD-II connector is manufactured by

parent company Danlaw Inc.
50 G P S W O R L D
Ananth Rani founded Azuga, a "social telematics" company, in 2013.
fleet by competing with the rest of the

drivers, and that as the risk goes down,
the miles per gallon goes up, Rani
said, and thats your ROI [return on
investment].
MOBILE REWARDS APP

The reward for winning is no simple
badge. Drivers profiles are pulled from
LinkedIn, and their rankings are visible
among the Azuga Awesome Drivers
group on the social network.
Cash is also on the line. The company
gives out quarterly prizes to the Top 10
drivers and Top 10 fleet managers of
the 50,000 nationwide users, and the
1,000+ corporate customers can then
also choose to award their drivers
based on their own goals through an
electronic gift card program that is tied
to 14 national brands, or donations to
three charities.
Safety and savings aside, employee
retention is an additional challenge.
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
NOVEMBER 2015
This is a blue collar world where

the employee takes the truck home
at night," Rani said. "Feeling engaged
is the key to employee retention in a
world where they may never see the
boss and where they only see their
manager for a meeting every few
weeks.
Azuga Fleet costs 69 cents per day
per vehicle. Growth plans for the app
include functions to help drivers find
parking, locate a parked truck and easily
message clients that they are on their
way.
The app is also being reviewed by
state governments as a tool to determine
whose cars need to be emissions tested
and to track hours required for state
graduated driver licensing. Its being
tested by the Oregon Department of
Transportation as a way to assign a road
usage charge that funds highway repairs.
Its all about benefiting drivers,
Rani said.
MOBILEUPDATE
NEWTECH
NEWSBRIEFS
TRACKER DESIGNED
FOR POWER SPORTS
CANAL+ BROADCASTS RACE

WITH GPS GEORACING SYSTEM
Canal+, a French cable television channel, used Trimaran's
GeoRacing GPS tracking and visualization system to improve
live television coverage of the Tour de Corse 2015, the FIA World
Rally Championship held on the island of Corsica in October.
Through a combination of GPS data and advanced
technologies like virtual timing and ghost visualization,
Trimarans GeoRacing solution allowed Canal+ to track the
motorsport race in real time and better visualize its progression,
enhancing the television viewers experience.
The system dramatically improves the broadcasters ability to
deliver live audio commentary about the race, giving viewers a
race-time comparison of the drivers along with other important
stats.
During the Tour de Corse race, Canal+ used multiple cameras
with GPS trackers in cars and helicopters, and at the starting,
mid-point and finish lines. The GPS tracking system situated
on the cameras was provided by AMPVisual TV, a technology
partner of Canal+ and Trimaran.
Throughout the race, GPS positioning from each of the cars
was sent to the GeoRacing system. Using Trimaran's solution,
Canal+ instantly delivered detailed sports information and
statistics, such as speed, timing (retiming for staggered starts)
and ranking. This enabled viewers to better understand the
progression of the live race. With the virtual timing capability,
Canal+ was able to demonstrate the virtual differences between
cars at a precision of 1/10th of a second. Trimaran's ghost
visualization feature provides a 3D representation of the rival
positions in real time, creating the feeling that the cars all left the
starting line simultaneously.
THE AL3RT ASSET protection

unit by Kika Enterprises will
be available as an accessory
for Polaris electric bikes
worldwide beginning January
2016. Powered by AT&T, AL3RT
is a stand-alone customizable
asset locator and fleetmanagement tool designed for
theft protection of on- and off-road vehicles, motorcycles,
snowmobiles and personal watercraft. Supported by GPS,
GSM, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies, users can use their
AL3RT smartphone app to locate their asset, as well as
arm and disarm sensors and configure geofences virtually
anywhere in the world.
GPS SOURCE RELEASES GPS SPLITTER

GPS SOURCE HAS RELEASED a GPS/GNSS rackmount splitter
with dual antenna inputs and antenna health monitoring.
Developed for the wireless industry, the dual-input splitter
provides a GPS timing signal to up to 32 GPS/GNSS receivers
or timing synchronization modules at one time. Its design
ensures the GPS timing signal is always available, even
in the event of an antenna or cable failure. The splitter
amplifies and splits the GPS/GNSS signal and includes dual
GPS antenna input ports, a health monitor and a sensor
switch. Antenna redundancy is acquired through the use
of primary and backup antennas. The sensor monitors the
health of the primary antenna connected to the splitter.
Based on the information provided by the sensor, the
splitter will automatically switch antennas, allowing
connected GPS devices to remain fully functional in the
event of an antenna failure.
NOVEMBER 2015
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 51
TRANSPORTATIONUPDATE
Tesla Rolls Out Autopilot NEWSBRIEFS

MAGELLAN JOINS WITH
POSITION LOGIC
n October 2014, Tesla started equipping its Model S with hardware to

allow for the incremental introduction of self-driving technology:
a forward radar, a forward-looking
camera, 12 long-range ultrasonic sensors positioned to sense 16 feet around
the car in every direction at all speeds,
and a high-precision digitally controlled
electric assist braking system.
This October, version 7.0 of Teslas
software was released with Autopilot,
which allows those tools to deliver a
range of new features designed to work
in conjunction with the automated
driving capabilities already offered in
the Model S.
Tesla calls Autopilot a major step
toward autonomous driving. Tesla
Autopilot relieves drivers of the most
tedious and potentially dangerous aspects of road travel, according to a
Tesla blog. While truly driverless cars
are still a few years away, Tesla Autopilot
functions like the systems that airplane
pilots use when conditions are clear.
The driver is still responsible for, and
ultimately in control of, the car. What's
more, you always have intuitive access
to the information your car is using to
inform its actions.
The combined suite of features represents an integrated autopilot system
involving four different feedback modules: camera, radar, ultrasonics and
52 G P S W O R L D
GPS. These mutually reinforcing systems offer real-time data feedback from
the Tesla fleet, ensuring that the system
is continually learning and improving
upon itself, the Tesla blog said.
Autopilot allows Model S to steer
within a lane, change lanes with the tap
of a turn signal, and manage speed by
using active, traffic-aware cruise control. Digital control of motors, brakes
and steering helps avoid collisions from
the front and sides, as well as prevent
the car from wandering off the road.
Your car can also scan for a parking
space, alert you when one is available,
and parallel park on command, Tesla
said.
Release of version 7.0 also features a
significant visual refresh of the digital
display. The instrument panel is focused
on the driver and includes more functional apps to help monitor the ride.
Tesla founder Elon Musk said during
a press conference that drivers should
exercise caution in the initial months of
the rollout, and consider Version 7.0 a
beta release. "We're advising drivers to
keep their hands on the wheel at this
early stage," Musk said. The car's dash
alerts drivers when they need to take
the wheel.
Just days after the launch, videos
began appearing on the Internet showing near misses and other errors.
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
NOVEMBER 2015
MAGELLAN is
integrating its
RoadMate RC9496TLMB fleet navigation
device with
Position Logics
advanced GPS tracking software solution.
The integration delivers an end-to-end
communication and navigation solution for
fleets, and includes the RC9496T-LMB, an
active mobile terminal, allowing real-time
two-way communication between driver
and dispatch when paired with Position
Logics GPS tracking software.
KEEPING YOUR WHEELS SAFE
PROJECT OVERLORD has launched RimTech,

a wheel theft prevention system. RimTech
has a built-in GPS receiver, motion sensor
and camera, which attach to the tire and
act as a security guard for automobile
wheels. The vehicle owner controls the
device through the accompanying iPhone
and Android app, providing total control
and surveillance at all times.
COBHAM LAUNCHES
MARINE RECEIVERS
COBHAM SATCOM has launched two new
Sailor satellite navigation receivers. Both
the Sailor 656X GNSS and new Sailor 657X
DGNSS work with the touchscreen Sailor
6004 Control Panel, which provides access
to set-up, functions and diagnostics.
TRANSPORTATIONUPDATE
NEWTECH
NOVATEL TO DEVELOP WAAS G-IIIGALILEO RECEIVER FOR FAA
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and NovAtel have
exercised a bilateral option to produce
a Wide Area Augmentation System
(WAAS) G-IIIGalileo prototype
receiver. Maintaining core NovAtel
WAAS G-III functionality for GPS
and SBAS signal processing, the new
receiver will operate in the WAAS
reference station test environment to
facilitate research on multiple GNSS
constellation utilization.
The prototype receiver will also
add functionality to support tracking and demodulating associated
navigation data for Galileo satellites
including:
TRIA
E
E
FR v
ASK
R
ur
YOUcom/ezs
R
FO is.
effg
Galileo E1 and E5a tracking

Ephemeris and almanac reporting/
processing from E1 or E5a
Automatic channel assignments
Time solution computed from
Galileo
Correlator information for signal
deformation on Galileo signals
The WAAS G-IIIGalileo prototype receiver will be developed on
NovAtels existing WAAS G-III receiver hardware and application software, and delivered as a field-loadable
firmware package. The WAAS
G-IIIGalileo receiver will not be
qualified to DO-178B Level D as part
of this contract.
NovAtels WAAS G-III reference
receiver platform was designed with
expandability and multi-GNSS SBAS
evolution in mind, and can be customized to meet the needs of
individual satellite networks. NovAtel
has already delivered G-III based
reference receivers to several programs worldwide, including the
WAAS G-III receiver.
POWER AND PRECISION

AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
EZSURV POST-PROCESSING SOFTWARE
PROVIDES YOU WITH:

Access to more than 8,000 CORS stations data all around the world
Support multiple receiver native data format
State-of-the-art processing engine
Easy-to-use application
Flexible licensing mechanism
White Label version available for manufacturers
Compatible with
NOVEMBER 2015
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 53
DEFENSEUPDATE
Survey System Designed NEWSBRIEFS

to Meet Military Needs
ARMY SEEKS SOURCES
FOR GPS-DENIED UAS TECH
echnology Advancement
Group (TAG) has designed
a GNSS survey system to
meet the rigorous demands
of military geodetic, construction, and
field artillery and airfield surveying.
TAGs Precise Positioning Service
Global Positioning System Survey (PPS
GPS-S) system gives military survey
teams access to centimeter-level GPS
accuracy with the benefits of a fully
certified Selective Availability Antispoofing Module (SAASM) GPS receiver
supplemented with a GNSS receiver
for real-time kinematic surveying with
multi-constellation operations.
PPS GPS-S is the first military
Program of Record that we are aware of
to supplement a SAASM receiver with
data from a civilian GNSS receiver, said
John Borden, vice president of Programs
and Technologies at TAG.
TAG was able to meet the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS)
mandate for use of a SAASM receiver
for military support operations while
also providing the capabilities of a multiGNSS receiver needed by the modern
warfighter. Borden credits the companys
PNT integrity engine, which ensures
that suspect data will not be used in our
position solution, he said.
The PPS GPS-S system gives the
military surveyor the tools needed to
complete missions with minimum
time on station, even in the face of GPS
signal interference, attempted spoofing
or electronic warfare.
TAG was recently awarded a $24
million contract by the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, making PPS GPS-S the
Armys Program of Record military
survey system, designated AN/GSN-16.
Core components of the PPS GPS-S
system include a base station and two
54 G P S W O R L D
THE U.S. ARMYS Armament Research,

Development and Engineering Center
(ARDEC) in October issued a sources sought
notice for autonomous technologies
for its Autonomous Unmanned Systems
Teaming and Collaboration In GPS Denied
Environments program (AUSTC). The
notice says that technologies developed
for AUSTC could be used for a variety of
unmanned systems, including small UAS,
underwater vehicles and ground vehicles.
The center plans to to identify, invest,
mature and transition revolutionary/
game-changing autonomous unmanned
sensing technologies.
rovers, each integrated with a highprecision GNSS antenna, a rugged
tablet with a 7-inch sunlight-readable
touchscreen, an internal RF radio with
a 20-kilometer range, a SAASM receiver
to provide protection against jamming
or spoofing, and GPS-S accessories for
additional functionality.
The system, designed for continuous
operation, includes multiple power
options such as dual hot-swappable
Li-Ion batteries, 12V battery, DC/DC
converter, NATO adapter and four-slot
Li-Ion charging station. It is designed to
meet the most rigorous environmental
and electromagnetic interference and
compatibility (EMI/EMC) conditions.
Powered by Carlson SurvPC software,
TAGs PPS GPS-S system is tailored
for military environments that require
tactical computer-aided design (CAD)
operations. With an intuitive graphical
user interface, surveying operations
can be conducted in the field allowing
for work to be completed in real time.
Accurate geospatial information system
(GIS) data capture and a full suite of CAD
functions allow survey teams to remain
in the field to complete drawings.
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
NOVEMBER 2015
BULLRAY UAS FOR DEFENSE

THE BULLRAY UAS is a fully autonomous,
amphibious, man-portable tricopter/
quadcopter that makes vertical take-offs
and landings. Rated IP-67, the rugged
design is capable of performing in all
weather conditions and doesnt require
a transit case. It can carry a significant
sensor payload: GPS, FLIR cameras, lidar,
metal detection systems and more. Rapid
Composites builder of high-end UAVs for
the military and first responders custom
manufactures the units. The company
won the UAV category in the 2015 JEC
Innovation Awards.
DEFENSEUPDATE
NEWTECH
LOCKHEED UNVEILS ICARUS TO COUNTER UAS THREATS
At this years Association of the
United States Army (AUSA) Annual
Meeting, Lockheed Martin unveiled
a new capability that will allow users
to detect and counter emerging
threats from unmanned aerial
systems (UAS).
The solution, ICARUS, was
designed to operate defensively in
various threat environments. The
AUSA meeting was held Oct. 1214
in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. government is seeing an
increase in the use of commercially
available UAS platforms for
surveillance and weaponization,
said Deon Viergutz, vice president
of Cyber Solutions for Lockheed
Martin. What Lockheed Martin
has developed in ICARUS is a
UAV
Continued from page 49 >>
generally has to be moved to different

viewpoints, and all measured scenes
have to be registered and georeferenced,
a significant increased effort. In
contrast, with a directly georeferenced
kinematic laser scanning system,
complex scenes can be measured with
little effort.
FIGURE 6 shows a portable laser
scanning system we developed for
kinematic laser scanning. It combines
the direct georeferencing system with a
low-cost, lightweight 2D time-of-flight
laser scanner. Time synchronization
and the point cloud calculation are
directly realized on this unit.
FIGURE 7 shows differences between
a directly georeferenced point cloud,
measured by the portable laser
scanning system, and a terrestrial
ICARUS identifies
and intercepts
commercial UAS.
system that can detect, recognize

and counteract these systems with
pinpoint accuracy.
Lockheed Martins Counter-UAS
laser scanning point cloud, which

was indirectly georeferenced using
ground control points. Although there
are some systematic errors visible,
the differences are mostly less than
7.5 cm. The larger differences in the
foreground (red) are a result of growing
vegetation in the period between both
scans. The systematic errors result from
the system calibration between the laser
scanner and the direct georeferencing
system. We are working to improve
these calibration methods.
Manufacturers
The MAV is based on a MikroKopter
OktoXL assembly kit of HiSystems
GmbH. It uses NavXperience 3G+C
GPS antennas. The system consists
of a dual-frequency NovAtel OEM
615 GPS receiver, a single-frequency
u-blox LEA6T receiver, an Analog
Devices ADIS 16488 IMU, a Honeywell
NOVEMBER 2015
system has been field tested and

demonstrated to several domestic
and international customers over the
past year. Those tests demonstrated
the ability of ICARUS to identify
and intercept commercially available
unmanned aerial systems.
The development of the ICARUS
software system draws on Lockheed
Martins history of innovations in
electronic warfare, cybersecurity
and countermeasures associated
with
sophisticated threats. It was
developed through Lockheed
Martin internal investment and
combines advanced cyber and cyber
electromagnetic activity experience
with sensor technology and nonkinetic techniques.
HMC5883L magnetometer, an XBee

Pro 868 radio module, a National
Instruments sbRIO 9606 processing
unit and a Hokuyo UTM30LXEW 2D
time-of-flight laser scanner.
CHRISTIAN ELING holds an MSc degree in
geodesy and is a scientific assistant at the
Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation
(IGG) of the University of Bonn.
LASSE KLINGBEIL received his Ph.D. in
experimental physics in 2006. He heads the
GNSS and mobile multi-sensor systems
group in the IGG.
MARKUS WIELAND is a graduade mechanical
engineer responsible for the mechanical
and electrical design and for the control and
readout of various sensor systems at the IGG.
ERIK HEINZ received his MSc in geodesy and
geoinformation from the University of Bonn.
He is a Ph.D. student at the IGG.
HEINER KUHLMAN is a full professor at
the IGG. He has worked extensively in
engineering surveying, measurement
techniques and calibration of geodetic
instruments.
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 55
MACHINECONTROLUPDATE
Dredging Replenishes
Australias Sorrento Beach
hifting sands in Australias Port Phillip Bay left

a popular beach without enough sand this past
holiday season. As summer approached, the
Mornington Peninsula Shire and Australian
Department of Environment and Primary Industries
(DEPI) decided to replenish Sorrento beach by dredging
a nearby sandbank.
DEPI awarded the contract to Sandpiper Dredging
because of its history of minimizing environmental impact.
Sandpiper has a decade of dredging experience and builds its
own precision dredgers in Tweed Heads, New South Wales.
The contract specified the dredge ground extent and
the minimum Australian Height Datum (AHD) height
Sandpiper could dredge. To obtain precise 3D positions
from the GPS receiver, GPS corrections were streamed
in via cellular Internet from the Victorian governments
Machine-control positioning enabled Sandpiper to precisely

place in 3D the cutter suction head on the dredge frame in real time.
Continually Operating Reference System (CORS). Position

and heading from the SPS461 receiver were interfaced
into construction software to display dredge position. The
inclinometer mounted on the dredge frame also interfaced
with the software and allowed the AHD height of the cutter
head to be displayed.
The dredge position displayed in the software allowed
operators to stay within the dredge grounds and ensure no
over-dredging occurred. The software was the central hub
in the wheelhouse displaying and logging dredge positions
See DREDGING, next page.
>>
HYDROGRAPHIC TECH
To achieve the job specifications and efficient operation
of their dredge, Sandpiper needed hydrographic survey
technology on board. SITECH Construction Systems, a
Trimble distributor, provided the company with:
Trimble SPS461 GPS heading and positioning receiver
Inclinometer to measure the angle of the cutter head
frame
Trimble HYDROpro dredge software to display and log
seabed levels. The software can be configured for a
wide range of dredgers.
After speaking about the challenges we had been
facing, SITECH came back with the solution of the Trimble
HYDROpro system, which meant we could dredge in
exactly the right place and maintain coverage, all the
while protecting the environment of the beach, said
Daniel Fristch, owner of Sandpiper.
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NOVEMBER 2015
MACHINECONTROLUPDATE
NEWTECH
DREDGING
<< Continued from page 56.
and the AHD height of the dredge head.
The software also allowed the dredge operator to focus on
controlling the dredge rather than trying to determine where
to dredge. Using GPS and AUSGeoid09 removed the need
for considering tide data because the software displayed
the AHD height. The logged data could be delivered to the
client as an as-built drawing.
The beach was replenished within budget and on time
for the holiday season, and the community is now enjoying
the restored beach.
NEWSBRIEFS
SEPTENTRIO OFFERS TWO
DUAL-ANTENNA RECEIVERS
THE SEPTENTRIO AsteRx-U and
the AsteRx-U Marine multiconstellation dual-antenna
receivers incorporate the latest
GNSS tracking and positioning
algorithms and interference mitigation. Machine-control users
in the agricultural and construction industries, as well as users in
marine and mining industries, benefit from a complete system
with integrated UHF radio, Wi-Fi, USB, Bluetooth and cellular
connectivity, and a spectrum analyzer, Septentrio said. All
configurations can be done via the on-board web interface.
YIELDTRAKK MONITORS CROPS

Topcon Precision Agriculture
has expanded its precision
agriculture line with the new
yield monitoring system
YieldTrakk.
YieldTrakk is an optical
sensing, volumetric solution
designed to provide operators
with the real-time data collection needed to make intelligent business decisions in the combine cab and afterward.
It includes monitoring and mapping of yield (in bushels or
tonnes), moisture and cut rate, and the total weight of crops
during harvest. The new yield monitor system is integrated
with Topcon Horizon software on the Topcon X30 touchscreen console, displaying the yield and moisture levels.
The system is a universal solution designed to fit nearly
every brand of combine on todays market, Topcon said.
CARLSON MINING SUPPORTS HAUL TRUCKS

CARLSON MINING 2016 has improvements and added support for
AutoCAD 2016 and the new IntelliCAD 8.1. The improvements span
the four mining modules:
Basic Mining, Geology,
Surface Mining, and
Underground Mining. An
upgrade to the Haul Truck
Cycle Analysis command
now accounts for mixed
fleets, delay points and 3D
playback of trucks along
the haul route. In the Underground Mining module, support has
been added for multi-level mining with the addition of level
labels, allowing the processing of overlapping mine panels with
ease.
NOVEMBER 2015
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 57
WITH RICHARD B. LANGLEY
ENHANCED LORAN
A Wide-Area Multi-Application PNT Resiliency Solution
BY STEPHEN BARTLETT, GERARD OFFERMANS
AND CHARLES SCHUE
elecommunications, energy, finance and

transportation are just four among the many
critical infrastructure / key resource sectors
that have come to rely solely on GPS for
positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). In fact, the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has determined that 11 of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors in
the U.S. are critically dependent on GPS for timing. While
we can start to imagine what a day without GPS might
be like, wed really rather not it would be somewhat
depressing and really quite dangerous. We would rather
imagine a day when there is a wide-area complementary
solution available that protects and augments GPS. In
this article, we will delve into such a solution: Enhanced
Loran, or eLoran for short. We will explain how it works,
debunk some myths, speculate on how it could be used
in the U.S. (and abroad), highlight the state of current
technology and discuss the state of the possible. We will
also summarize the state of eLoran in the world and
where things might go from here.
FIGURE 1 Overview of a representative eLoran system.
TS3100 GPS PRS

performance
ETSI PRC mask
WHAT IS eLORAN?
eLoran is the latest in the longstanding and proven series
of low-frequency, LOng-RAnge Navigation (LORAN)
systems, one that takes full advantage of 21st-century
technology. It meets the accuracy, availability, integrity
and continuity performance requirements for maritime
harbor entrance and approach maneuvers, aviation
non-precision instrument approaches, land-mobile
vehicle navigation and location-based services. Its a
precise source of time (phase) and frequency. Additionally, eLoran provides user bearing (azimuth) and has
built-in integrity. In full disclosure, however, eLoran is
only a 2D positioning solution unless integrated with a
simple altimeter.
eLoran is a low-frequency radionavigation system that
operates in the frequency band of 90 to 110 kHz. eLoran
is built on internationally standardized Loran-C, and
provides a high-power PNT service for use by all modes
of transport and in other applications. eLoran is an inde-
58 G P S W O R L D
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NOVEMBER 2015
UN-150 eLoran
performance
FIGURE 2 Maximum time interval error plot of eLoran and GPS.
pendent dissimilar complement to GNSS. It allows GNSS

users to retain the safety, security and economic benefits
of GNSS even when their satellite services are disrupted.
eLoran uses pulsed signals at a center frequency of 100
kHz. The pulses are designed to allow receivers to distinguish between the groundwave and skywave components
in the received composite signal. This way, the eLoran
signals can be used over very long ranges without fading
or uncertainty in the time-of-arrival (TOA) measurement
related to skywaves.
Although eLoran is based upon Loran-C, it has key
differences:
All transmissions are synchronized to UTC (like GPS)
Time-of-transmission control
The ability to use differential corrections (similar to DGPS)

Receivers use all-in-view signals
Includes one or more Loran data channels that provide: Low-rate data messaging, added integrity, differential
corrections (dLoran and/or DGPS)
and other communications including
navigation messages.
An eLoran receiver measures the TOA
of the eLoran signal:
TOA = TOR TOT = PF + SF + ASF + Rx
where TOR is time of reception, TOT is
time of transmission, PF is the primary
factor (propagation delay through air), SF
is the secondary factor (propagation delay
over sea), ASF is the additional secondary
factor (propagation delay over terrain) and
Rx is the delay due to receiver electronics
and cables.
The primary and secondary factors are
well-defined delays and can be calculated
as a function of distance. The additional
secondary factor delay is mostly unknown
at the time of installation. Fortunately,
the ASFs remain very stable over time.
Any fine changes in ASF over time may
be compensated for by one or more differential eLoran reference station sites
providing corrections over the Loran
data channel.
When eLoran is used for positioning,
a minimum of three eLoran transmitting sites are needed to calculate a twodimensional position fix and time. Time
(phase) and frequency can be derived
from a single transmitting site as well.
With three sites, timing can be derived
while a receiver is in motion. An integrated
eLoran/GPS receiver can take advantage
of combinations of eLoran and GPS transmissions to develop a PNT solution. Any
additional measurements provide a means
to improve the solutions accuracy (using
weighted least squares) or to protect the
solutions integrity (by receiver-autonomous integrity monitoring).
To achieve the highest accuracy levels,
the user receiver corrects its TOA measurements with the published ASF values
INNOVATIONINSIGHTS
BY RICHARD B. LANGLEY
WHERE HAVE ALL THE SYSTEMS GONE, long time passing? Radionavigation systems,
that is (and apologies to Pete Seeger). If we look at the 1990 Federal Radionavigation
Plan (FRP), published by the U.S. Departments of Transportation and Defense, as I did in
this column in March 1992, we see that there were 10 radionavigation systems in use
by different user segments: Loran-C, Omega, very high frequency (VHF) Omnidirectional
Range/Distance Measuring Equipment, Tactical Air Navigation, the Instrument Landing
System, the Microwave Landing System, Transit, aviation radiobeacons, marine
radiobeacons and GPS. The latest FRP, issued in 2014, includes only seven or six and
a half when you consider that marine radiobeacons were mostly phased out in the
intervening years. Systems were shut down because with the advent of GPS, they were
considered to be redundant. While there were attendant cost savings, the closure of
the various systems has resulted in a dangerous virtual sole dependence on GPS for
navigation without any backup.
Transit, was the first to go. It consisted of a constellation of six or seven active
satellites in circular, polar orbits at altitudes of roughly 1,100 kilometers. The satellites
transmitted signals on 150 and 400 MHz, and receivers measured the integrated
Doppler frequency shift of the received signals. Transit was terminated at the end of
1996.
Transit was followed by the Omega hyperbolic navigation system. Omega consisted
of eight stations around the globe transmitting time-shared carrier-wave signals on
four frequencies between 10.2 and 13.6 kHz. The Omega system was closed down in
September 1997.
The marine radiobeacons have been mostly shut down in recent years, although
aeronautical beacons continue to operate. Radiobeacons are nondirectional transmitters
that operate in the low- and medium-frequency bands. Some marine radiobeacons
became Differential GPS stations and subsequently part of the Nationwide DGPS
network. That network is being scaled back to provide only coastal and Great Lakes
coverage.
And that brings us to Loran-C. Like Omega, it was also a hyperbolic navigation system.
A receiver measured the difference in times of arrival of pulses transmitted at 100 kHz
by a chain of three to five synchronized stations separated by hundreds of kilometers.
At one time, the operation of Loran-C was the responsibility of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Together with a number of host nations, the Coast Guard operated 17 chains of stations
around the world, including one jointly operated with Russia. These stations provided
coverage of the coastal areas of North America and the U.S. interior, northern Europe,
the Mediterranean Sea, the Far East and the Hawaiian Islands. Additionally, several other
countries operated Loran-C stations. Although moves were already underway to update
the Loran technology, the Obama administration decided to terminate Loran-C in the U.S.,
considering it to be an unnecessary antiquated system. The Coast Guard terminated the
transmission of all U.S. Loran-C signals in February 2010 and began dismantling stations.
So, is there no longer a viable non-GNSS alternative or backup system for GPS
navigation? While there are other possibilities for time transfer, one of GPSs other
applications, there is no widely available substitute navigation system. Currently.
However, as we will see in this months column, a new version of Loran Enhanced
Loran or eLoran has been developed and is being tested on the U.S. east coast. Not
your fathers Loran, eLoran seems to be the perfect solution for PNT resiliency.
NOVEMBER 2015
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G P S W O R L D 59
Frequency Comparision of FDR with GPS vs with eLoran

60.06
10
Unwrap angle (radians)
Frequency (Hz)
Angle Comparision of FDR with GPS vs with eLoran
Frequency-FDR with GPS

Frequency-FDR with eLoran
60.04
60.02
60.00
59.98
59.96
Angle-FDR with GPS

Angle-FDR with eLoran
0
-10
-20
-30
-40
-50
59.94
0
500
1000
Time (seconds)
1500
2000
500
Frequency-FDR with GPS

Frequency-FDR with eLoran
Unwrap angle (radians)
Frequency (Hz)
59.995
59.990
59.985
59.980
1000
Time (seconds)
1500
2000
Angle Comparision of FDR with GPS vs with eLoran
Frequency Comparision of FDR with GPS vs with eLoran
Angle-FDR with GPS

Angle-FDR with eLoran
2
0
-2
-4
-6
59.975
40
60
80
100
Time (seconds)
120
140
20
40
60
80
100
Time (seconds)
120
140
FIGURE 3 Frequency data recorder outputs from GPS and eLoran.
FIGURE 4 Zero-baseline accuracy at Humber reference station.
for the area and differential eLoran corrections received through

the Loran data channel. ASF maps for specific geographic areas
are distributed to users in a receiver-independent data format
that is currently being standardized by the Radio Technical
Committee for Maritime Services (RTCMs) Special Committee
(SC) 127 on eLoran. The ASF map data would be published by
the service provider responsible for aids to navigation.
As described before, the measured ASF values remain stable
over long periods of time. Any small changes in the published
ASFs due to changes in propagation path characteristics or
transmitter-related delays will be compensated for by differential
corrections. For this, a differential eLoran reference station site is
deployed within 20 to 30 miles (32 to 48 kilometers) of the area
of interest. The reference station compares its measured ASFs
against the published values and broadcasts corrections to the
users through the Loran data channel. FIGURE 1 shows the principle
of differential eLoran positioning in a maritime environment
and is representative of its use in other modalities as well.
eLoran meets the application requirements shown in TABLE 1.
While unaided, Loran-C does not meet the requirements for
a multi-modal, redundant PNT system, specifically the position accuracy requirement. The U.S. first developed eLoran to
reduce the positioning error and to enable the system to meet
modal performance requirements.
60 G P S W O R L D
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eLORAN APPLICATIONS
We are staunch advocates of GPS and believe it should be fully
funded, kept technically advanced, protected, toughened and
augmented. When GPS is available and trustworthy, it should
be used. However, no technology is failsafe, and prudent users
should not rely on a sole source for their PNT needs. GPS
has been called a single point of failure for much of the U.S.
economy and critical infrastructure. Applications and requirements vary widely from wireless network communications of
1.5 microseconds, to maritime harbor entrance and approach
requirements of 20 meters, to phasor measurement unit
requirements in the electric power grid of 500 nanoseconds.
It is important to recognize the challenge of providing assured
PNT while also taking advantage of the efficiencies gained by
implementing a common solution across all sectors, industries
and users. Point solutions can provide complementary PNT
for specific individual or modal needs, and any resilient PNT
ecosystem includes multiple levels of redundancy.
Some key application areas in which eLoran can provide
complementary PNT are telecommunications, energy, finance
and transportation. We believe these will be some of the first
sectors to adopt and exploit eLoran as a component of their
critical infrastructure protection and possibly as a co-primary
PNT solution alongside GPS.
Telecommunications Sector. A March 2014 letter from the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) to the
National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee
contained an attached document, Recommended Updates to
Telecom Vulnerability to Loss of GPS Signals Documentation, that
outlined three areas of concern that ATIS has identified relating
to the exposure of commercial communications systems to a
loss of the GPS signal. Included in the documentation was the
statement: With the Loran systems decommissioned, GPS is
currently the only technology that can meet synchronization
requirements for E911 as there is no other widely available access to UTC time of day in the United States. eLorans Loran
data channel provides the UTC time-of-day information that
the telecommunications industry seeks, as well as providing
complementary timing (phase) and/or frequency solutions
that would mitigate ATISs concerns about: (1) the size of the
area and duration effects of a GPS outage, (2) the effects of
spoofing, (3) the inability of oven-controlled crystal oscillators (OCXOs) to maintain phase alignment for 24 hours at 1.5
microseconds, and (4) the phase performance of OCXOs in
varying temperature environments.
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute
Primary Reference Clock mask is one tool used by the telecommunications industry to determine the quality of timing signals
in telecommunication applications. FIGURE 2 shows that eLoran
is able to meet maximum time interval error (a measurement
of wander or time stability) requirements, often outperforming
NOVEMBER 2015
Application
Maritime harbor entrance and approach
Aviation non-precision approach
(required navigation performance 0.3)
Timing
Accuracy
20 meters (95%)
0.3 nautical mile or 556 meters (95%)
Availability
0.998 over two years
0.999 0.9999
Integrity
10 seconds time to alarm
1 10-7 per hour
Continuity
0.9997 over three hours
0.999 0.9999 over 150
seconds
Stratum-1 frequency stability; timing to

50 nanoseconds from UTC
TABLE 1 eLoran system performance requirements.
GPS. Testing was performed independently in a cooperative effort between the United Kingdom National Physical Laboratory
and Chronos Technology Ltd., UrsaNavs reseller in England.
Energy Sector. At present, GPS is the only time source for
phasor measurement unit (PMU) (also known as synchrophasor) and frequency data recorder (FDR) sensors used to collect
data that measures the state of an electrical system and manages power quality. PMUs/FDRs are a necessary component
of the movement to a smart-grid approach to improve energy
efficiency on the electrical grid and in businesses and homes.
PMUs and FDRs cease to work if the GPS signal is lost or unstable. In 2013, UrsaNav began working with the University of
Tennessee at Knoxville (UTK) to demonstrate the capability
of eLoran, alongside GPS, to provide the necessary timing accuracy for UTKs high-precision FDRs to collect synchrophasor
data from the U.S. power grid. The required accuracy of the
timing reference source is 500 nanoseconds, needed by each
device performing synchrophasor measurements.
The laboratory setup in Bedford, Mass., used side-by-side
FDRs: one using a GPS receiver and one using an eLoran receiver. Other than replacing the GPS receiver with an eLoran
receiver in one of the FDRs, no other changes were made. The
eLoran signals were being transmitted from a former U.S. Coast
Guard (USCG) Loran Support Unit in Wildwood, N.J., more
than 300 miles (483 kilometers) from our Bedford laboratory.
Raw eLoran was used for the test, that is, with no
differential corrections nor continuous receiver antenna
calibration. FIGURE 3 shows the resultant frequency and phase
angle comparisons between GPS and eLoran. Green is eLoran;
black is GPS. Frequency comparisons are on the left, top
and bottom. Phase angle comparisons are on the right, top
and bottom. The bottom left graph is a blow-up of the area
encircled in red in the top left graph. The bottom right graph
is a blow-up of the area encircled in red in the top right graph.
In both cases, eLoran performs on par with GPS.
Financial Sector. A European Securities and Markets Authority
(ESMA) report, dated May 22, 2014, indicates that the majority
of trading venues are already coordinated with GPS time, and
further states that the deployment of these systems might be
costly and technically challenging. ESMAs view is that each
trading venue and market participant should rely on an atomic
clock to issue timestamps. An eLoran timing alternative would
be less costly, less technically challenging, and, when used in
concert with other solutions (such as GPS, atomic clocks or

Network Time Protocol / Precision Time Protocol) would also
provide trusted time. eLoran would provide absolute time over
very wide areas, thereby allowing dispersed markets and users to
take advantage of this synchronized time solution. Additionally,
eLoran can often provide time indoors, using a magnetic field
(H-field) antenna, thereby precluding the permits and expense
required for a rooftop antenna installation. ESMA has asked for
industry comment on its proposed requirement to synchronize
clocks to the microsecond level, and invited industry responses
to its preliminary view that business clocks be accurate at least
up to the microsecond level.
Transportation Sector Aviation. PNT use in air traffic management is illustrative. In accord with U.S. Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) planning, a principal surveillance source
NOVEMBER 2015
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G P S W O R L D 61
FIGURE 5 Onboard, en route accuracy on the Humber River.
in the U.S. national air space (NAS) by 2020 will be Automatic

Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), where the required positional accuracy of aircraft relies on GPS position.
Moreover, the independent validation and backup of GPS-derived positions relies on accurate time-of-arrival measurements
at a network of 650 radio stations in the NAS that currently use
GPS-disciplined clocks with accuracy down to 30 nanoseconds.
These radio stations are critical infrastructure of the Surveillance
and Broadcast Services (SBS) system, which provides ADS-B
surveillance to FAA air traffic management (ATM).
The FAA recognizes the need for a backup to surveillance
and navigation in the event of local, regional and wide-scale
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GPS outages, and is examining both near-term and long-term

strategies for continuity of operations during those outages.
Because of the long lead times for ATM technology insertion, near-term mitigation strategies out to at least 10 years
are constrained by existing ATM ground infrastructure and
current avionics capabilities. Long-term solutions are not so
constrained, and may be based on new signals in space, new
ground infrastructure and new avionics capabilities.
Surveillance. Beginning in 2020, ADS-B will be a principal
surveillance technology. In recognition of the need for a backup
if GPS fails, the FAA is planning to maintain a mix of beaconinterrogation radar and wide-area multilateration (WAM) in
the near term. The long-term strategy is still very much in the
evolutionary stage.
Navigation. Near-term strategies involve a mix of approaches
based upon existing infrastructure and the current capability
of avionics. A leading approach, referred to as DME/DME/
IRU, uses two-way ranging to multiple Distance Measuring
Equipment (DME) facilities augmented by the avionics inertial
reference unit (IRU). This approach is practical and applicable
more to air carrier aircraft than regional jets or general aviation.
Other approaches rely to some extent on the use of very high
frequency Omni-Directional Range (VOR) facilities. As with
surveillance, the long-term strategy is very much evolutionary.
It is instructive to note that near-term solutions rely on existing radar, DME and VOR infrastructure because it is in place
and is compatible with existing avionics. In the long-term view,
new technologies with less costly infrastructure are likely to be
more cost-effective, especially if they provide benefits beyond
ATM applications. eLoran is such a technology.
Transportation Sector Maritime. There is an increasing awareness in the maritime world that no single system can provide
PNT resiliently under all circumstances. At this moment, GPS
(with augmentations) is used on most commercial vessels, and
in many cases integrated into systems we did not expect would
need or use GPS-derived position or time. Even though the
introduction of GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou and other GNSS
systems will provide some resilience, the underlying (satellite)
technology remains the same, only providing relatively weak
signals from space at mostly the same or close-by frequencies
for compatibility and inter-operability.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) recognizes
the need for multiple PNT systems on board maritime vessels. The organization developed the e-Navigation concept to
increase maritime safety and security via means of electronic
navigation, which calls for at least two independent dissimilar
sources of positioning and time in a navigation system to make
it robust and fail safe. As a follow on, IMOs Navigation, Communications and Search and Rescue Committee is considering
performance standards for multi-system shipborne navigation
receivers, which includes placeholders for satellite, augmenta-
NOVEMBER 2015
FIGURE 6 Resilient PNT receiver and dual-band antenna.
tion and terrestrial systems.

The most viable terrestrial system providing PNT services
that meet IMOs requirements is eLoran. With three eLoran
transmitters in good geometry, eLoran can provide sub-10
meter (95 percent probability level) horizontal positioning
accuracy and UTC synchronization within 50 nanoseconds,
sufficient to be the co-primary PNT solution with GNSS. The
General Lighthouse Authorities of the United Kingdom and
Ireland (GLAs) have installed UrsaNavs differential eLoran
reference stations to provide the worlds first initial operational
capability (IOC) eLoran system. Together with Loran transmitters in England, France, Germany, Norway and Denmark, the
differential eLoran reference stations provide better than 10meter positioning accuracy at seven ports and port approaches
along the English and Scottish east coast. IOC was achieved
at the end of 2014, with full operational capability planned
for 2018. Other nations have either begun, or are exploring,
similar projects.
FIGURE 4 shows the accuracy of an eLoran position at the differential reference station on the Humber River in England.
FIGURE 5 shows the position accuracy while on board a vessel
transiting outbound on the river from Humber to the North Sea.
transmitting site equipment is smaller, lighter, requires less

input power, and generates significantly less waste heat than
previously used Loran-C equipment.
The core technology at a differential eLoran reference station site consists of three differential eLoran reference station
or integrity monitors (RSIMs) configurable as reference station
(RS) or integrity monitor (IM) or hot standby (RS or IM). The
site includes electric field (E-field) antennas for each of the
three RSIMs.
Modern eLoran receivers are really software-defined radios,
and are backward compatible with Loran-C and forward compatible, through firmware or software changes. ASF tables are
included in the receivers, and can be updated via the Loran data
channel. eLoran receivers can be standalone or integrated with
GNSS, inertial navigation systems, chip-scale atomic clocks,
barometric altimeters, sensors for signals-of-opportunity, and
so on. Basically, any technology that can be integrated with
GPS can also be integrated with eLoran.
FIGURE 6 shows a resilient PNT receiver that includes GPS,
DGPS, eLoran and a dual-band (100/300 kHz) E-field antenna.
The left-hand antenna, shown installed on the P&O Ferries
Pride of Hull, is the resilient PNT antenna. The right-hand
antenna is a standard GPS antenna.
CURRENT STATE OF eLORAN TECHNOLOGY

eLoran technology has been available since the mid-1990s and
is still available today. In fact, the state-of-the-art of eLoran
continues to advance along with other 21st-century technology. eLoran system technology can be broken down into a few
simple components: transmitting site, control and monitor site,
differential reference station site and user equipment.
Modern transmitting site equipment consists of a highpower, modular, fully redundant, hot-swappable and software
configurable transmitter, and sophisticated timing and control
equipment. Standard transmitter configurations are available in
power ranges from 125 kilowatts to 1.5 megawatts. The timing
and control equipment includes a variety of external timing
inputs to a remote time scale, and a local time scale consisting
of three ensembled cesium-based primary reference standards.
The local time scale is not directly coupled to the remote time
scale. Having a robust local time scale while still monitoring
many types of external time sources provides a unique ability to
provide proof-of-position and proof-of-time. Modern eLoran
NOVEMBER 2015
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
G P S W O R L D 63
WORLD VIEW OF eLORAN

Nine nations are operating Loran-C or eLoran stations,
including Russia and China. It is our understanding that the
Republic of Korea, India and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are
pursuing the installation of eLoran technology or upgrading
their Loran-C technology to eLoran.
The modernization and upgrade of the U.S. Loran-C
system to eLoran was a congressionally mandated program
jointly executed by the FAA and USCG from 1997 to 2009,
and funded at $160 million. During this time, eLoran was
successfully tested and demonstrated in all modes: aviation,
maritime, land-mobile, location-based, and timing and frequency. Further, eLoran has been successfully in operation
in the U.K. for several years. Every national and international
government, industry and academic report has concluded that
GNSS is vulnerable and that eLoran is the best complementary
solution to help negate those vulnerabilities.
The U.S. terminated its Loran-C service, and thereby its
nascent eLoran program, in 2010. Canada followed suit and
terminated its Loran-C service as well. Shortly thereafter, DHS/
USCG began dismantling or demolishing the modernized
infrastructure. However, in December 2014, Congress directed
that DHS/USCG preserve the existing, unused U.S. Loran-C
NE
MARWKETO
T!
infrastructure, unless the Secretary of Homeland Security

certifies it is not needed for a system to complement GPS.
In April 2015, U.S. House of Representation Resolution
(H.R.) 1678, a bill that would require establishment of a
strong, difficult-to-disrupt terrestrial system to complement
GPS, and to serve as another source of PNT when GPS isnt
available, was referred to the Committee on Armed Services.
The bill seeks to amend the language that provided for the
establishment and management of GPS in Title 10, the section of law that deals with the armed services. We understand
that other members of Congress have expressed interest
and will be co-sponsoring the bipartisan bill. H.R. 1678 was
introduced by Congressman John Garamendi (Democrat,
Calif.) with Congressman Duncan Hunter (Republican,
Calif.), Congressman Frank LoBiondo (Republican, N.J.) and
Congressman Peter DeFazio (Democrat, Ore.) as the initial
co-sponsors. In August, the bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.
Additionally, in May 2015, the DHS and USCG entered
into a cooperative research and development agreement with
UrsaNav and Exelis (now part of Harris Corp.) to research,
evaluate and document at least one alternative to GPS as a
means of providing PNT information in the form of eLoran.
It is our understanding that the U.S. Congress is still
considerably concerned about the lack of a complementary
PNT solution to safeguard U.S. critical infrastructure and key
resource sectors, and to protect our economy in the event of
a GPS outage. Congress continues to press the administration for a resolution, in the form of a continental U.S. eLoran
system, before our nation is placed at further risk.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of Dr.
Ron Bruno, Harris Corp., and Dr. Paul Williams and Chris
Hargreaves, GLAs.
MANUFACTURERS
UrsaNav (www.ursanav.com) provided the eLoran receiver
and Symmetricom, now Microsemi (www.microsemi.com)
provided the GPS receiver for the timing tests shown in
Figure 2.
STEVE BARTLETT is vice president of operations at UrsaNav, Inc., North
Billerica, Mass.
The Industrys First
Online Buyers Guide
GERARD OFFERMANS is senior research scientist at UrsaNav engaged in

various R&D project work and product development.
CHARLES SCHUE is co-owner and president of UrsaNav.
Access hundreds of: Manufacturers Products Services
MORE ONLINE
Further Reading
Visit & bookmark it today!
GPSWORLDBUYERSGUIDE.COM
Have a question about the directory? Contact Chloe Kalin at 216-363-7929.
64 G P S W O R L D
WWW.GPSWORLD.COM
NOVEMBER 2015
For references related to this article, go to gpsworld.com and click on Innovation

in the navigation bar.
SEAMLESS INDOORS
SENSOR AUGMENTED INDOOR
NAVIGATION AND POSITIONING, by
M. Gemelli and Keith Nicholson, Bosch
Sensortec. An overview of technologies that guide us indoors in a seamless
and reliable manner, highlighting key
requirements for motion and pressure
sensing, low-power processing, efficient code design, wireless beaconing
and map matching. Fusion software
needs new data sources: Bluetooth
low-energy, Wi-Fi fingerprinting, magnetic fingerprinting, ultrasound. Presented at ION GNSS+ 2015.
DISTURBED IONOSPHERE
MITIGATING SATELLITE MOTION IN
GPS MONITORING OF TRAVELING
IONOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES (TIDS),
by R.W. Penney and N.K. JacksonBooth. Discusses the impact of satellite
motion on the use of compact arrays
of GPS receivers for estimating the
velocity of travelling ionospheric
disturbances (TIDs). It is shown that
satellite motion has subtle effects
upon standard techniques of waveform
cross-correlation, or time-difference
of arrival (TDOA), which can easily lead
to spurious TID velocity estimates. In
RADIO SCIENCE, an AGU journal.
Rover Positions obtained with 2D LTE versus GPS track.
POSITIONING WITH LTE SIGNALS
n alternative to GNSS in
urban canyons can be
provided by signals from
cellular base stations, particularly
new signals from long-term evolution
(LTE) networks, since LTE coverage
will be high in cities. Wide LTE
downlink bandwidth provides good
resolution of multipath components,
which also assists positioning.
A test used a universal software
radio peripheral N210 synchronized
to a GPS-locked Rubidium frequency
standard. A personal computer
stored LTE data samples together
with GNSS sentences from a u-blox
LEA-6T module. A Matlab-algorithm

did the complete post-processing,
extracting pseudoranges for the
LTE base station and calculating the
position solution.
Results of a car driven on an
urban route show root-mean-square
value of the absolute error using
LTE compared to GPS position is
43 meters.
Positioning Using LTE Signals,
by Fabian Knutti, Mischa Sabathy,
Marco Driusso, Heinz Mathis, and
Chris Marshall. Presented at the
European Navigation Conference
2015.
ADVERTISER INDEX: COMPANIES FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE

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INSTITUTE OF NAVIGATION
JAVAD GNSS
KCS BV
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SEPTENTRIO
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SUZHOU FOIF
TALLYSMAN
TRIMBLE
U-BLOX
UNICORE COMMUNICATIONS
NOVEMBER 2015
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BACK COVER
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5
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41
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G P S W O R L D 65
SEEN HEARD
SHAPE-CHANGING GUIDANCE
FOR THE BLIND
A handheld GPS device uses touch to let the
visually impaired know where to walk, reports
YaleNews. Made with a 3D printer, the cubeshaped Animotus was designed by Adam
Spiers, a Yale University post-doctoral associate
in mechanical engineering.
PRISON BREAK
Drug lord El Chapo
Guzman had a television
in his cell equipped with
GPS tracking, according to
the Mexican newspaper La
Jornada. El Chapo escaped
through a mile-long tunnel
on July 11. The GPS device
might explain why El
Chapos associates were
able to precisely excavate
a tunnel into his cell.
ROAMING FREE
GPS collars have stopped working on
two of three tigers released into the
wild in May 2014 by Russian President
Vladimir Putin. However, Siberian Times
reports one tiger was seen by wildlife
cameras on a grand tour of the Russian
Far East.
A CORNY TRIBUTE
University of Georgia precision
agriculture students used GPS to
design a corn maze in honor of
football coach Mark Richt. Covering
6.1 acres, the maze is the largest ever
constructed at Rutland Farms, and
received national coverage on ESPN.
DRIVE ALONG WITH DAD
Czech automaker KODA is
offering a tablet game that gives
kids the opportunity to follow
along as their parent drives. With
the LittleDriver app, children can
imitate the drivers actions using
real data from the car, and collect
points to design a virtual KODA.
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NOVEMBER 2015
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Four Point-Cloud Images from four UAV flights

Data Use in a Lightweight Direct Georeferencing System

OPINIONS AND DEPARTMENTS

Progress Toward Flying

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, PROFESSIONAL OEM

inland just published what

and then observe some commonsense rules of operation, you are

Read Tonys complete column at

Results from reader poll conducted August 2015.

HOTTEST PAGES @ GPSWORLD.COM

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SkyTraq Launches RTK Receiver for UAVs, Mobile

GPS III Launch Services RFP Released by Air Force

Establishing Orthometric Heights Using GNSS

Speakers: Two private operators and two

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INTERGEO 2015: NVS Technologies AG Showcases OEM

ION GNSS+ 2015: NovAtel Debuts New Antennas

ION GNSS+ 2015: Harris Corp. Presents GPS Navigation Payload

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND GROUP PUBLISHER

PS to the power of PNT.

forms of software that go into making

locate, communicate, accelerate

Solving PNT Problems on Mars

ast year, on my way

the near future, and grounds

It moves quickly, jumping

limited supplies he has on

organization focusing primarily over the next 510 years?

GPS, and GNSS generally, will

GPS was the catalyst for a revolution in the application of precise

That we need alternatives to

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Policy and System

New BeiDou TMBOC Signal Tracked

hinas new third-generation BeiDou satellites

figure 1: BeiDou TMBOC: correlation intensity (l) of BOC(1,1)

figure 2: BeiDou TMBOC: Output of early-late correlator (dI

gain antenna in Weilheim, operated

United Launch Alliance Atlas

its generation, is destined for space in

hortly after the Galileo satellite

Ranging & eLoran

STOIC Technology to Augment

surpasses GPS levels of performance.

STOIC objective picosecond-accurate

Future STOIC applications could include precision relative navigation

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