How many Iridium satellites carry your system?

Mike O’Connor

Iridium has 66 active satellites. There are also several spares on orbit. The satellites were all launched between 2016 and 2018, so they are all relatively new. They cover the entire globe, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so they have universal coverage.

How will your constellation grow?

Today, our Satellite Time and Location (STL) service is offered only over the Iridium satellites. There’s nothing else that we’re discussing publicly. It could expand over time to other satellites. The signal and the capability are flexible. In terms of how Iridium could change, that’s more for Iridium to discuss than us.

Who makes chipsets that can use your system? And how does that work?

We work with partners. For example, with Adtran (through their Oscilloquartz product line), Jackson Labs (now VIAVI Solutions), Orolia (now Safran Trusted 4D). Companies like that provide the solutions that are favored by critical infrastructure providers today. We provide them either reference designs or effectively referenced designs. They ultimately integrate our STL capability into their solutions. We help them to do that. They can use our reference designs or create their own custom designs based on our reference designs. So, that’s the model that we use.

Is the STL receiver on top of a traditional GNSS receiver and passing certain data to it?

STL is used in two ways. In some cases, users are trying to do positioning or timing in an environment where GNSS signals will not reach, such as indoors, or are otherwise unavailable. In those cases, it wouldn’t be overlaid with GNSS, it would just be a standalone solution.

In many other cases, the goal is having a solution that is resilient to an outage, interference, jamming, spoofing, those sorts of things. In that case, the receiver card that might be provided by one of our partner companies would have both GNSS and STL capabilities and would take the best of both worlds. If GPS is jammed or there’s interference, then the STL signal alone would be sufficient to do PNT. However, whenever both signals are available and can be authenticated, then it would use both and leverage the benefits of having two systems.

Does the location calculation take place in a GNSS chip or separately in the STL?

The chain to take measurements of the STL satellite signals is different. It’s not a single chip that’s measuring both satellites, it’s ultimately two chips that are making those measurements. Then how the position calculation and the integration of those signals is done is left to our partners. In some cases, it is proprietary to the partners that are doing that integration work. It can be integrated loosely or tightly.

When it’s just the STL chip, is that usually for timing purposes, or both timing and location?

Generally, an STL-only solution is best suited for timing. It’ll do timing at about 100 ns, depending on what kind of oscillator is being used and the exact configuration of the product.

What positional accuracies can you achieve?

Generally, in the 10 m to 20 m range, depending on the product configuration.

Most of the correction services refer to variables that are not relevant to your system.

That’s right. There are other techniques, such as integrating with other sensors, that can improve the accuracy. The primary uses for STL today are in delivering timing in environments where GNSS is not able to do so today, such as for national critical infrastructure. That’s been our commercial focus as a company.

Who currently uses the STL receivers? Which markets are you targeting first?

Most of our users are in the data center space. Stock exchanges around the world are also using our service as a source of resiliency, and now wireless infrastructure. So, think 5G infrastructure. As 5G networks are rolling out, they need about five to ten times more nodes to cover a geographic area than 4G networks. GNSS has been used for years to time 4G networks, but most 5G network sites — such as femtocells and picocells — are indoors or in places where GNSS is challenged. We deliver that timing service indoors, outdoors, everywhere. So, those are the three commercial markets where we have the highest adoption rates.

You still have plenty of room for expansion in that market before you must start thinking about expanding into other areas.

Yes, there’s plenty of room for expansion into those markets, so I wouldn’t say that they’re fully saturated. We are also looking into other opportunities. We’ve seen interest in the energy area. I think the industry is a little bit slower moving, but the need is ubiquitous, right? We all recognize that a black swan event in our society would really represent a bad day and we want to avoid that.

There are several companies across the industry that are trying to solve that important problem. Everyone involved in critical infrastructure that requires a timing reference — which is anything that is associated with a network activity — should have an alternative or augmentation to GNSS as a timing source. It’s great that we’re seeing tailwinds from the U.S. Government, from the European Union, and from others to try to encourage that adoption. However, there’s still a long way to go before we really feel that that’s been sufficiently covered.

What, if any, have been the major developments in the past year or so?

One of the most interesting things that has happened over the last year and a half has to do with our capability regarding STL. We’ve been demonstrating more publicly, and with more independent authorities, the capabilities, resiliency, and operational characteristics of our service.

For example, the JRC study.

It started with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) a couple years ago, but there’s also been some work done by the Department of Homeland Security and with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). We’ve been working directly with NIST to do some validations, as well as with UK and European organizations. They have subjected STL to rigorous third-party, hands-off technology evaluations. They confirmed the timing accuracy specifications to UTC and validated the operational characteristics of STL, such as the resilience in the absence of GNSS, the ability to receive the signal indoors, and having global availability.

We’re delighted to see the third-party operational evaluation of things that we’ve known all along but are now being evaluated and confirmed by these government sources. Beyond that, of course, there are always going to be technology advancements, both with our company and with other companies.

The real focus of industry right now is on adoption. All the providers of these capabilities ultimately need adoption in industry to remain active and viable. These are good people trying to do the right thing to protect our society. There are many great technology solutions out there to do it. Hopefully, many of these solutions are adopted in the near term. That’s what our focus has been. Our focus has not been on squeezing an extra five nanoseconds out of performance, although, of course, we’re always doing that. I think the important focus of industry should be driving adoption. There are solutions available today, including ours, that are ready to go and are being proven operationally in use.

Can you say more about the study by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC)?

If you look at the summary, all these technologies that were demonstrated worked. Both the DOT report and the JRC report effectively summarize that there are multiple technologies out there today that are ready to go.

<p>The post PNT by Other Means: Satelles first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Image: NextNav

NextNav has launched the first European commercial testbed for its high accuracy Pinnacle vertical location technology. Operating in Paris, France, the testbed will demonstrate the benefits Pinnacle can bring to local emergency response agencies and integration with applications and devices from existing NextNav partners.

Available across the United States in more than 4,400 cities and towns, and currently being deployed across Japan, Pinnacle technology provides z-axis data and has been demonstrated in independent testing to deliver 94% accuracy.

The announcement of a testbed in France comes after the release of a recent European Joint Research Centre (JRC) report, which highlighted NextNav’s accuracy in providing floor-level vertical location in addition to its ability to provide a resilient layer for traditional GPS services.

With a terrestrial-based system, NextNav aims to provide highly accurate 3D position, navigation, and timing (PNT) information — revolutionizing emergency services, logistics, telecommunications, and other sectors that rely on precise PNT and are otherwise vulnerable to GPS interference – an increasing concern across the region.

<p>The post NextNav launches Pinnacle testbed in Europe first appeared on GPS World.</p>

According to the JRC, the trial is analyzing the technologies “which could deliver positioning, and/or timing information, independently from GNSS, to be effective backup in the event of GNSS disruption, and if possible to be able to provide PNT in the environments where GNSS cannot be delivered.”

The test furthers the European Union’s creation of a backup to GNSS and is intended to assess which technologies could strengthen and expand the European PNT capacity.

PNT services are critical for the global economy, with studies estimating a contribution to the European GDP of approximately 10%. Today, GNSS services are the backbone of PNT, with an increasing role in new services and technologies, including car-sharing, autonomous vehicles, ship and aircraft navigation, smart logistics and precision agriculture.

It’s About Time

The timing capabilities of PNT are heavily utilized today by critical infrastructure, which is strategic from a commercial and societal perspective, including telecom, energy, finance and transportation. Published studies estimated economic losses of around 1 billion EUR per day if GNSS were unavailable.

NextNav’s TerraPoiNT trial focused on measuring the precision of timing delivery across alternate timing sources to better understand performance in GNSS-free environments — including instances of outages, spoofing and jamming. As a part of the trial, NextNav also demonstrated its capabilities in providing both indoor and outdoor z-axis vertical location.

TerraPoiNT is a system for assured PNT that uses terrestrial transmitters deployed around a service area to triangulate the location of a device. Unlike national space-based systems, the proximity of NextNav’s transmitters makes the signal strength 100,000 times that of GPS.

“The trials are part of the global trend to develop a resilience layer to space-based GPS/GNSS systems that is more secure and available,” said Ganesh Pattabiraman, NextNav CEO. “We are redefining the capabilities of APNT technologies and look forward to working with the European Commission on furthering these initiatives to build a GNSS backup layer that can deliver highly precise PNT across use-cases.”

Trials for U.S., Europe

The U.S. and countries across Europe continue to invest in both understanding and taking steps towards creating a resilient PNT layer in each nation. Participation in the JRC trial builds upon the recent evaluation of APNT technologies in the United States, including a 2021 U.S. Department of Transportation report, where TerraPoiNT was found to be the best performing APNT solution across use cases.

Further, NextNav recently created an APNT testbed in the San Francisco Bay area that was developed as part of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security demonstration used to evaluate the precision and resilience of NextNav’s TerraPoiNT network.

The JRC is expected to report results from the evaluation this spring.

<p>The post NextNav showcases APNT backup to GNSS at European JRC trial first appeared on GPS World.</p>

The program is open to graduate students (with a first university degree), Ph.D. candidates, early-stage researchers and young professionals willing to broaden their knowledge. The 50 available seats will be given on a first-come, first-served basis.

The mission of the ESA-JRC International Summer School on GNSS is to provide the attendees with a comprehensive overview of satellite navigation. Extensive lab work will provide attendees with hands-on learning opportunities.

Topics covered include:

• Basics of satellite navigation
• Carrier-phase positioning
• GNSS RF link performance
• Ionospheric and tropospheric effects on GNSS
• and more

The summer school’s objective is to provide attendees with a comprehensive overview on satellite navigation, starting from the GNSS system, its signals, the processing of the observations in a receiver and finally determining the position-navigation-time (PNT) solution.

Lectures on intellectual property rights (IPR) and patents, as well as on business aspects, will be given. The future of satellite systems will also be discussed.

The main emphasis will be on the development of a group project using innovative ideas and covering all aspects, from the initial concept, to a business plan, its technical realization and marketing of the product or service.

Internationally renowned scientists and specialists will give lectures as well as practical exercises and lab work.

The full program is available here.

<p>The post Registration opens for 2019 ESA-JRC Summer School first appeared on GPS World.</p>

Experts from the JRC have been working with Spirent GNSS test equipment during the European GNSS Agency (GSA) eCall test campaign. The campaign aims to pre-test eCall in-vehicle modules and evaluate their compatibility with the positioning services provided by Galileo and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) in accordance with the test procedures established by the regulation.

As the eCall initiative goes live this month, the GSA launched a test initiative to support eCall device manufacturers in their preparation for type approval. In safety-critical situations, eCall must be as accurate as possible, so defining and conducting proper test procedures is imperative.

Spirent is cooperating with the JRC to develop its own eCall test solution. “Working with JRC enabled us to develop better tests to verify that eCall devices are working properly,” said Steve Hickling, product director for Spirent’s positioning business.

When a collision occurs, an eCall-equipped car automatically calls the nearest emergency centre. Even if no passenger is able to speak – such as because of injuries — a “minimum set of data” is sent, which includes the exact location of the crash site. eCall is expected to significantly reduce emergency service response times, leading to lives saved and injuries reduced.

The JRC used a Spirent GSS9000 simulator to assess eCall devices’s capability to support the reception and processing of the Galileo and EGNOS signals. Using feedback from the JRC, Spirent has developed an eCall Test Suite for its automation solution, PT TestBench.

Tested with various eCall devices, the eCall Test Suite is available for eCall device manufacturers and include, among others, positioning accuracy, time to first fix, GNSS receiver sensitivity and reacquisition performance.

For more information on Spirent’s GNSS testing solutions, visit the website or download the company’s white paper Detecting and Protecting Against GPS Cyberthreats.

<p>The post GSA, Joint Research Centre test automotive eCall with Spirent first appeared on GPS World.</p>