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2010BUYERSGUIDE
VOL 21 | NO 10
October 2010
Vol. 21, Number 10
gpsworld.com

» cover storY
innovation
Record, Replay, Rewind  28
Testing GNSS Receivers with Record and
Playback Techniques

Is there a way to perform repeatable tests on GNSS receivers

using real signals? This month’s column looks at how to use an
RF vector signal analyzer to digitize and record live signals, and
then play them back to a GNSS receiver with an RF vector signal
generator.
By David A. Hall

Opinions & transportation

Departments
Out in Front  6
Welcome to Accuracy Anonymous
By Alan Cameron
EXPERT ADvice  8
An EPIC Start for Coordination
By John Wilde
The system  10
GLONASS Forecast Bright and
Plentiful; Future GPS Control
Segment Advances; Power Flex
Positive; Air Force Fends off
GAO Zinger; New Galileo SIS
ICD Embraced; FAA Green-Lights
ADS-B.
Letters  13
History Articles Set the Record
Straight
the business  14
NovAtel Releases OEM6 Receiver
Platform; Ashtech to Use IFEN
Simulator; Locata Covers White
Sands Missile Range; Dual-
Frequency miniEclipse; and more
Can GNSS Drive V2X?  35
Communication-enabled vehicle
safety has the potential to change
transportation’s future, particularly
vehicleto-vehicle (V2V) and
vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I),
collectively represented as V2X. An
automakers’ consortium conducted
extensive field trials to determine
GNSS service availability and
accuracy for the V2X challenge.
By Chaminda Basnayake, Tom
Williams, Paul Alves, and Gérard
Lachapelle
survey
Sparse Network  44
Wide-Area, Sub-Decimeter Positioning for Airborne LiDAR Surveys
The use of a precise wide-area positioning technique for airborne
trajectory solutions for LiDAR surveys provides both relative and
absolute accuracies similar to those derived from using a local GNSS
reference station.
By Oscar L. Colombo, Shane Brunker, Glenn Jones, Volker Janssen,
and Chris Rizos

www.gpsworld.com October 2010 | GPS World 3

ONLINE RESOURCES
Blogs from ION-GNSS 2010
GPS World again provided exclusive live coverage of the
ION-GNSS Conference, September 21–24 in Portland, Oregon.
Visit gpsworld.com/ion for all the news and blogs. Here is one
excerpt:
Military Boards
Defense Editor Don Jewell
This year I have noticed a plethora
of MIL STD (military standard)
boards that are about the size to
fit perfectly in a PCMIA slot. And
none more intriguing than the MB
100 Compact dual-frequency RTK
Don Jewell
OEM board from Ashtech. Their
new board fits this year’s theme
of cooperation among current and
future PNT providers in that it is
GLONASS-capable. You may be
aware that GLONASS has never
been able to reach FOC or Full
Operational Capability with their
satellites due to the extremely
short life span of their satellites.
Richard Langley But the Russian Space Federation
seems to have the longevity
issues under control these
days, at least according to their
spokesman, Dr. Sergey Revnivykh,
who claims — and I hope he is
correct — that GLONASS will
reach FOC with 24-plus working
satellites on orbit in December of
this year.
Eric Gakstatter
» OCTOBER WEBINARS
Location-Based Services
October 22, 2010
Speaker: Lisa Peterson, Neustar
Highlights from the European Navigation
Conference
October 28, 2010
Speaker: Alan Cameron, GPS World
Commentary, audio, and video interviews from
Braunschweig, Germany.
For times and pre-registration, see
www.gpsworld.com/webinar
4 GPS World | October 2010
Check out These Recent Tech Talk Blogs
Go to www.gpsworld.com/techtalk
Can GPS Modernization Be More Effective and Less Costly?
By James L. Farrell
A response to the August Expert Advice column
“Remembering. And Resolving” by the mysterious
Masked Engineer.
Context-Aware Navigation Algorithms
By Jussi Collin
Assume that your mobile phone knows your mode of
transportation (stationary, walking, riding a car, and so
on) automatically. How could navigation algorithms take
advantage of this information?
Tracking SVN-62 with a Triple-Frequency Receiver
By Senlin Peng, Yanhong Kou, and Jade Morton
Following the successful launch of the GPS Block IIF
SVN-62 satellite on May 28, 2010, the Software GPS
Receiver Laboratory at Miami University has been
actively monitoring and analyzing the satellite signals.
This article presents the tracking results of 300 seconds
of L1, L2C, and L5 signals.
Hottest Pages @ GPSWorld.com
August 31 – September 30, 2010
Air Force Reorganization May Drastically
1 Affect GPS Program
2 GPS Flexible Power Coming
Sony Introduces Digital Camera with GPS
3 and Compass
Spoofing Detection and Mitigation with
4 a Moving Handheld Receiver
5 GNSS Almanac: Constellation Data
6 Innovation: Friendly Reflections
7 Innovation: Precise Point Positioning
8 ION-GNSS Live Coverage
9 Are You a Professional? (GSS newsletter)
10 2010 GNSS Buyers Guide
www.gpsworld.com
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OUT IN FRONT
Welcome to Accuracy Anonymous
H
i, my name is Alan, and I’m an
accuracy addict.
I got my first taste of accuracy
back in 2000 when I started at GPS
World, and discovered the vast range of
very advanced things that people were
doing with the signals of the Global
Positioning System.
This filled me with a great feeling of
elation, expansiveness, and effectiveness.
I can position anything. I can track
anything. I can go anywhere, and know
where I am. I can direct something else
to go somewhere, and have it hit exactly
on target. I can examine the minute
movements of the earth, the swaying of
skyscrapers, the moisture content of the
atmosphere, and I can know all.
I began to feel the illusion of
omnipotence — of power over all.
The more I found out about accuracy,
Today, we think we know who
makes the decisions, who funds
the decisions. That may change.
the more I used it, the more addicted I
became.
Very early, I learned that advanced
practitioners, such as some of the people
in this room, had developed ways of
taking two GPS signals, not just one,
but two signals, including one that
they weren’t even entitled to use, and
combining them, distilling them, refining
them to produce an even more potent
product: high precision.
High. I was getting pretty high. Almost
as high as some of you.
Because we’re all in this together. In
this room, we are all addicts. And when
our supply of accuracy gets cut off, or
restricted, or we learn that it might soon be
diminished in some way, or even that its
projected future rate of increase might not
be as rapid as expected, or that it might not
“ADDICTION” was delivered as an invited presentation at the Civil GPS Service Interface
Committee plenary session, September 20 in Portland, Oregon.
6 GPS World | October 2010
increase at all, it might just simply stay the
same — well then, we get upset.
We want to get high precision, we
want to stay high precision, and we want
to get higher precision.
We may have a problem with our
accuracy habit.
It’s not just us, the highly educated,
highly equipped, highly advanced users,
with near-lifelong histories of accuracy
use. Outside this room, outside this
convention center and all who gather here
this week, outside our offices and labs, the
great unwashed masses are getting their
first taste of low-grade accuracy. With
their cell phones or smart phones, maybe
50-meter, maybe 15-meter, maybe even
5-meter accuracy.
They’re liking it, that first taste. Once
they learn how to exploit it, and learn that
higher accuracy is possible, they’re going
to demand it.
And some enterprising young
engineers are going to build a high-
powered LBS app that needs high
accuracy, just like other new apps need
broadband or WiFi or 3G or 4G. If the
capability exists, someone wants to make
money off it.
We may be raising a generation of
monsters, who will absorb our habit into
their bloodstreams and into their lifestyles.
Things might get ugly. We know
they’re going to change, altering the
landscape in ways we may not recognize.
I’m not talking about just the social
landscape, the way accuracy users behave.
Not just the user segment. I’m talking
about the way accuracy is produced
and administered. I’m talking about
the supply of accuracy, the supply of a
substance that is in high demand and to
which an increasing number of people are
becoming addicted.
I’m talking about the ground control
segment and the space segment.
Ultimately, I’m talking about who
makes the decisions, who funds the
decisions, who enacts the decisions, and
who enforces the decisions about how
much accuracy can and will be produced.
Today, we know, or think we know
who those people are: the GPS Wing, the
Air Force, the Department of Defense, the
Administration of the U.S. government.
We may think we know that those same
people will be in charge tomorrow.
I’m not so sure. Revolutions have
happened before.
I don’t mean to be U.S.-centric. The
same developments are taking place,
perhaps a bit lagged, in Europe and Russia
and China. When the great mass of the
Chinese market gets into using accuracy,
gets the habit, you’re going to see some
effects.
Returning to the United States, simply
because it has the most known and most
established of these systems, it is not
inconceivable that some Tea Party-like
movement, a groundswell should roll right
up to Washington, into Congress, and say:
“Higher accuracy is possible. We are
paying for GPS with our taxes, and we
want you to spend that money producing
and supplying us with a higher grade
of accuracy. Don’t give us this talk of
responsible stewards. We are calling the
shots now. Just do it. Revise the ICD. Up
the ante.
“Give me accuracy or give me death.”
Ladies and gentlemen, I have
expanded, exaggerated only slightly, and
perhaps exploded the old dictum that I’ve
heard attributed to Charlie Trimble, I
don’t know who first said it, but it bears
repeating and repeating often: accuracy is
addictive.
Indeed it is. I’m here to tell you.
I was asked to give you a user
perspective. I’ve chosen what is today a
relatively small user segment, but a very
real one, and a growing one. And most
important, one that augurs for the future.
Perhaps the scenario I just imagined
for you exaggerates a bit. Perhaps. I am
consciously trying to push further out the
boundaries of our thinking.
Continued on page 9
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www.gpsworld.com October 2010 | GPS World 7

 EXPERT ADVICE

An EPIC Start
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Vidal Ashkenazi
Sally Basker
Nottingham Scientific Ltd., United Kingdom
General Lighthouse Authorities, United Kingdom & Ireland
for Coordination
Alison K. Brown NAVSYS Corporation, United States
By John Wilde focusing on specific GNSS issues. EPIC
Pascal Campagne France Developpement Conseil, France
Ismael Colomina Institut de Geomàtica, Spain
would thus not only serve as a gateway but

T
Jordi Corbera Spanish Institute of Navigation, Spain he new European Positioning, actually assist stakeholders in developing
Nicolas de Chezelles Ministry of Defense, France Navigation, and Timing (PNT) common solutions to common problems
Clem Driscoll C.J. Driscoll & Associates, United States Industry Council (EPIC) will in-house.
Børje Forssell Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
be a forum for organizations with an
Alain Geiger Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry, Switzerland
interest in all PNT systems including Representation
Art Gower Lockheed Martin, United States
Sergio Greco Alcatel Alenia Spazio, Italy
Global Navigation Satellite Systems GNSS has applications in many com-
Jörg Hahn European Space Agency, The Netherlands (GNSS). EPIC shall serve as an informa- mercial and non-commercial fields:
Michael Healy Astrium Limited, United Kingdom tion and distribution portal between all academia, agriculture, airline operators,
Günter Hein University of the Federal Armed Forces, Germany stakeholders in the PNT community. Its civil aviation authorities, air navigation
Larry D. Hothem U.S. Geological Survey, United States service providers, emergency services,
Len Jacobson Global Systems & Marketing, United States
energy suppliers, logistics, manufactur-
William J. Klepczynski Institute for Defense Analyses, United States
Gérard Lachapelle The University of Calgary, Canada
ing, maritime, communications, pet-
Wolfgang Lechner Telematica, Germany rochemical, rail, surveyors, and more.
Jingnan Liu National Research Center for Satellite Systems, China Therefore, EPIC will work on behalf
Pietro Lo Galbo European Space Agency, The Netherlands of all GNSS stakeholders regardless of
Keith D. McDonald NavtechGPS, United States their application or business model and
Terence J. McGurn Consultant, United States
represents the whole community, inte-
Jules G. McNeff Overlook Systems Technologies, United States
gral to the ongoing success of GNSS.
James Miller NASA, United States
In addition it will represent the needs
Terry Moore
Ruth Neilan
University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States
EPIC is intended as a forum — not of users and developers of downstream
Bradford W. Parkinson Stanford University, United States applications.
Ivan G. Petrovski iP Solutions, Japan just a place for debate but literally
Mario Proietti TechnoCom Corporation, United States
International
Jayanta Ray
Martin U. Ripple
Accord Software and Systems, India
European Aeronautics Defense and Space, Germany
a marketplace of ideas where real EPIC stands with sister organizations in
Michael E. Shaw Lockheed Martin Space Systems, United States
North America and Asia:
Giorgio Solari Galileo Supervisory Authority, Belgium transformative change can take place. 䡲 United States GPS Industry Council
Jac Spaans European Group of Institutes of Navigation, Netherlands 䡲 Japan GPS Council
Thomas Stansell Jr. Stansell Consulting, United States 䡲 Korean GNSS Technology Council
F. Michael Swiek U.S. GPS Industry Council, United States mandate includes all GNSS constella- EPIC will maintain close ties to these
David Turner Department of State, United States
tions and related augmentation systems organizations and will profit from shared
A.J. Van Dierendonck AJ Systems, United States
Frantisek Vejrazka Czech Technical University, Czech Republic
worldwide, both operational and in practices and knowledge when mutually
Akio Yasuda Tokyo University of Marine Science & Technology, Japan development/modernization. beneficial. Joint representation with these
EPIC will undertake to serve the organizations to government GNSS
ADVISORS UPDATE interests of all stakeholders within Europe, authorities will be a key coordination
TERRY MOORE directs the and on behalf of Europe on the global activity.
GNSS Research and Applications stage, recognizing that understanding
Centre of Excellence (GRACE) and cooperation between the world’s Communication
and the Institute of Engineering stakeholders is key to the successful EPIC will encourage communication
Surveying and Space Geodesy deployment of new and improved GNSS and cooperation among its member-
(IESSG), which has been applications. We also envision that EPIC ship to develop new associations and
significantly involved in many will become a thriving forum for the partnerships to create new applications
major Galileo projects, most recently SISTER (Centimetre
exchange of new ideas and best practices, or share ideas and expertise. It will or-
positioning via SatCom) as part of EC FP6, the PRECISIO
software-defined radio multi-GNSS receiver, ENCORE, as well as becoming a knowledge center ganize regional meetings, workshops,
and TESTCASE (all for EC/GSA). hosting working groups and task forces focus groups and social gatherings.
8 GPS World | October 2010 www.gpsworld.com

The organization will update members
on the latest developments within GNSS
and work to ensure that information
is made available in a sensible, secure
manner and shared as publicly as possible.
We intend to keep EPIC a dynamic
organization, reflecting the world of
GNSS, responsive and adaptable to the
needs of its members. Therefore, active
involvement from the membership of
EPIC will be crucial to its success in both
setting the agenda and then realizing it. It
is no accident that EPIC is intended as a
forum — not just a place for debate but
literally a marketplace of ideas where real
transformative change can take place.
Accuracy Anonymous
continued from page 6
We’ve been waiting, some of us, for
a long time for the mass market to get
involved in GPS. This is now happening,
bit by bit. But it has not yet fully
happened. When it does, great changes
will come. When LBS figures out the key
to making money out of location, you’ll
see changes you can’t imagine today.
I started to become aware of how
pervasive and how strong accuracy
addiction has grown when we experienced
a succession of anomalies in the GPS
constellation over the last year or so: SVN-
49, the last IIR-M satellite; carrier-phase
anomalies detected on SVN-48; and now
SVN-62, a small variance in the L5 signal
on the first IIF. “The signal variation
results in no more than a 5-centimeter
error with a predictable periodicity of
about six hours.”
In each case, GPS performed within
spec, and some therefore viewed these
issues as non-issues. “What seems to be
lacking is context: what relevance their
findings on unspecified and unrequired
signal characteristics really have to do
with the real-world GPS IIF mission and
requirements.”
I’ve repeated here two printed quotes
in the magazine; offline, the point-
counterpoint discussion grew a good deal
more inflamed. Passions run high when
www.gpsworld.com
EXPERT ADVICE “Thanks to Septentrio
GPS technology,
we can run
24/7 operation
To get the ball rolling, EPIC will
conduct a market survey over the next with 0 misplaced
few months with potential members to containers.”
clarify their requirements and ensure that Stephan Gosiau,
EPIC starts with the issues and people that Technical Director
PSA HNN
matter.
For further details, www.epicforum.org,
or contact info@epicforum.org. 
JOHN WILDE has longtime experience in the
GNSS field, specializing most recently in
aviation requirements. He is the founder of
EPIC. See also his February 2008 interview in
this magazine on this same subject, at www.
gpsworld.com/epic.
the supply and quality of accuracy appears
in question.
This might seem a minor flare-
up today, off in a corner of the field:
specialized scientific research spatting
with industry giants and their military-
industrial complex benefactors.
But today’s developing applications
in aviation, ground transportation,
structural monitoring, machine control,
infrastructure, and more use techniques A giant container terminal in the port of Antwerp.
such as carrier phase that are not It’s hard to imagine a more complex day-to-day reality than that!
governed, are not even mentioned in the Around the clock, massive freights are shipped,
GPS ICD. unshipped and moved around the terminal.
When LBS gets figured out, and high- What could well be a logistical nightmare, now runs smoothly
accuracy LBS and vehicle navigation with the aid of Septentrio’s ultra-precise positioning techniques.
and crash avoidance become regularly
supplied commercial services, when Why?
the dependence of financial and Because we are reliable experts.
communications infrastructure on high Because we are ahead.
precision becomes fully understood
and appreciated, then you’ll see some
large corporate money that has become
accuracy-addicted. Imagine this room
in another few years, with GM, Ford,
Google, Microsoft, AT&T, and Verizon
attending and very interested, very much
so, in aspects of user accuracy that are not
currently addressed in the ICD.
This community will change. Its
needs will change. Balances of power and
funding will shift. Are we prepared for
Wfstbujmf!PFN!Sfdfjwfst!gps!Efnboejoh!Bqqmjdbujpot
that? Are we prepared to be surprised? Or
are we prepared only to be left behind by
tides of change, to become obsolete?  www.septentrio.com
October 2010 | GPS World 9
SYSTEM
THE
Policy and system news and developments | GPS | Galileo | GLONASS
GLONASS Forecast Bright and Plentiful
by Richard Langley
A
t the Civil GPS Service Inter-
face Committee meeting in
Portland, Oregon, on Sep-
tember 20, Sergey Revnivykh, Dep-
uty Director General of Roscosmos’s
Central Research Institute of Machine
Building, reported on the status and
future of GLONASS.
He provided a number of details on
the present constellation and how it
will be augmented in the future, stress-
ing that GLONASS is doing well and
that a full constellation of 24 primary
satellites will be in operation within
months. The average signal-in-space
range error has improved by a factor of
five in the past three years and pres-
ently stands at about 1.8 meters (one
sigma).
The present constellation consists of
20 healthy satellites with two reserve
satellites, GLONASS 714 and 726.
Revnivykh stated that GLONASS 726
had a failure of its navigation payload.
▲ FIGURE 1 The GLONASS satellite generations through GLONASS-K2.
10 GPS World | October 2010
It is known that the signal generator
on the satellite is faulty and it had been
set unhealthy since August 31, 2009.
Nevertheless, it was placed in reserve
status on March 19, 2010. GLONASS
714 is nominally healthy and could
be brought back to service if needed.
These initial reserve satellites are also
being used to train the ground team
to operate spare satellites in a full or
nearly full constellation.
GLONASS 727, in orbital slot 3,
which was taken out of service on
September 8, has also had a failure of
its navigation payload and may not be
returning to service. The three new
satellites launched on September 2
are expected to enter service in early
October. About 11 more GLONASS-M
satellites will be launched by the end
of 2012.
Revnivykh announced that there
will be two versions of the new
GLONASS-K satellites: GLONASS-K1
and GLONASS-K2. GLONASS-K1
satellites will have a 10-year design life
and a daily clock stability of 5 ⫻ 10-14.
The first GLONASS-K1 satellite will
be launched this December from the
Plesetsk Cosmodrome about 800 kilo-
meters north of Moscow. This will be
the first launch of a GLONASS satellite
from other than the Baikonur Cosmo-
drome. Only one more GLONASS-K1
satellite will be built and launched
after that. The K1 satellites will test
an open service CDMA signal on the
GLONASS L3 frequency in the 1205
MHz band. Although the launch of the
first GLONASS-K1 satellite will occur
in December, the design process for
the CDMA signal structure is not yet
finished, according to a subsequent
e-mail message from Dr. Revnivykh.
When the process is completed, the
structure will be made public.
A completely new design,
GLONASS-K2, will start launching
in 2013. GLONASS-K2 satellites will
have a 10-year design life and a daily
clock stability of 1 ⫻ 10-14. Besides the
CDMA signals on L3, CDMA signals
will also be transmitted on L1 and L2.
The GLONASS-K satellites will transmit
the legacy FDMA satellites in addition
to the CDMA signals.
A modernized GLONASS-K satel-
lite, GLONASS-KM, for launch after
2015, is now under study. In addition
to transmitting legacy FDMA signals
on L1 and L2 and CDMA signals on L1,
L2, and L3, CDMA signals may also be
transmitted on the GPS L5 frequency
at 1176.45 MHz. Also being studied
is an alternative to the present three-
plane, equally spaced satellite constel-
lation. A different constellation design
would be possible using CDMA sig-
nals. Such a move would require that
www.gpsworld.com
 THE SYSTEM

overseas stations as Cuba, Brazil, Viet-

▲ FIGURE 2 Signals transmitted by the different generations of GLONASS satellites.
OF ⫽ open-access FDMA, SF ⫽ special (military) FDMA, OC ⫽ open-access
CDMA, OCM ⫽ open-access CDMA modernized.
the legacy FDMA signals be switched
off. Revnivykh stated that any such
move would require at least 10 years’
advance notice.
The signals that will be transmitted
by the future generations of GLONASS
satellites as well as those transmitted
by the initial GLONASS satellites and
the GLONASS-M satellites now on
orbit are shown in FIGURE 2.
Revnivykh also spoke on the satel-
lite-based augmentation system under
development, System for Differential
Correction and Monitoring (SDCM).
Correction and integrity data will be
transmitted by Luch geostationary
communication satellites now under
development. Luch 5A, to be launched
in 2011 and positioned at 16°W longi-
tude, and Luch 5B, to be launched in
2012 and positioned at 95°E longitude,
will transmit signals on an L1 fre-
quency. Luch 4, to be launched in 2013
and positioned at 167°E longitude, will
transmit on two frequencies. The three
satellites will provide almost global cov-
erage. The satellite payloads are under
development.
According to Revnivykh, the SDCM
will make use of 12 monitor stations
currently in operation in Russia and one
in Antarctica at Russia’s Bellingshau-
sen research station. However, the
SDCM website (www.sdcm.ru) indicates
only 10 Russian stations currently in
the test network. This anomaly might
be explained by the fact that some lo-
cations have multiple monitor stations.
Eight more monitor stations will be
added in Russia and five more outside
Russia. Revnivykh showed a map
revealing the locations of the additional
nam, Australia, and an additional sta-
tion in Antarctica. It is not intended, at
least initially, that these stations would
be used in generating the orbit and
clock data broadcast by the GLONASS
satellites themselves.
Finally, Revnivykh stated that a
GLONASS performance document
will be released in the 2012–2013 time
frame. His full presentation is available
on the U.S. Coast Guard Navigation
Center website (www.navcen.uscg.gov).
Meanwhile, the three GLONASS-M
satellites launched on September 2
have arrived at their designated orbital
slots: GLONASS 736, plane 2, slot 9;
737, plane 2, slot 12; 738, plane 2, slot
16.
The operating frequencies are not
yet fully known. GLONASS 736, in
physical slot 09, is currently undergo-
ing experimental tests. It is included in
the broadcast almanac at slot 16 and is
transmitting on frequency channel ⫺6.
Stations in the International GNSS Ser-
vice ground network are tracking the
satellite. According to the Roscosmos
Information-Analytical Centre, when
the tests are completed, GLONASS
736 will transmit on channel ⫺2 and be
identified as slot 09 in the almanac. It
is unclear if GLONASS 736 will replace
GLONASS 722 also currently in slot 9,
with the latter becoming a spare, or if
GLONASS 736 will become the spare
as previously inferred.
GLONASS 737 and 738 have not
started normal transmissions. Their
assigned shared frequency channel is
not yet known but ⫺6 would be a likely
candidate.

Future GPS Control Segment Advances

The Raytheon Company team developing the next-
generation GPS Advanced Control Segment (OCX)
successfully completed on schedule an integrated
baseline review with the U.S. Air Force.
When completed, GPS OCX will deliver a control seg-
ment designed to provide secure, accurate, and reliable
www.gpsworld.com
navigation and timing information to military, commercial,
and civil users. Raytheon is the prime contractor on the
$886 million program. The team includes ITT, The Boeing
Company, Infinity Systems Engineering, Braxton
Technologies, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
October 2010 | GPS World 11
THE SYSTEM

Power Flex Positive

From September 7 to 12, the U.S.
Air Force Space Command (AFSPC)
activated the long-awaited Flex Power
demonstration for GPS, a power
increase on L1 and L2. The trial of a
new capability designed for military
use under special circumstances
was deemed a success, essentially
going off without a hitch, according to
Colonel David Buckman, AFSPC Com-
mand Lead for PNT, and Colonel Ber-
nie Gruber, GPS Wing Commander.
Officially, the flex power assess-
ment ensured that the GPS control
segment baseline (AEP 5.5) is properly
integrated with the space segment
with regard to command and control
of High-Y Flex Power, a capability that
increases the nominal transmit power
of the desired signal by shifting power
between signals (M-code and P(Y))
within a particular L-band. The net sum
gain remains the same. High-Y Flex
Power does not change total transmit
power, does not affect phase stability
between L1 and L2, is ICD-GPS-200E
compliant, and does not affect the
navigation message.
Only a handful of 10-year-old
reference receivers may have been
adversely affected, possibly due to
an outdated algorithm. Many govern-
ment, commercial, and civil agencies
were involved in the test, and
hundreds of GPS receivers were
closely monitored. As far as impacts
to the overwhelming majority of global
users, it was a non-event. The 2nd
Space Operations Squadron (2SOPS)
was able, over the course of five days,
to make power changes to several
GPS satellites without causing a phase
shift and without the majority of users
even knowing what was happening,
although various announcements and
press releases had appeared to alert
them of the fact.
All GPS satellites and signals have
now returned to their normal power
levels.
FAA Green-Lights ADS-B
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administra-
tion (FAA) gave the go-ahead signal for

Air Force Fends off GAO Zinger full-scale, nationwide deployment of

the satellite-based surveillance system
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has issued a follow-up to its called Automatic Dependent Surveil-
alarming and much-criticized report, issued 16 months ago, on the health lance – Broadcast (ADS-B) following
and prospects of the GPS constellation. Senior officers at the Air Force Space its successful roll-out at four key sites.
Command and Space and Missile Systems Center have characterized the new Air traffic controllers are now able to
report as “overly pessimistic.” use the new technology to separate
The report’s principal findings — that the Air Force continues to face aircraft in areas with ADS-B coverage.
challenges in launching its satellites as scheduled, which could affect the Controller screens in those areas will
availability of the baseline GPS constellation, that on-orbit performance of IIF show aircraft tracked by radar as well
satellites remains uncertain, that a disconnect exists between GPS III and as aircraft equipped with ADS-B avion-
OCX, and that a predicted possible delay in GPS III could affect GPS constella- ics, which broadcast their positions.
tion performance — are discussed and rebutted in detail by GPS World The new system tracks aircraft
defense editor Don Jewell, with further commentary (paraphrased) by Air with greater accuracy, integrity, and
Force Space Command, in his October column, at www.gpsworld.com/dejavu. reliability than the current radar-based
system, the FAA said. ADS-B targets
on controller screens update more
New Galileo ICD Embraced
European Commission (EC) officials held a briefing during ION-GNSS in
frequently than radar and display infor-
mation including aircraft type, call sign,
Portland for industry representatives, to discuss the new Galileo Open heading, altitude, and speed.
Service Signal-in-Space Interface Control Document (OS SIS ICD). Hosts Paul Nationwide ADS-B coverage is
Verhoef and Michel Bosco said they were pleased with what they character- scheduled to be complete in 2013.
ized as positive feedback from U.S., European, and Japanese industry repre- According to the FAA, every part of
sentatives regarding collaboration and consultation over changes made in the the country now covered by radar will
ICD. The updated version is available at http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/satnav/ have ADS-B coverage. More than 300
galileo/open-service/index_en.htm. of the approximate 800 ADS-B ground
The EC grants free access to the technical information on the future Galileo stations that will comprise the entire
open service signal: the specifications manufacturers and developers need to network have been installed.
process data received from satellites. Anyone who wishes to use the intellec- By 2020, aircraft flying in controlled
tual property rights contained in the document simply needs to send an e-mail airspace in the U.S. must be equipped
to oss-icd@ec.europa.eu mentioning their request for a license agreement, which with ADS-B avionics that broadcast
is without any exclusivity or geographic limitation. their position. 
12 GPS World | October 2010 www.gpsworld.com
 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

History Articles Set Record Straight

I
was relieved to see that the facts related interview subjects familiar with the an excellent public forum for the presenta-
to the conception of GPS were clearly system, it became clear there was a general tion of the facts, not the folklore, regarding
laid out in the two-part article “GPS consensus that Timation simply did not the historical origins of GPS, clearly and in
Heroes” (May and June issues). During have the necessary capabilities to meet the detail for the GPS community.
the past few years, erroneous information requirements for the GPS design that was Steven Strom
about the early years of GPS development ultimately selected. El Segundo, California
has circulated in some military, engineer- With the publication of Parkinson’s and
ing, and scientific circles. These stories Powers’ article, GPS World has provided
centered on some version of the idea that
GPS’ design originated with the Naval
Research Laboratory (NRL) and within
the patent submitted for Timation by the
NRL’s Roger Easton; the U.S. Air Force
and The Aerospace Corporation were ARE YOU HEADING IN
conspicuously missing from the various
scenarios that credited Roger Easton with THE RIGHT DIRECTION?
“inventing” GPS.
I have had the privilege to record and
publish oral history interviews with several
GPS pioneers, including Drs. Getting and
Parkinson and Ed Lassiter. I also had
opportunities to speak to many more early
GPS participants off the record, including
retired Air Force personnel and several
non-Aerospace employees, when conduct-
ing background research for an article
dealing with the beginnings and
subsequent implementation of GPS.
My research included a review of many
of the primary documents relating to GPS’
origins, including the Woodford/Naka-
mura study completed for 621B in 1966,
and several subsequent studies. I can state
emphatically that during the course of my
research, I never encountered any evidence
indicating that NRL’s/Easton’s Timation
system was the progenitor of GPS. In fact, 7KH7ULPEOH%'*166V\VWHPLVDFRPSDFWGXDODQWHQQDUHFHLYHU
as the authors point out, Timation was GHVLJQHGWRGHOLYHUFHQWLPHWHUDFFXUDWHSRVLWLRQVDQGSUHFLVHKHDGLQJ
considered and rejected by 621B personnel WRFKDOOHQJLQJJXLGDQFHDQGFRQWURODSSOLFDWLRQV7KHUHFHLYHUVXSSRUWV
when planning the original system. DZLGHUDQJHRIVDWHOOLWHVLJQDOVLQFOXGLQJ*36///*/21$66//
Not a single person I spoke to has ever
2PQL67$5DVZHOODV*DOLOHR*,29($DQG*,29(%WHVWVDWHOOLWHVIRUVLJQDO
provided me with any version of GPS’
genealogy other than the one related by HYDOXDWLRQDQGWHVWSXUSRVHV
Parkinson and Powers. The majority of )RUPRUHLQIRJRWRZZZWULPEOHFRP*166,QHUWLDO
the interviewees, on or off the record, gave
NRL and Mr. Easton ample praise for
Trimble
T mble
eGGNSS OE
OEM Systems: Performance You Can Rely On
their significant contribution to satellite
navigation through the development of the
Timation system; no one even remotely
carried this acknowledgement and www.trimble.com/GNSS-Inertial
appreciation of Timation as an antecedent
to GPS any further, historically speaking.
After discussing Timation with several ‹&RS\ULJKW7ULPEOH1DYLJDWLRQ/LPLWHG$OOULJKWVUHVHUYHG$OORWKHUWUDGHPDUNVDUHWKHSURSHUW\RIWKHLUUHVSHFWLYHRZQHUV3&

www.gpsworld.com October 2010 | GPS World 13

 BUSINESS
THE
Industry news and developments | GPS | Galileo | GLONASS
» PROFESSIONAL OEM
NovAtel Releases
OEM6 Receiver Platform
NovAtel Inc. has announced its OEM6 GNSS receiver
platform, which the company says offers comprehensive
support for all current and upcoming GNSS constellations
and satellite signals, including GPS, GLONASS, Galileo,
and Compass. The first in a new receiver line, OEM6
expands positioning capabilities with the inclusion of
such features as receiver autonomous integrity monitor-
ing (RAIM) for safety-critical applications, integrated LAN
Ethernet port with NTRIP client and server capabilities for
integration into reference network applications, and 100-
Hz measurements for high-dynamic positioning.
The OEM628 board is form-, fit-, and function-com-
patible with the company’s earlier OEMV-2 receiver. All
Ashtech Adopts IFEN Simulator for Locata Covers White Sands Missile
Development and Testing Range for 746 Test Squadron
Ashtech has selected the NavX-NCS Professional, a multi-
constellation and multifrequency GNSS RF navigation
constellation simulator from IFEN GmbH, as the GPS,
Galileo, and GLONASS reference simulator for its profes-
sional receiver development and testing.
IFEN offers two types of GNSS RF constellation signal
simulators for GNSS testing needs and applications. The
NavX-NCS Professional, optimized for research and devel-
opment of multi-frequency GNSS safety and professional
applications, has up to 108 signal channels and 9 L-band
frequencies. GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, and QZSS can be
simulated simultaneously. A Standard model, focused on
system integration and production testing for L1 mass
market applications, carries up to 36 channels and sup-
ports all GNSS, including WAAS, EGNOS, and MSAS, at
L1 upper frequency.
Igor Grechkin, Ashtech head of engineering, cited the
NavX-NCS Professional’s flexibility in use, high accuracy,
and upgrade capability as reasons for the selection.
Ashtech launched its first high-precision GPS receiver in
1987 and plans to use the IfEN’s simulator to expand its
high-precision professional portfolio.
14 GPS World | October 2010
NovAtel OEM firmware options are supported, including
AdVance RTK for centimeter-level positioning accuracy,
ALIGN for precise heading determination, GL1DE for
consistent pass-to-pass accuracy, and L-band position-
ing for autonomous decimeter-level positioning.
The OEM628 will be available to order in November,
with first shipments in December.
The U.S. Air Force 746 Test Squadron awarded a contract
to Locata Corporation to upgrade the Locata high-accu-
racy terrestrial positioning system to cover almost 2,500
square miles (6,500 square kilometers) of the White
Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The upgrade is
designed to help the 746 TS provide sub-meter accurate
positioning on the test range when GPS is jammed. The
contract focuses on the redesign and upgrade of the Air
Force’s current Locata Non-GPS Based Positioning Sys-
tem, sold commercially under the LocataNet brand.
The network will give the 746 TS’s Ultra High Accuracy
Reference System (UHARS) sub-meter position accura-
cies in a GPS-denied environment. The 746 TS requires
UHARS to evaluate performance accuracies of next-
generation weapon and aircraft navigation systems. The
746 TS leads the U.S. Department of Defense GPS Test
Center of Expertise and has operated a Locata NGBPS at
Holloman Air Force Base for more than three years.
Locata says its patented TimeLoc technology enables
autonomous synchronization of LocataNets to picosec-
ond level without atomic clocks or any form of external
aiding. Other Locata partners include Leica and Trimble.
www.gpsworld.com
 THE BUSINESS

» PROFESSIONAL OEM/SURVEY

Hemisphere GPS Dual-Frequency miniEclipse

Hemisphere GPS has announced its miniEclipse, a company.
compact dual-frequency GPS OEM board that incorpo- The receivers
rates the same digital and analog ASIC design as the also feature Sure-
recent Eclipse II OEM board. The miniEclipse is available Track technology
in two form factors, P200 and P201, the former a drop- to increase RTK
in board replacement for Hemisphere GPS’ Crescent performance. The
board, the latter configured as a drop-in replacement for miniEclipse-enabled
another industry standard interface. rover makes use of
Both receivers offer high-performance positioning ac- every satellite it is
curacy and low-power consumption in a tiny package, tracking, even satel-
the company said. miniEclipse functions in L1-only SBAS lites not tracked at
and RTK modes and can be upgraded to dual-frequency the base. In addition
real-time kinematic (RTK) solutions. Also, raw data is to better cycle slip detection, this provides for faster RTK
available for post-processing in any configuration. Cres- reacquisition and greatly improved RTK robustness. Reli-
cent module integrators can easily transition to dual able DGPS positioning is enhanced through Hemisphere
frequency by replacing it with miniEclipse P200, adding GPS’ COAST technology.
a few new messages, and then connecting a dual-fre- The two OEM boards will be available in the fourth
quency antenna such as the A52TM, according to the quarter of 2010.

Vi
sit
Ha us a
Eclipse II OEM GNSS Board ll B t I
, S NT
tan ER
d # GEO
11
8
Experience Unprecedented RTK and GLONASS Performance
with Hemisphere GPS’ SureTrack

Our exclusive SureTrack® technology enables EclipseTM to generate internal corrections from its last connection to a GNSS
signal. Eclipse II features reduced power consumption and long-range RTK baselines. Rely on the Eclipse II.

Integrators Wanted
www.hemispheregps.com/Eclipse

www.gpsworld.com October 2010 | GPS World 15

 THE BUSINESS

Dynamic Capture
Ricoh » CONSUMER OEM
G700SE New
u-blox Demonstrates Galileo
Chipsets with Spirent Simulator
u-blox, a fabless semiconductor pro- u-blox has been a Spirent cus-
vider of embedded positioning and tomer since 2004. According to
wireless communication solutions, Tesshu Naka, u-blox’s Japan country
has purchased Spirent’s GSS6700 manager, “The ability to demonstrate
Multi-GNSS constellation simulator u-blox Galileo-ready technology
system to demonstrate performance before the satellites are available is
Geo–Data of its new Galileo chipset. Using a convincing argument in favor of u-
the simulator, u-blox recently dem- blox receivers.”
Imaging Solution onstrated the attributes of its latest Only simulators can fully test par-
Camera Features
Extremely rugged GPS/Galileo receiver to a number of tially deployed GNSS constellations
Waterproof & dustproof its Japanese customers. such as Galileo and QZSS, and future
12 MP Resolution with 5 x Zoom “Spirent is seeing an increasingly signals such as L5 and L2C on GPS.
High Definition 720p video positive attitude to Galileo, following Until recently, most testing focused
Wireless ready Bluetooth & WIFI
Read barcodes directly thru lens
several Galileo system procurement on GPS, but with GLONASS operat-
Populate data while in the field announcements made earlier this ing at near full strength and Galileo
Capture up to 20 memo fields year,” said John Pottle, marketing and Compass around the corner,
Embed data in image header director at Spirent’s positioning unit. testing multi-GNSS capabilities on
Store sound in image header
“The industry is starting to believe in chipsets and navigation devices is
Streamlines workflow
Password security Galileo again and we are seeing that becoming critical to verify perfor-
WORM SD card compatible confidence translate into investment mance and ensure there are no inter-
Connects to Laser Range Finders decisions in Spirent multi-GNSS so- operability issues, u-blox stated.
GPS data ready lutions.”
Optional GPS mounts on camera
Store GPS data directly in image
Print GPS data directly on image
Customizable firmware » PROFESSIONAL OEM
Recognized Industries
Automotive Law Enforcement NovAtel Cuts Power Use for OEMStar L1 Receiver
Disaster-Recovery Military
Education Manufacturing
NovAtel’s 1.011 Firmware Release a firmware update, customers can
Event Marketing Police - Fire for its OEMStar L1 GNSS receiver apply it to their existing receivers, en-
Government Real Estate reduces the card’s power con- abling quick changeover and minimal
Healthcare Security sumption. The OEMStar receiver downtime, free of charge to NovAtel
Housing Utilities
now consumes only 450 mW for customers, the company said.
Insurance And much more...
GPS+GLONASS operation and 360
Dynamic Storage mW for GPS-only operation.
» WIRELESS
Cloud Imaging
Management
*Index
The update aids battery-powered
applications such as handheld GIS
Tri-Band Antenna
*Store
User Friendly Interface *Manage data collectors, smart survey anten- Linx Technologies announces its DB1-
Versatile / Scalable *Search nas, and even some unmanned LP Series of gain antennas. These
Disaster Protection *Retrieve vehicles, the company said. The tri-band log periodic antennas are
Remote Collaboration 14-channel OEMStar receiver, designed for long-distance directional
Secure File Access 24 x 7
NovAtel’s lowest cost, high-perfor- communication over a multitude of
Contact us for your 90 Day Trial
of Dynamic Storage
mance L1 GNSS receiver, uses L1 frequencies. The DB1-LP antenna
GPS, GLONASS, and SBAS signals. provides gain and directivity compa-
dynamic.capture@ricoh-usa.com NovAtel’s GL1DE technology is also rable to a Yagi antenna, but in a much
www.RicohDC.com available. smaller form factor and over a wider
1.909.890.9039 By providing this functionality as range of frequencies.

16 GPS World | October 2010 www.gpsworld.com


» SYSTEM DESIGN
Septentrio Receiver Spearheads Scintillation Research
Septentrio has rolled out PolaRxS, an ultra-low-noise
multi-frequency multi-constellation receiver dedicated to
ionosphere monitoring and space weather applications.
PolaRxS offers 136 channels capable of tracking simul-
taneously GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and SBAS signals
in L1, L2, L5 and E5ab/AltBOC bands. Coupled with an
oven-controlled crystal oscillator, the receiver provides an
extensive set of specific measurements for ionosphere
monitoring, including signal phase and intensity at up to
100 Hz, with a phase-noise standard deviation (phi60) as
low as 0.03 rad.
Proprietary technology guarantees robust tracking of
rapid signal dynamics encountered during high scintil-
lation events, while the integrated interference analysis
and mitigation module enables installation in difficult
radio environments, according to the company.
A graphical user interface provides data logging and
remote control. Specifically for space weather and
ionosphere monitoring applications, the logging tool is
extended for continuous TEC and scintillation indices
(ISMR) logging and monitoring. The interface and receiver
on-board Internet connectivity enable deployment of
monitoring networks at minimal installation and mainte-
nance cost, while its sturdy waterproof housing and low
system power consumption (5W) make installation of
autonomous stations possible in harsh environments.
“With the currently increasing solar activity heading to
a max forecasted in 2013, combined with increasing reli-
ance on satellite communication and GNSS technologies,
» DEFENSE
L-3 Will Add GPS Capabilities
to U.S. Army IPADS
L-3 Communications announced that its Space & Naviga-
tion division has been awarded a four-year, indefinite-
delivery/indefinite-quantity contract by the U.S. Army for
adding GPS capabilities to its fielded Improved Position
and Azimuth Determining Systems (IPADS) equipment.
IPADS is a high-performance, highly accurate system
used for precision surveying and navigational require-
ments on the battlefield. Under the contract, L-3 will
design, implement, and test Selective Availability Anti-
Spoofing Module (SAASM) GPS receivers, antennas,
and cables into all fielded IPADS equipment. The GPS-
equipped systems will be known as IPADS-G.
www.gpsworld.com
THE BUSINESS
ionosphere monitoring and space weather vigilance are
becoming of crucial importance,” stated Peter Grognard
of Septentrio. “PolaRxS has been developed in close col-
laboration with prominent members of the ionosphere sci-
ence community to provide a state-of-the-art tool to deploy
most effective, low infrastructure-cost, multi-frequency
ionosphere and space weather monitoring networks.”
Septentrio will start shipping PolaRxSTM in the last
quarter of 2010.
Brazil Partners. In related news, the European Galileo
R&D Framework Programme (FP7) and the European
GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA) granted co-funding
to the CIGALA Consortium, led by Septentrio, to develop
and test receiver-level ionospheric scintillation mitigation
to increase the robustness of professional multi-fre-
quency GNSS based applications in low latitude regions,
particularly in Latin America.
Solar induced ionosphere activity may lead to the scin-
tillation of the GNSS signals that not only can degrade
signal quality but also cause signal outage. The problem is
particularly acute in low-latitude areas and will be exacer-
bated with the next solar maximum. Latin America relies
to a great extent on GNSS in support of activities such as
land and offshore surveying, and therefore is particularly
exposed. A Euro-Brazilian consortium of Septentrio, the
University of Nottingham (UK), INGV (Italy), Pildo Labs
(Spain), and Brazilian partners Petrobras, Universidade
Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho and Consultgel
will pursue collaborative research.
“The addition of an embedded, tightly coupled GPS
capability will provide an excellent performance enhance-
ment for long-distance precision survey operations by
keeping the soldier on the move, while retaining a high
level of inertial precision for GPS-denied conditions,” said
Paul Wengen, president of L-3 Space & Navigation.
Anthony Giles, U.S. Army product manager, IPADS,
for the Joint Lightweight 155mm Program Office, added,
“The IPADS-G capability is essential in the delivery of
accurate fire support to our maneuver forces, enhancing
their ability to fight the global war on terrorism.”
October 2010 | GPS World 17
THE BUSINESS
» GOVERNMENT
Ricoh G700SE
Features GPS Plug-In
Ricoh Co., Ltd. has released the G700SE with
GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. As an expanded func-
tion model of the G700 released earlier this year,
the water- and dust-resistant G700SE has wire-
less LAN and Bluetooth functions as standard features
and supports the use of GPS and laser barcode-reader
functions with options.
By installing the optional internal-electronic-compass-
equipped GPS unit, users can add position and direction
information to their photos. By installing the optional
laser barcode-reader unit, users can do rapid recognition
of one-dimensional (linear) barcodes. Ricoh states these
capabilities make the G700SE a powerful tool for a wide
range of operations, including facility maintenance (elec-
tric, gas, and water utilities; roads; and so on), disaster
planning, and other functions of local governments, po-
lice departments, and fire departments; photo manage-
ment in hospitals; production line management in the
manufacturing industry; and warehouse management in
the transport industry.
The G700SE can use the GP-1 (option) GPS unit which
compactly connects to the camera body. Connection of
the GP-1 makes it possible to add position information to
the image data of photographs taken. In addition, since
» SURVEY & MAPPING
Trimble Mapping Handheld Has Voice Communications
Trimble introduced its new Juno SD handheld, an addition
to the pocket-sized Juno series of durable, lightweight
field computing devices with integrated GPS technology.
The Juno SD handheld adds to core Juno functionality
with an integrated 3.5G high-speed downlink packet
access (HSDPA) cellular SMS and voice capability. Juno
SD handheld users can now keep in contact using the
new cellular voice capabilities, enabling users to call the
office for the next job, provide live updates from the field,
or make a call in case of an emergency. As a result, the
Juno SD handheld eliminates the need to carry a sepa-
rate mobile phone.
All Trimble Juno series models include integrated GPS,
wireless LAN (Wi-Fi) and Bluetooth connectivity, a
3 megapixel camera, a 533 MHz processor, 128 MB of
onboard memory, a MicroSD/SDHC memory card slot,
an all-day battery, and a 3.5 inch display.
The Juno SD handheld is designed for GIS-enabled
18 GPS World | October 2010
there is an electronic compass function, it is possible to
record information indicating the direction in which the
photograph was taken. A GPS log function tracks camera
movement. With the GP-1 attached, the G700SE satisfies
IP64 dust and water resistance performance standards
and shock resistance standards for a 1.2-meter drop,
Ricoh said.
The camera body has an internal Bluetooth
Ver.2.1+EDR function. The ability to do high-speed data
communication with a wide range of Bluetooth-compat-
ible devices enables receiving position data from highly
precise GPS devices and transmitting image data to com-
patible personal computers and smartphones. The inter-
nal wireless LAN (802.11b/g) function supports the WPS
button connection for easy wireless LAN connection set-
tings. The G700SE can also transmit images via wireless
LAN while receiving GPS data from Bluetooth-compatible
external GPS devices.
Body size of the camera is 118.8 × 71.0 × 41.0 millime-
ters, and body weight is approximately 286 grams.
organizations that require high productivity from their
mobile field workforce, keeping them connected and in
touch while removing the need for a separate camera,
GPS data collector, PDA, and cellular phone, according
to the company. All Juno series handhelds incorporate
a high-sensitivity GPS receiver specifically designed to
maximize position yields in challenging GPS environ-
ments, such as under forest canopy and near buildings in
urban areas.
Trimble reports that the Juno SD handheld is available
in 10 languages for worldwide users and is fully compat-
ible with Trimble’s range of mapping and GIS field and
office software. Powered by Microsoft Windows Mobile
operating system, Juno users have access to personal
productivity tools such as Word Mobile, Excel Mobile,
Internet Explorer Mobile, and Outlook Mobile, enabling
exchange of data between the field and office.
www.gpsworld.com

» EVENTS
2010 International
Symposium on GPS/GNSS
October 26-28, 2010, Taipei, Taiwan
http://gnss2010.ncku.edu.tw/
The annual International Sym-
posium on GPS/GNSS provides an
open forum for researchers and
engineers to exchange innovative
ideas on GNSS systems, techniques,
applications, and opportunities. The
2010 symposium will be organized
by National Cheng Kung University,
Taiwan.
Trimble Dimensions 2010
November 8–10, 2010, Las Vegas,
Nevada
www.trimbledimensions.com
Trimble will hold its international
user conference at the Mirage Hotel
in Las Vegas. The theme of Trimble
Dimensions 2010 — Converge, Con-
nect, Collaborate — provides insight
into how the convergence of technol-
ogy can redefine the way surveying,
engineering, construction, mapping,
GIS, geospatial, utilities, and mobile
resource management professionals
connect and collaborate to achieve
success.
5th ESA Workshop on
Satellite Navigation
Technologies (NAVITEC)
December 8–10, 2010, Noordwijk,
Netherlands
http://www.congrex.nl/10c12/
The 5th ESA Workshop on Satellite
Navigation Technologies will be held
December 8 to 10, 2010 at ESTEC,
Noordwijk, Netherlands. The confer-
ence centers on the theme “Multi-
GNSS Navigation Technologies: The
Beginning of a New Age.” In addition
to multi-GNSS issues, the event will
focus on signal design, signal process-
ing, GNSS payload technology effects,
and integration of navigation technolo-
gies with communication services.
www.gpsworld.com
THE BUSINESS
R
ION International Technical
evolutionary The
is not
first
a word
AfricaGEO
to bandy
Conference
ab
Meeting 2011 will be held in Cape Town at the Cape
January 24–26, 2011, San Diego, Town International Convention Cen-
California tre (CTICC) from May 30 to June 2,
www.ion.org 2011. AfricaGEO is being organized
ION International Technical Meet- by the South African Geomatics As-
ing 2011 (ION ITM 2011) will be held sociations, and enjoys the full sup-
January 24-26, 2011, at the Catama- port of, PLATO, GISSA, Hydrographic
ran Resort Hotel in San Diego, Cali- Society of South Africa, Institute of
fornia. A plenary session on robotics Mining Surveyors of South Africa,
navigation is planned. the Association of Aircraft Operating
Companies and the Department of
AfricaGEO: Developing Rural Development and Land Re-
Geomatics for Africa form.
May 31–June 2, 2011, Cape Town,
South Africa
http://africageo.org/
More events online: www.gpsworld.com/events
United States Postal Service
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I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or
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October 2010 | GPS World 27
 Record, Replay, Rewind
Testing GNSS Receivers with Record and Playback Techniques
Is there a way to perform repeatable tests on GNSS receivers using real signals? This month’s column looks
at how to use an RF vector signal analyzer to digitize and record live signals, and then play them back to a
GNSS receiver with an RF vector signal generator.
David A. Hall
While GNSS simulators have long provided the de facto
technique for testing GPS receivers, radio frequency (RF)
record and playback has emerged as an innovative method to
introduce real-world impairments to GNSS receivers. In this
article, we will provide a hands-on tutorial on how to test a
navigation device using the record and playback technique.
The premise of RF record and playback is to capture GNSS
signals off the air with a vector signal analyzer (VSA) and then
replay them to a receiver with an RF vector signal generator
(VSG). With recorded GNSS signals, one is able to introduce
a signal that contains natural impairments — instead of an
ideal signal — to the GNSS receiver. As a result, one can ob-
serve how a receiver will behave in a real-world environment
where interference, multipath fading, and other impairments
are present.
A VSA combines traditional superheterodyne radio receiver
technology with high-speed analog-to-digital converters and
digital signal processors to perform a variety of measurements
on complex modulated signals. It is widely used in the tele-
communications industry as a test instrument. Digitized sig-
nals can be recorded for future analysis. A VSG reverses the
process, taking a digital representation of a complex waveform
and, using digital-to-analog converters, generating an appro-
priately modulated RF signal.
Recording GPS or GLONASS signals off the air can be done
in a fairly straightforward manner. An RF recording system
combines appropriate antennas, amplifiers, and an RF signal
RF front end RF signal acquisition Storage media
LNA ADC &
DDC
ÅFIGURE 1 GPS receivers implement cascaded low-noise
amplifiers. The RF signal acquisition block includes analog-to-
digital conversion (ADC) and digital down conversion (DDC) to
select the data of interest.
28 GPS World | October 2010
recorder (usually a VSA) to capture many hours of continu-
ous RF signal. In such a system, the basic components include
the RF front end, the RF signal-acquisition device, and high-
volume storage media. A block diagram of a typical recording
system is shown in FIGURE 1.
In the figure, the RF front end is designed to condition the
GNSS signal in such a way that it can be captured — with
maximum dynamic range — by the recording device. The re-
cording device digitizes a given signal bandwidth, and then
stores in-phase and quadrature (IQ) waveforms to disk.
In general, RF recording devices are designed to tune to a
broad range of frequencies and can thereby record many dif-
ferent types of signals. Thus, selecting the signal to record is as
simple as setting the center frequency and bandwidth of the
recording device. For example, to record the GPS C/A-code
L1 signal, the center frequency should be set to 1575.42 MHz.
Because each satellite generates the same carrier frequency, one
can capture C/A-code signals from all satellites simply by cap-
turing all signals within a 2.046 MHz (twice the code chip-
ping rate) band around the carrier frequency.
By contrast, recording GLONASS signals requires slightly
different settings. Because the GLONASS constellation uses
frequency division multiplexing, every satellite generates the
same code, but each pair of antipodal satellites transmits at a
unique center frequency. Thus, recording L1 signal informa-
tion for the entire GLONASS constellation requires a recorder
to capture signals that range from 1598.0625 MHz (channel
⫺7) to 1605.375 MHz (channel 6). In order to capture the en-
tire bandwidth of each satellite, a recorder is actually required
to capture 1.022 MHz of signal for each carrier (again, twice
the code chipping rate). Therefore, the total recording band-
width is actually 1597.5515 MHz to 1605.886 MHz, a span
of 10.3345 MHz. On the RF signal analyzer, one can record
GLONASS signals simply by setting the center frequency to
1601.71875 MHz, and the bandwidth to ≥ 10.3345 MHz.
Modern RF signal recorders are capable of recording both
GPS and GLONASS C/A-code signals on a single wideband
www.gpsworld.com
 Signal Processing | INNOVATION

recording channel. For example, one of our RF signal analyz-
ers is capable of recording up to 50 MHz of signal bandwidth.
With this instrument, one can simultaneously record both GPS
and GLONASS by setting the center frequency to 1590.1415
MHz and the bandwidth to ≥ 31.489 MHz. However, while
RF recording systems can be used to capture a wide range of
GNSS signals including GPS L1/L2/L5, GLONASS L1/L2,
Galileo, and others, this article focuses primarily on the GPS
C/A-code signal.
Setting up the RF Front End
The trickiest aspect of recording GPS signals is the selection
and configuration of the appropriate antenna and low noise
amplifier (LNA). When connecting a typical off-the-shelf
GPS passive patch antenna to a signal analyzer, the peak power
in the GPS L1 band ranges from ⫺120 to ⫺110 dBm. Because
the power level of GPS signals is small, significant amplifica-
tion is required to ensure that the VSA can capture the full
dynamic range of the signal.
The simplest method to amplify an off-the-air GPS signal
so that it can be captured by an RF signal recorder is the com-
bination of an active GPS antenna and one or more external
LNAs. Note that many professional GPS antennas offer the
best performance because they combine high element gain
with an LNA and even pre-selection filtering, which improves
the dynamic range of the RF recorder.
With the RF front end appropriately configured, one can
verify system performance using a simple spectrum analyzer
demonstration panel. The demo panel allows one to visualize
the RF spectrum in the GPS L1 band. If all is set up correctly,
the C/A-code GPS signal should be visually present on the
display. FIGURE 2 illustrates a screenshot of the spectrum on a
virtual spectrum analyzer display.
Note that visualizing the GPS signal in the frequency do-
main with an RF signal recorder (or spectrum analyzer) re-
quires careful attention to settings such as resolution band-

INNOVATION INSIGHTS
with Richard Langley
We can digitize signals
with a vector signal
analyzer.
AS A PROFESSOR, I’m quite familiar
with testing — of students, that is.
It’s how we check their performance
— how well they have mastered the
course material. Outside academia,
testing is also quite common. We have
to pass a driving test before we can
get a license. We might have to pass
a physical fitness test before starting a
job. And manufacturers have to test or
stress their products to make sure they
are fit for purpose. As David Ogilvy,
the father of advertising once quipped,
“Never stop testing, and your advertis-
ing will never stop improving.” But it’s
not just manufacturers who should
test products. Consumers, or their
representatives, should test products
on offer — not only to corroborate (or
dispute) manufacturers’ claims but also
to compare one manufacturer’s product
against another. There’s a whole slew
of magazines, television programs, and
web resources devoted to testing and
comparing everything from laundry
detergent to automobiles. And GNSS
receivers are no exception.
When we conduct tests, we are
usually trying to get answers to certain
questions — just like those posed to
students on their exams. In testing
GNSS receivers, what are some ap-
propriate questions? When a receiver
is turned on, how long does it take
until the position of the receiver is
determined? When a weak signal area
is encountered, can the receiver still
determine its position? If the signal is
interrupted and then restored, how
long does it take for the receiver to re-
cover and resume calculating its posi-
tion? And what is the position accuracy
under different situations?
While we can certainly hook up an
antenna to a receiver to get answers
to these questions in a certain environ-
ment on a certain day at a certain time
with certain signals, the scenario can-
not be repeated — not exactly. If we
tweak a receiver operating parameter,
for example, we don’t know for certain
whether any observed change is due
to the tweaking or a change in the
scenario. We could use a radio-
frequency (RF) simulator — a device
for mimicking the radio signals gener-
ated by the satellites. This would allow
us to define scenarios, including
receiver trajectories, and to replay
them as many times as necessary
while varying the operating parameters
of the receiver. Or we could modify
the scenario from run to run. Such test
scenarios could include those difficult
to carry out with live signals such as
determining how a receiver would
perform in low Earth orbit. While ex-
tremely useful, these are tests with
simulated signals.
Is there a way to perform repeat-
able tests on GNSS receivers using
real signals? In this month’s column,
we learn how to use an RF vector
signal analyzer to digitize and record
live signals, and then play them back to
a GNSS receiver with an RF vector
signal generator — a procedure we
can repeat as often as we like.

www.gpsworld.com October 2010 | GPS World 29

INNOVATION | Signal Processing

-96
-98
-100
Hardware Connections
-102 With the reference level appropriately set, it is important to
-104 properly configure the RF front end of the recording device.
Power (dBm)

-106
As previously mentioned, one can achieve the best RF record-
-108
-110
ing results by using an active GPS antenna. The active antenna
-112 used in our experiment utilized a built-in LNA to provide up
-114 to 30 dB of gain with a 1.5 dB noise figure. (Recall that the
-116
noise figure is the difference in dB between the noise output
-118
-120
of a device and the noise output of an “ideal” device with the
1.57292G 1.574G 1.575G 1.576G 1.577G 1.57792G
Frequency (Hz)
same gain and bandwidth when it is connected to sources at
the standard noise temperature — usually 290 K.) However,
ÅFIGURE 2 GPS is visible in the spectrum only if a narrow the LNA must be powered by supplying a DC bias to the RF
resolution bandwidth is used. This spectrum was obtained with a
center frequency of 1575.42 MHz, a frequency span of 4 MHz, a connection. While there are several methods to supply the DC
resolution bandwidth of 10 Hz, root-mean-square averaging with bias, we will look at two of the easiest methods.
20 averages, and a reference level of ⫺50 dBm. Method 1: Active Antenna Powered by GPS Receiver.
The first method to power an active antenna is with a bias tee
or DC power injector. Using this three-port component, a DC
Active GPS DC + RF DC bias RF Vector signal voltage (3.3 V in this case) is fed to its DC port, which applies
antenna LNA
tee analyzer the appropriate DC offset to the active antenna connected to
DC DC power
the RF-in port while blocking it on the RF-out port. The de-
supply vice gets its name from the fact that the three ports are often
ÅFIGURE 3 This set-up shows the use of a DC bias tee to power arranged in the shape of a “T.” Note that the precise DC volt-
an active GPS antenna. age one should apply depends on the DC power requirements
of the active antenna. A diagram illustrating the connections
DC + RF GPS is shown in FIGURE 3.
receiver
Observe in Figure 3 that one can use off-the-shelf hardware
Active GPS DC + RF
Splitter
such as a programmable DC power supply to supply the DC
antenna
bias signal. Also, one can use a generic off-the-shelf bias tee as
DC + RF DC RF Vector signal
long as it has bandwidth up to 1.58 GHz.
blocker LNA
analyzer Method 2: Active GPS Antenna Powered by Receiver.
A second method of powering the active GPS antenna is with
ÅFIGURE 4 With a DC blocker, one can record and analyze the the receiver itself. Most off-the-shelf GPS receivers use a single
same GPS signals being tracked by a GPS receiver. port to power and receive signals from an active GPS antenna,
and this port is already biased with an appropriate DC volt-
width and averaging. Because the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) age. Combining an active GPS receiver, a power splitter, and a
of the GPS signal is so small, the settings shown in Figure DC blocker, one can power an active LNA and simply record
2 require a narrow resolution bandwidth (10 Hz) and sig- essentially the same signal as that observed by the GPS receiver.
nificant averaging (20 averages per measurement record, so a A diagram of the appropriate connections is shown in FIGURE 4.
20-second interval for 1 Hz data). With these settings applied, Some splitters incorporate a DC block on all but one of the
one can easily visualize a modulated signal above the noise output ports.
floor with approximately 1 MHz of bandwidth and centered at As FIGURE 4 illustrates, the DC bias from the GPS receiver is
1575.42 MHz. This signal is the GPS C/A-code. In Figure 2, used to power the LNA. This method is particularly useful for
the reference level of the signal analyzer was set to ⫺50 dBm drive tests because one can observe the receiver’s characteristics,
to reduce the noise floor of the instrument to the lowest pos- such as velocity and dilution of precision, while recording.
sible level. Note that setting the signal analyzer’s reference level
provides a simple mechanism to adjust the front-end attenua- Selecting the Right LNA
tion or amplification. In general, RF signal analyzers provide Recording GPS signals with generic RF signal recorders is pos-
the greatest dynamic range when the reference level of the in- sible largely because external LNAs can be used to reduce the
strument matches closely with the average power of the signal effective noise floor of the receiver. Today, one can find off-
connected to the front end. In this case, setting the reference the-shelf spectrum analyzers with noise figures ranging from
level of our signal analyzer to ⳮ50 dBm removes all front-end 15 dB to 20 dB. One of our analyzers, for example, has a 15 dB
attenuation, giving the analyzer a more optimal noise figure for noise figure while applying up to 60 dB of gain. By applying
signal recording. external amplification to the front of an RF signal analyzer,
30 GPS World | October 2010 www.gpsworld.com
 Signal Processing | INNOVATION

Stage Gain (dB) Gain (linear) NF (dB) NF (linear)

however, one can substantially reduce the noise figure of the Active 30 1000 1.5 1.4125
RF recording system. antenna
To calculate the total noise that will be added to the record- LNA 30 1000 5.0 3.1623
ed GPS signal, one must calculate the noise figure for the entire Signal 60 1000000 15.0 31.623
RF front end. As a matter of principle, the noise figure of the recorder
entire system is always dominated by the first amplifier in the ÅTABLE 1 Noise figures and factors of the first two components
system. Thus, careful selection of the first and second stage of the RF front end.
LNAs is crucial for a successful signal recording.
We can calculate the noise figure of
the RF recording system by using the
Friis formula for noise figure, named
for engineer Harald Friis, a Danish-
American radio engineer who worked at
Bell Telephone Laboratories. To use this
formula, first convert the gain and noise
figure of each component to its linear
equivalent; the latter is called the “noise
factor.” For cascaded systems such as our
RF recording system, the Friis formula
provides us with the noise factor of the
entire system: O M N I S T A R H I G H P E R F O R M A N C E TM D G P S :

nf2 − 1 nf3 − 1 nf − 1
nfreceiver = nf1 + + +K + n
g1 g1 g2 g1g2 ...gn BRINGING DECIMETER
(1)
Note that both noise factor (nf ) and ACCURACY WITHIN REACH
gain (g) are shown in lowercase to dis-
tinguish them as linear measures rather
than logarithmic measures. The conver-
sion from linear to logarithmic gain and
noise figure (and vice versa) is shown in
the following equations: Introducing OmniSTAR High Performance (HP), our revolutionary new DGPS
system that redefines the standard for differential correction. OmniSTAR has
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nf = 10 (3) Our innovative HP signal provides five times the accuracy of standard

GdB = 10 × log10 ( g )
DGPS for horizontal accuracy of ~ +/- 10-15 cms. HP means a wide-area
(4) solution offering previously unobtainable levels of accuracy, opening the door
⎛ GdB ⎞
⎝⎜ 10 ⎠⎟ for high-precision uses such as auto steering, guidance and automation
g = 10 (5) of agri-vehicles, increased hit probability for GIS/utilities, rough grading
An active GPS antenna using a built- for construction applications, survey projects, oil exploration, aerial
in LNA typically provides 30 dB of gain photogrammetry, and more. We just raised the bar on accuracy and reliability,
while introducing a noise figure that but it’s way within your reach. OmniSTAR HP. Others promise—we deliver.
is typically on the order of 1.5 dB. The
second part of the recording instrumen-
tation provides 30 dB of additional gain
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as well. Though its noise figure is higher

(5 dB), the second amplifier actually in-
troduces very little noise into the system. Contact us for more information ®
www.omnistar.com Expect high performance
As an academic exercise, one can use the
Friis formula to calculate the noise factor
for the entire RF front end of the record-
ing instrumentation. Gain and noise fig-
www.gpsworld.com October 2010 | GPS World 31
INNOVATION | Signal Processing

(a)
23.055
Trial 1
23.050 Trial 2
Trial 3

Latitude (degrees)
23.045 Trial 4
Trial 5
23.040
Trial 6
23.035 Trial 7
Trial 8
23.030 Trial 9
Trial 10
ÅFIGURE 5 Two-channel record and playback system from Averna. 23.025
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600
Time (seconds)

ure values are shown in TABLE 1. (b)

According to the calculations above, one can determine the 114.390
114.385
Trial 1
Trial 2
overall noise factor for the receiver: 114.380
Trial 3
3.1623 − 1 31.623 − 1

Longitude (degrees)
114.375
nfreceiver = 1.4125 + + = 1.4147 114.370
Trial 4

1000 1000000 (6) 114.365

Trial 5
Trial 6
114.360
To convert noise factor into a noise figure (in dB), apply 114.355
Trial 7

Equation 2, which yields the following results: 114.350

Trial 8
Trial 9
114.345

NFdB = 10 × log10 ( nf ) = 10 × log10 (1.4147 ) = 1.507dB

Trial 10
114.340
(7) 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Time (seconds)
400 450 500 550 600

As Equation 7 illustrates, the noise figure of the first LNA

(1.5 dB) dominates the noise figure of the entire RF recording
system. Thus, with the VSA configured such that the noise
floor of the instrument is less than that of the input stimulus,
one’s recording introduces only 1.507 dB of noise to the off-
the-air signal.
Saving Data to Disk
Each GNSS produces slightly varying requirements for an RF
recorder’s signal bandwidth and center frequency. For the GPS
C/A-codes, the essential requirement is to record 2.046 MHz
of RF bandwidth at a center frequency of 1575.42 MHz.
In the tests described here, we set the IQ sample rate of our
RF recorder at 5 megasamples per second (Ms/s). Since each
16-bit I and Q sample is 32 bits (or 4 bytes each), the actual
recording data rate is 20 megabytes per second (MB/s) to en-
sure the entire bandwidth was captured. Capturing more than
4 MHz of bandwidth is sufficient to record the 2.046 MHz
C/A-code signals.
Because one can achieve data rates of 20 MB/s or more with
standard PXI controller hard drives (PXI is the open, PC-
based platform for test, measurement, and control), one does
not need to use an external redundant array of independent
disks (RAID) volume to stream GPS signals to disk when us-
ing a PXI recording system. In general, data rates exceeding 20
MB/s require the use of an external RAID volume. External
RAID systems are capable of storing more than 600 MB/s of
data and can be used to support wide bandwidth channels or
even multi-channel recording applications. For example, the
recording system shown in FIGURE 5 uses an external RAID
volume for high-speed signal recording. This system combines
PXI RF signal generators and analyzers with external ampli-
fiers and filter banks for a ready-to-use GNSS record and play-
back solution.
In our tests, we decided to use a 320 GB USB drive for bet-
ter portability. With a disk speed of 5400 revolutions per min-
32 GPS World | October 2010
ÅFIGURE 6 Receiver latitude (a) and longitude (b) over a four-min-
ute span
ute, we were able to benchmark it ahead of time and observed
that we were able to achieve read and write speeds exceeding 25
MB/s. Thus, we were easily able to use this disk drive and still
record IQ samples at 5 MS/s (20 MB/s) when recording off-
the-air signals. With the existing hard-drive setup, we could
record more than 4 hours of continuous IQ signal. Note that
capturing longer recordings simply requires a larger hard disk.
By using a 2 terabyte RAID volume (the largest addressable
disk size in the Windows XP operating system), we can extend
our recording time to 25 hours. With this setup, we could also
reduce the IQ sample rate to 2.5 MS/s (still sufficient to cap-
ture the GPS C/A-code signals) and extend the recording time
to 50 hours.
Receiver Performance
Once the off-the-air signal of a GNSS band is recorded to disk,
it can be re-generated and fed to a receiver using an RF signal
generator. With an RF signal generator that is able to repro-
duce the real-world GNSS signal, engineers are able to test a
wide range of receiver characteristics. Because recorded signals
contain a rich set of channel impairments such as ionosphere
distortion and interference from other transmitters, design en-
gineers often use recorded signals to prototype the baseband
processing algorithms on a GNSS receiver.
In our case, we used a VSG directly connected to a GPS
evaluation board. In the experiments described below, the re-
ceiver’s latitude, longitude, and velocity were tracked over time.
Data was read from the receiver using a serial port, which read
NMEA 0183 sentences at a rate of one per second. NMEA
0183 is a standard protocol developed by the National Marine
Electronics Association for communications between marine
electronic devices. NMEA 0183 has been adopted by virtually
all GPS receiver manufacturers. In our LabVIEW graphical
www.gpsworld.com
 Signal Processing | INNOVATION

development environment, one can parse all sentences to re- shown in Figure 6.
turn satellite and position-fix information. As the data from Figure 6 illustrate, a recorded test-drive
For practical testing purposes, GPS dilution of precision signal reports static, position, and velocity information. In
and active satellites (GSA), GPS satellites in view (GSV), addition, one can observe that this information is relatively
course over ground and ground speed (VTG), and GPS fix repeatable from one trial to the next, as evidenced by the dif-
data (GGA) sentences are the most useful. More specifically, ficulty in graphically observing each individual trace. To bet-
one can use information from the GSA sentence to determine ter characterize the deviation between each trace, one can also
whether the receiver has achieved a position fix and is used in compute the standard deviation between each sample in the
time-to-first-fix measurements. When
performing sensitivity measurements
GSG-54 GPS 8-CHANNEL SIMULATOR
in this example, the GSV sentence was
used to return carrier-to-noise-density
ratios (C/N0) for each satellite being
tracked. In addition, the VTG sentence
allows us to observe the velocity of the
receiver. Finally, the GGA sentence
provides the receiver’s precise position
by returning latitude and longitude in-
formation. See the references in Further
Reading for in-depth information on
the NMEA 0183 protocol.
Using the receiver’s reported latitude
and longitude information, we are able to
test its ability to report a repeatable posi-
tion when the recorded signal is played
back to the receiver. In this experiment,
we tracked the receiver position over 10
minutes. For the best results, the com-
mand interface of the receiver should be
tightly synchronized with the start trig-
ger of the RF signal generator. The re-
GPS
sults in FIGURE 6 show that the RF vec-
tor signal generator in this experiment
was synchronized with the GPS receiver
Constellation
by using the data line of the serial com-
munications (COM) port (RxD, pin
2) as a start trigger. Using this syn-
in a Box
chronization method, the vector signal Eight-Channel GPS Test Device for Manufacturing and Development
generator and GPS receiver were syn-
chronized to within one clock cycle of Applications ՘V̈œ˜>ˆÌÞ
the VSG’s arbitrary waveform generator UÊÊՏÞÊVœ˜ÌÀœ>LiÊ*-ÊȓՏ>̈œ˜ UÊÊ,i«i>Ì>LiÊ>˜`ÊÀiˆ>Li
(100 MS/s). Thus, the maximum skew UÊÊ6iÀÃ>̈iÊ*-Êv՘V̈œ˜>ˆÌÞÊÌiÃ̈˜} UÊÊ >ÃÞÊ̜ÊÕÃi
should be limited to 10 microseconds. UÊÊ-ˆ“Տ>ÌiÊ«œÃˆÌˆœ˜Ã]Ê̈“iÃÊ>˜`Ê UÊÊ>ÃÌɅˆ}…Ê̅ÀœÕ}…«ÕÌ
Given our receiver’s maximum velocity user movements UÊÊ
vvœÀ`>Li
of 15 meters per second (our maximum UÊÊ-Ì>˜`>À`ÇL>Ãi`Ê*-ÊÌiÃÌà UÊÊ*œÀÌ>LiÊ>˜`ÊVœ“«>VÌ
speed on the drive test), we can deter-
mine that the maximum error induced
by clock offset of the signal generator is
10 microseconds ⳯ 15 meters per Synchronizing Critical Operations ®

second, or 0.15 millimeters. Test & Measurement by Spectracom

Using the configuration described

above, one is able to report the receiv- +1.585.321.5800 (North America) +46 8 598 510 00 (Europe)
er’s latitude and longitude over time, as sales@spectracomcorp.com www.spectracomcorp.com

www.gpsworld.com October 2010 | GPS World 33

INNOVATION | Signal Processing

1.50
Latitude
1.25
Longitude sphere. For a more precise calculation of repeatability, the geo-
Standard deviation (meters)

desic formula (which presumes that the Earth is ellipsoidal)

1.00
should be used. In our simple experiment, the goal is merely to
0.75 correlate repeatability with other factors that we can measure
from the receiver. FIGURE 8 illustrates the standard deviation
0.50
of horizontal position repeatability over 10 trials and at one-
0.25 second time intervals.
0.00 As one can observe in Figure 8, the peak horizontal error
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Time (seconds)
400 450 500 550 600
(measured by standard deviation) occurring at time ⳱ 120
ÅFIGURE 7 Standard deviation of both latitude and longitude over seconds is directly correlated with satellite C/N0 and not corre-
time
lated with receiver velocity. At this sample, the standard devia-
50
tion is nearly 2 meters while it is less than 1 meter during most
45
other times. Concurrently, the top four C/N0 averages drop
from nearly 45 dB-Hz to 41 dB-Hz.
40 Standard deviation (meters)
The exercise above illustrates not only the effect of C/N0 on
35 Mean velocity (meters/second)
Average C/N0 (dB-Hz) position accuracy but also the types of analysis that one can
30
conduct using recorded GPS data. For this experiment, the
25
drive recording of the GPS signal was conducted in Huizhou,
20
China (a city north of Shenzhen), but the actual receiver was
15 tested at a later date in Austin, Texas.
10

5 Conclusion
0 In this article, we’ve illustrated how to use commercially avail-
0 50 100 150
ÅFIGURE 8 Correlation of position accuracy and C/N0.
waveforms. FIGURE 7 illustrates the standard deviation between
each of the 10 trials, calculated for every one-second interval,
versus time.
When observing the horizontal standard deviation, it is in-
teresting to note that the standard deviation appears to rapidly
increase at time ⳱ 120 seconds. To investigate this phenom-
enon further, we can plot the total horizontal standard devia-
tion against the receiver’s velocity and a proxy for C/N0. In this
case, we simply averaged the C/N0 values for the four highest
satellites reported by the receiver. Since four satellites are re-
quired to achieve a three-dimensional position fix, our assump-
tion was that position accuracy would closely correlate with the
signal strength of these important satellite signals.
One simple method to evaluate the horizontal repeatability
of the receiver position versus time is to calculate the standard
deviation on a per-sample basis of each recorded latitude and
longitude (in degrees). Once the standard deviation is mea-
sured in degrees, we can roughly convert this to meters with
the following equation:
200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600
Time (seconds) able off-the-shelf products to record GPS signals with an RF
recorder, and then play the signal back to a receiver. As the
results illustrate, recorded GPS signals can be used to measure
a wide range of receiver characteristics. Not only can receiver
designers use these test techniques to better prototype a receiv-
er baseband processor, but also to measure system-level perfor-
mance such as position repeatability.
Manufacturers
The tests discussed in this article used a National Instruments
(www.ni.com) PXIe-5663E, 6.6 GHz, RF signal analyzer; a
National Instruments PXI-5690, 100 kHz to 3 GHz, two-
channel programmable amplifier and attenuator; a National
Instruments PXIe-5672, 2.7 GHz, RF vector signal generator
with quadrature digital upconversion; a 320 GB USB Passport
hard drive from Western Digital Corp. (www.wdc.com); a Na-
tional Instruments PXI-4110 programmable, triple-output,
precision DC power supply; and a ZX85-12G-S+ bias tee man-
ufactured by Mini-Circuits (www.minicircuits.com). The article
also mentioned the RP-3200 2-channel record and playback
system manufactured by Averna (www.averna.com), which in-
corporates National Instruments modules. 

Deviation (meters) = ( LatSTDEV × 111325m ) + ( 2 DAVID HALL is an RF product manager for National Instruments. He holds
a bachelor’s of science with honors in computer engineering from
0.5 Pennsylvania State University.
⎛ Lat × π ⎞ ⎞ ⎞
2
⎛
⎜⎝ LonSTDEV × 111325m × cos ⎜⎝ 180 ⎟⎠ ⎟⎠ ⎟
⎠ MORE ONLINE

(8) Further Reading

For references related to this article, go to gpsworld.com and click on Richard
Note that Equation 8 represents a highly simplified error Langley’s Innovation under Inside GPS World in the left-hand navigation bar.
calculation method, which assumes that the Earth is a perfect
34 GPS World | October 2010 www.gpsworld.com
 Road
Road | TRANSPORTATION

Can GNSS
Drive V2X?
Communication-enabled vehicle safety has the potential to change transportation’s future, particularly vehicle-
to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), collectively represented as V2X. An automakers’ consortium
conducted extensive field trials to determine GNSS service availability and accuracy for the V2X challenge.
Chaminda Basnayake, Tom Williams, Paul Alves, and Gérard Lachapelle

V
2X can include applications based on communications
between any two or more entities on the road. Of all
the potential V2X applications, V2V applications
probably lead the way in terms of maturity of prototype
development and test efforts. General Motors (GM)
demonstrated the first working prototype V2V system in 2005.
Information on further industry collaborative efforts in V2V
system developments can be found at the U.S. Department
of Transportation’s (DOT’s) IntelliDrive website (www.
intellidriveusa.org). While a multitude of applications could be
developed based on V2I capability, most of the related system
prototype development efforts have taken place under the
DOT’s Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance (CICAS)
program (www.its.dot.gov/cicas).
Accuracy Requirements
In terms of positioning accuracy requirements, Vehicle Safety
Communications-Applications (VSC-A) prototype system ca-
pabilities as well as all V2X applications can be classified as:
䡲 Which Road. In this case, accuracy is only required to the
extent of identifying the road traveled. For instance, if a vehicle
is in a service road parallel to a freeway, knowing that it is on
the service road and not on the freeway is sufficient. The need
of a typical vehicle navigation device is another good example
of this requirement category. The typical accuracy requirement
for this case is better than 5 meters. However, this could be a
relative accuracy requirement for certain applications. For in-
stance, in a V2V scenario, one vehicle may only need to know
if the other is on the same road or not, while in the absolute
sense both vehicles could be in error by more than 5 meters.
For V2I applications, however, this becomes an absolute accu-
racy requirement, as the infrastructure is always mapped and
identified with respect to a global coordinate frame.
䡲 Which Lane. This accuracy level enables applications to
identify other entities with lane level resolution. The typical
requirement is 1.5 meters or better, which approximately cor-
responds to half of a lane width. A blind-spot advisor is a good
example that requires this accuracy.
䡲 Where-in-Lane.This accuracy level enables the relative
positioning of entities to better than 1 meter. Further refine-
ments of blind-spot advisor-like applications are examples.
Availability Requirements
GNSS as a line-of-sight technology has obvious limitations in

Å DRIVING ENVIRONMENTS encountered in testing. Clockwise from top left: deep urban, urban thruway, local roads, mountains.
www.gpsworld.com October 2010 | GPS World 35
TRANSPORTATION | Road
Å FIGURE 1 VSC-A prototype relative positioning system.
certain environments, and these limita-
tions are well understood by the GNSS
community. The focus of this study was
to understand the limitations associated
with a GNSS-only V2X solution such
that requirements for augmentation
technologies can be defined. Therefore,
no availability requirements were set for
the system; estimating availability of a
GNSS-only solution was the goal.
Why So Complicated? At first glance,
what needs to be done is straightforward;
all V2X-capable entities need to be aware
of each other’s positions. Hence, if all
entities transmit their own location with
respect to the same coordinate system, the
problem is solved. Unfortunately, it’s not
that simple.
Designing the system so that hundreds
of entities, potentially using all sorts of
GNSS software and hardware, can work
together presents a significant challenge.
This includes keeping backward
compatibility way out into the future.
Even within the same receiver make
and type, inclusion of a particular
satellite in the solution of one vehicle can
significantly affect the solution difference
between vehicles. Inclusion of SBAS also
contributes as a differentiator. In a V2X
scenario, out of two adjacent vehicles, one
vehicle may use SBAS while the other may
not, due to hardware configuration or
visibility. If none of the above situations
occurred and everything else were ideal,
transmitting just the current horizontal
position of a V2X entity over-the-
air (OTA) would be sufficient to do
everything needed.
V2X thus requires a positioning system
architecture that minimizes the impact
of these complications and many other
36 GPS World | October 2010
potential compatibility issues. Major
system design considerations include:
Performance Requirements. The
system must provide relative positioning
accuracy that fits Which Road, Which
Lane, or Where-in-Lane category and
should identify the solution quality. For
instance, a vehicle on a freeway with
relatively open sky view may function in
the Which Lane mode and may transition
to Which Road mode as it enters an urban
area with sky visibility limitations.
Deployment Constraints. The system
must be affordable for automotive
applications. This may also include
considerations such as antenna placement,
processing resource requirements, and
power requirements.
Bandwidth Constraints. The volume
of data transmission constitutes a major
consideration for OTA communications.
While some methods manage
communication range and frequency as a
way of optimally using the communication
channels, keeping the OTA data volume
to a minimum by design was a goal.
Study Goals
This study investigated the performance
of two relative positioning methods:
DPOS, a method of using the difference
in position reported by two entities to
calculate the 3D separation between the
points; and real-time kinematic (RTK).
While there are many other possible rela-
tive positioning methods, these two were
selected as they collectively represent the
most desirable availability and accuracy
performance. In DPOS, vehicle coordi-
nates are transmitted between vehicles
in order for position differences between
vehicles to be derived at each vehicle. In
RTK, raw code and carrier-phase data is
transmitted between vehicles, and the in-
ter-vehicle position differences are calcu-
lated using RTK software in either fixed
or float carrier-phase ambiguity mode at
each vehicle. The RTK method is more
intensive both from a data transmission
and computational aspect, but retains
only common satellites in the solution,
eliminating the problem described earli-
er. Its use of carrier-phase measurements
also makes it more accurate.
The study included two GPS receiver
types. The first, a single-frequency L1
automotive-grade receiver, is identified as
Type B receiver in this study. The second,
identified as Type A, was of a higher quality
with proprietary multipath mitigation
technologies. Both receivers were capable
of using WAAS support. Receiver B also
allowed the user to reject selected satellites
from its solution. These two devices were
selected as they were capable of supporting
both processing methods, and represent
on the one hand an existing automotive-
grade receiver, and on the other hand one
that is expected to be a good representation
of a product with technologies available
for automotive deployment a few years
from now.
Specific study goals were:
 Accuracy performance of DPOS
and RTK methods when all vehicles
use same GPS receiver type.
 Same when a receiver type or a
receiver configuration mix is used.
 Dependency of the accuracy perfor-
mance on the driving environment.
 Solution availability with same
receiver and mix receiver combina-
tions.
 Implications of non-continuous V2I
coverage.
Prototype System
The system prototype (FIGURE 1) used
for the study was a replica of the proto-
type relative positioning system imple-
mented in the VSC-A project. It consists
of a dedicated short-range communi-
catin (DSRC) interface with a DSRC
radio, a GPS receiver/relative position-
ing module, and a sensor data handler.
www.gpsworld.com

In operation, a vehicle generates its own
location information and GPS raw data in
RTCM format and shares this data with
other vehicles. OTA messaging was done
using the SAE J2735 messages set with
GPS raw data in RTCM format attached
as optional data. As shown in Figure 1,
RTCM v3 1002 messages were used to
exchange VSC-A data. The system was
also capable of using RTCM v3 messages
1001 & 1005 for V2I operation. The
DPOS relative positioning logic was
implemented in the sensor data handler,
while the RTK implementation was done
in a separate relative positioning module.
This module takes in local and remote
1002 messages and outputs RTK data
to the sensor data handler. Applications
could access both RTK and DPOS relative
positioning information from the sensor
data handler.
Vehicle Setup. Two vehicles were
used for the V2X data collection. Four
different GPS L1-only test receiver types
were installed on each vehicle:
 AW: high-quality receiver using
WAAS corrections.
 BW: high-sensitivity automotive-
grade receiver with WAAS ranging
and corrections enabled.
 BNW: high-sensitivity automotive-
grade receiver with WAAS ranging
and corrections disabled.
 B24W: high-sensitivity automotive-
grade receiver using a maximum of
the four primary satellites in each
of the six planes (minimum guaran-
teed constellation) and with WAAS
ranging and corrections enabled.
As shown in FIGURE 2, the AW and B
type receivers were connected to different
GNSS antennas. These antennas were
mounted on roof-racks attached to the
vehicles (see PHOTO). The patch antenna
for the Type B receivers was mounted on
an aluminum-topped wooden pedestal to
bring it to approximately the same height
as that used by the AW receivers, to provide
a ground plane and to prevent shading
from other equipment on the roof-racks.
The spacing between the antennas was
accounted for in all analysis.
Figure 2 also shows that only three
www.gpsworld.com
Road | TRANSPORTATION
ÅFIGURE 2 High-level V2V hardware setup on each of the two test vehicles.
of the four test receivers, AW, BW, and
BNW, were connected to the computer
that ran the RTK software. This computer
calculated the inter-vehicle vector (IVV)
using information exchanged over the
DSRC radio link in real time. The vehicles
each had a designated base relative to which
the IVV was calculated; for Vehicle 1 it
was BW and for Vehicle 2 it was AW. Thus
the computer on each vehicle calculated
three instances of the IVV, for example,
the computer on Vehicle 1 calculated
BW1–BW2, BW1–BNW2, and BW1–AW2
(where Ri denotes the receiver of type R
on vehicle i). ÅTWO STUDY VEHICLES with antennas
Transmission and reception of data attached to the roof-racks.
between the two vehicles required for the
IVV RTK calculations were achieved using to calculate the IVV for each receiver
wave radio modules with two magnetically combination using the DPOS method
mounted 802.11p antennas on each in post-processing. No real-time data
vehicle for redundancy. During testing, transfer between the vehicles was used for
Vehicle 1 generally followed Vehicle 2. this method.
To minimize potential interference of Reference values of the IVV were
roof-mounted instruments on between- calculated in post-processing using both
vehicle communications, the antennas geodetic grade GPS/GLONASS L1/L2
on Vehicle 1 were located close to the receivers and GPS/INS integrated systems
front of the roof, while those on Vehicle 2 in differential mode. Both were connected
were located close to the rear of the roof. to the antenna used by the AW receiver.
In each case, 15 centimeters of roof space Differential GPS calculations were enabled
were left to provide ground planes for the by using stationary receivers with antennas
antennas. at precisely known WGS84 locations on
We used the single-point navigation top of a building at the University of
solutions logged from each test receiver Calgary.
October 2010 | GPS World 37
TRANSPORTATION | Road

% of
Environment Description Mask Angle Speed & Dynamics
Data
Test Scenarios Suburban residential 10° to 90° depending
Max: 25 mph. Frequent
V2V data was collected in and around Local Roads streets, occasional tree on trees and neighbor-
starts, stops, and corners.
14.4
canopy. hood.
the city of Calgary in August 2009. In
the majority of the tests, Vehicle 1 fol- Major multilane roads Max: 50 mph.
Urban Thruway with nearly constant Around 20°. Mainly free-flowing, occa- 21.8
lowed Vehicle 2 with a separation of 3–4 storey buildings. sional traffic jam.
less than 300 meters, the stated effec-
Multilane road with Max: 50 mph.
tive range of the DSRC link. For most Rural Thruway occasional 3–4 storey From 5° to 20°. Free-flowing and mainly 19.2
tests the inter-vehicle separation was buildings. straight.
between 30 and 150 meters. Some driv- Similar to urban and Max: 40 mph.
ing environments forced modifications Major Roads rural thruways with 5° (rural) to 20° (urban) Frequent starts and stops, 18.1
of the default behavior; for example, on lower speed limit. mainly straight.
highways, vehicles moved in between Freeways with open-sky Max: 60 mph.
the two test vehicles, necessitating lane Freeway view and occasional 5° or less. Free-flowing, mainly 20.1
overpass. straight.
changes. Approximately 52 hours of
data was collected over 12 days. After Freeways on mountain 20° to 60° depending Max: 60 mph. Frequent
Mountains 2.5
sides. on trees. changes in direction.
rejecting data due to various faults such
as reference-system malfunction, more Deep Urban
Roads in downtown core Generally 20° to 40°, as Max: 25 mph. Frequent
3.7
flanked by highrises. high as 80°. starts and stops
than 45 hours of data remained.
Data was collected in the seven test
environments listed in TABLE 1. These ÅTABLE 1 Description of driving environments used in V2V tests.
environments were selected in accordance
with Federal Highway Administration
descriptions. Each environment provided
different challenges for GNSS-based
positioning. Obviously the deep urban
environment was challenging because the
reduced number of visible satellites and
the large amount of multipath meant that
navigation solutions were both rare and
of poor quality. As another example, the
mountain environment was interesting
because often almost half the sky was
occluded by trees on the mountain side,
leading to an asymmetrical visible GPS
satellite constellation with the associated
solution degradation. The photos at the
beginning of this article show selected
driving environments encountered during
testing.
V2V Solution Accuracy. Positioning
accuracy of the individual receiver was ÅFIGURE 3A (top) Individual receiver absolute accuracy; 3B (mid) Relative accuracy with
same receiver type; 3C (bottom) Relative accuracy with receiver/configuration mix.
first investigated to estimate the V2V
relative positioning accuracy when using
the DPOS method. This was done for same type in the second vehicle (V2). As As a second step, V2V relative accuracy
the entire dataset. a general trend, Type A receivers provided when the same receiver type was used was
FIGURE 3A shows a representative better absolute accuracy meeting the estimated, and the mean errors are shown
freeway dataset to illustrate overall trends: Which Lane accuracy, whereas the Type B in FIGURE 3B. Based on the mean error
the absolute 2D mean position errors receivers provided Which Road accuracy. for each pair, all four receiver pairs were
observed from all eight GPS receivers Also, the use of WAAS with receiver Type able to provide Where-in-Lane relative
used in both vehicles. The first set of four B has yielded some absolute accuracy position accuracy. The geodetic grade
receivers shown were the AW, BW, BNW, improvement. Limiting the constellation Type A receiver pair (AW–AW) yields
B24W receivers in the first vehicle (V1), to 24 (B24W) did not significantly the best relative accuracy at around 0.5
and the second set of receivers were the degrade accuracy in this case. meters relative 2D error. In comparison
38 GPS World | October 2010 www.gpsworld.com

Å FIGURE 4 Distribution of GPS service outages for individual
vehicles.
with the mean absolute errors, the V2V relative accuracy is greatly
improved as a result of cancellation of correlated errors, indicating
a high degree of correlation of absolute errors in receivers under
these test conditions.
The relative accuracy with mixed receiver types or
configurations was also estimated. With respect to receiver type
mixes, the Type A receiver from vehicle 1 was used with the
three Type B receivers in vehicle 2, yielding three combinations
as AW–BW, AW–BNW, and AW–B24W. Mean error statistics
for these three combinations and the combination of BW from
vehicle 1 and B24W from the second vehicle are shown in FIGURE
3C. In comparison to the same type receiver pairing, this shows
much larger mean errors. For instance, for all AW receiver mixes,
the mean relative error is around 2 meters. Therefore, it is fair to
conclude that error characteristics and modeling in the navigation
solutions in receiver A and B are type-dependent, and they may
not be compatible when a receiver mix is used. The BW–B24W
combination does not show a significant increased mean error,
indicating that the constellation difference in this test was not
significant enough to result in an increased relative positioning
error.
V2V Solution Availability
Availability statistics were generated for all accuracy categories
(Which Road, Which Lane). At a more abstract level, solu-
tion availability statistics were also calculated for the DPOS
and RTK methods. RTK solutions were defined as available
whenever the software yielded a solution for that particular ep-
och. Data gaps in the RTK method could be caused by either
communication failure due to, for example, a large truck enter-
ing the line of sight between vehicles, or one vehicle disappear-
ing around a corner, or because insufficient observations from
common satellites were available at the two vehicles. DPOS
solutions, calculated in post-processing, were defined to be
available whenever both receivers had observations from four
or more satellites and were therefore able to calculate the neces-
www.gpsworld.com
Road | TRANSPORTATION
Å FIGURE 5 Distribution of GPS service outages for V2V
applications.
sary independent position solutions. While the two definitions
of availability are not quite congruous, because only that for
the RTK includes the possibility of communication failure,
comparison of logs of data transmitted between the vehicles
showed that out of approximately 45 hours of data, only 0.22
percent of missing RTK solutions could be attributed to failure
of the DSRC link.
FIGURE 4 plots the distribution of GPS service outages observed
by AW and BW receivers in individual vehicles in all of the test
environments including deep urban. Here, as described for the
DPOS method, an outage for a single receiver is identified on an
epoch basis whenever the receiver has observations from less than
four satellites. The total driving time included in this dataset is
45 hours and 4 minutes for each receiver. Figure 4 [deep urban]
shows the same statistics for deep urban environment driving
only, and this contains 1 hour and 40 minutes of driving for each
receiver. The latter was selected specifically as this environment
contained the most challenging conditions.
An important conclusion based on this data is that more than
98 percent of the individual vehicle-level service outages in the
entire study lasted less than 30 seconds using any one of the
receiver types. For the deep urban environment, 93 percent of
the outages lasted less than 30 seconds. However, when using
the high-sensitivity enabled Type B receivers, 100 percent of the
outages lasted less than 5 seconds. No significant outage difference
is seen between the observations from the same receiver type in
the two vehicles.
GPS service availability for V2V applications was calculated
using two approaches for the two relative positioning methods.
For the DPOS method, individual vehicle service availabilities
were time-synchronized in post-mission, and V2V DPOS
solution availability was estimated. FIGURE 5 compares V2V
solution outages using both receiver types and both relative
positioning methods.
The DPOS method yields better solution availability statistics
than RTK. With both receiver types, more than 95 percent of
October 2010 | GPS World 39
TRANSPORTATION | Road
DPOS solution outages are less than 10
seconds. With the RTK method, relatively
longer outages were observed, especially
for Type B receivers. With Type A
receivers, the difference is only significant
for outages shorter than 30 seconds. For
Type B receivers, larger percentages of
longer RTK outages were observed; this
can be potentially attributed to poor
carrier-phase tracking loop performance of
these receivers and the impact on RTK.
Using GNSS Data
We anticipated performance issues aris-
ing from receiver type and configuration
incompatibilities going into the proto-
type development effort. We identified
use of raw GPS measurements instead
of the DPOS method as one method
to overcome this limitation, as the dif-
ferencing techniques with measurement
data guarantees correlated error cancel-
lation. This was one reason to include
the RTK capability in the prototype sys-
tem. Therefore, confirming the fact that
use of raw measurements eliminates the
receiver type and configuration-related
incompatibilities was a major goal of the
study.
As discussed earlier, V2V relative
position solutions using RTK were logged
in real time as a part of the test setup. We
compared these real-time RTK solutions
and the DPOS solutions estimated in post-
mission for all datasets. FIGURE 6 shows
three cumulative probability distribution
(CDF) plots generated using RTK and
DPOS accuracy data from a freeway test
dataset. The first CDF plot (left) shows
the comparison of accuracy when both
Å FIGURE 6 Comparison of V2V solutions using RTK and DPOS methods.
40 GPS World | October 2010
vehicles use Type A receivers with RTK
and DPOS methods. The second CDF
plot (center) shows the same CDFs when
both vehicles use the Type B receivers. The
third shows the DPOS and RTK accuracy
CDFs when vehicle 1 uses Type A receiver
and the other uses Type B receiver.
Figure 6 demonstrates that if higher
quality GPS receivers similar to Type A
are used in both vehicles, both RTK and
DPOS methods would provide a solution
of better than Which Lane accuracy more
than 90 percent of the time. However, if
Type B receivers are used, a solution with
similar accuracy will only be available 60
percent of the time if the DPOS method is
used for relative positioning of the vehicles.
If the RTK method is used, this availability
can be increased up to 90 percent.
The performance difference between
the two methods becomes even more
prominent when the two vehicles use a
mix of receiver types. In the right-most
CDF of Figure 6, a solution with Which
Lane accuracy is only available 30 percent
of the time if DPOS method is used with
the mixed receiver configuration. The RTK
solution availability still remains around 90
percent even with the mixed configuration.
This confirms that use of measurement
data eliminates some of the limitations
associated with the DPOS method.
Comparison of only the RTK
performance between all three CDFs
in Figure 6 shows that RTK V2V
performance is only limited by the
worst-performing receiver in the receiver
combination. Out of the three CDFs, the
middle (both vehicles using Type B) and
the right (Type A and B mix) CDFs have
almost identical RTK performance curves.
Given that the RTK curve with both
using Type A receivers shows much better
performance, it is fair to conclude that in
the mixed-receiver case, the RTK curve is
limited by the performance of the Type B
receiver. Figure 6 also shows that at Which
Road accuracy, all receiver combinations
and both processing methods yield almost
identical performance.
Other Approaches
Given that carrier-phase measurements
are subject to cycle slips in some road
environments, we ran a test using code
measurements only in relative mode,
using selected data sets collected on a
mountainous highway. Only common
satellites were used. Given that code
measurements are not affected by a loss
of phase lock, such a solution is more
robust, but is subject to code noise and
multipath. The RMS horizontal posi-
tion differences between these solutions
and the reference inter-vehicle separa-
tions were 25 centimeters and 1 meter
for receiver Types A and B, respectively.
Both receiver types meet the Where-in-
Lane requirement in this test. Type A,
with its low code noise and excellent
code multipath-reduction capability, has
a clear advantage.
Such an approach would represent a
compromise between the DPOS and RTK
approaches. Its advantage over the RTK
approach is a lower data transmission-rate
requirement, while that over the DPOS
approach is the use of common satellites
only. The latter is quite significant, since
low-elevation satellites contribute the
www.gpsworld.com
TRANSPORTATION | Road
Å FIGURE 7 Average relative positioning accuracy as a function of V2I positioning modes
(orange V2I; green DPOS; blue RTK; purple V2I-S).
most to horizontal position solutions, but
their measurements are affected more by
atmospheric transmission errors that are
most effectively removed in differential
mode on a satellite-by-satellite basis.
V2V Operation with V2I
While infrastructure support can almost
always improve the performance of other
V2X applications, it can pose a challenge
for positioning when such coverage is not
continuous. The complication arises as a
result of vehicles transitioning in and out
of V2I coverage areas. V2I systems are
highly likely to include GNSS augmen-
tation capability so that vehicles within
a coverage area benefit from better posi-
tioning capability. However, when vehi-
cles transition from standard (V2V) op-
eration mode to a V2I enhanced mode,
some effects in the vehicle position do-
main can pose potential challenges for
DPOS-based V2V.
The field study included test scenarios
with limited V2I coverage in different
driving environments: all of those described
above with the exceptions of deep urban
and mountains. In deployment, the
infrastructure points (IPs) would broadcast
aiding information to the vehicles within
their coverage area, allowing real-time
calculations. In the field study, in which
the role of the IP was filled by a stationary
high-grade receiver with a tripod-mounted
antenna, all V2I estimates of the IVV
were calculated using post-processing.
Further, V2I estimates of the IVV were
only calculated when at least one of the
vehicles was within the coverage area of
42 GPS World | October 2010
the IP, here chosen to be a circle of radius
300 meters centered at the IP. This range
was chosen since it is the nominal effective
range of the DSRC link.
The location of the IP, that is, the
phase center of the stationary antenna,
was determined using commercial RTK
network software with additional stations
at precise locations on the rooftop of a
building at the University of Calgary. The
estimated accuracy of this position was
5 millimeters (1 sigma). The distances of
the vehicles from the IP, used to indicate
when the vehicles transitioned into and out
of the IP coverage area, were determined
using the GPS/INS reference trajectories.
In post-processing, once a vehicle was
identified as having entered the IP coverage
area, commercial RTK software was used
to estimate the position of the vehicle,
using the IP as base and each of the test
receivers on that vehicle as rovers. The IVV
was then calculated using the difference
of the positions of the two vehicles.
Thus, the V2I estimate of the IVV was
determined using what is essentially the
DPOS method with stationary base RTK-
indicated vehicular positions, instead of
the less accurate single-point GPS position
solutions. When only one vehicle was
within the coverage area, single-point
solutions were used for the distal vehicle,
resulting in a solution called V2I-S.
FIGURE 7 shows two sets of CDFs
generated to illustrate the V2V
positioning accuracy with V2I capability.
The left plot corresponds to AW–AW
receiver combination, and the right plot
corresponds to the BW–BW combination.
Each plot includes four curves. One pair of
curves shows the V2V positioning accuracy
without V2I, which includes performance
when using the DPOS method (green)
and another when using RTK (blue). The
second pair shows the accuracy of the V2I
and V2I-S estimates.
The most striking observation from
Figure 7 is the separation of the V2I-S case
from others for both receiver combinations
(purple). It shows much worse positioning
accuracy compared to the other three
curves. For instance, using a BW–BW
pair, the system will meet the Which Lane
accuracy requirement around 80 percent
of the time for either DPOS or RTK V2V
without V2I support. However, when V2I
coverage is available to only one vehicle,
the V2I-S case, the accuracy requirement
is only met at 40 percent confidence.
Thus, system accuracy performance
degrades when vehicles are operating in
DPOS mode and are transitioning in
and out of the V2I zones. This is because
the V2I-S estimate is the difference of an
accurate position solution for the vehicle
within the coverage zone, and a potentially
inaccurate single-point solution for the one
outside the coverage zone. The beneficial
cancellation of similar errors that occurs
for DPOS estimates (using similar
receivers and with common satellite
observations) does not occur for V2I-S.
Potential solutions to this problem
include using a V2I method of IVV
calculation that is not dependent on the
estimated position alone (that is, use RTK
or other measurement-based methods as
opposed to DPOS), or using a position-
mode indicator with the DPOS mode such
that a DPOS-based V2V solution is only
generated when both vehicles are operating
in the same mode (that is, V2I). However,
the latter does not provide a remedy for
the complications when the two vehicles
are operating in two different modes.
One could also consider a variation of the
latter method whereby a V2I-augmented
position and a non-augmented position
is maintained by each vehicle, such that
one of them could be used to generated a
mode-matched DPOS V2V solution for
a given sender.
www.gpsworld.com
 Road | TRANSPORTATION

Recommendations ments and OTA data needs, the study Acknowledgments

These extensive trials provided valuable
data demonstrating technical challeng-
es associated with V2X positioning.
䡲 Error characteristics and modeling
in the navigation solutions in receivers
A and B are type-dependent, and they
may not be compatible when a receiver
mix is used with the DPOS mode. This
is very likely to be the case for many
other commercial receivers. Therefore,
it is important to develop receiver hard-
ware and software minimum-perfor-
mance standards that define acceptable
performance for measurement quality,
satellite tracking and selection criteria,
reliability estimates, navigation-solution
parameters, and other such indicators.
䡲 Findings with RTK confirm the fact
that use of measurement data elimi-
nates some of the limitations associated
with the DPOS method. While RTK
is the most demanding raw data-based
method in terms of processing require-
also conducted limited investigation on
other methods that use raw code data
and are less resource-intensive, and at
the same time better performing than
DPOS. Such an approach would repre-
sent a compromise between the DPOS
and RTK approaches.
䡲 An important conclusion based on
this data is that more than 98 percent of
the individual vehicle-level service out-
ages in the entire study lasted less than
30 seconds using any one of the receiver
types. For the deep urban environment,
93 percent of the outages were less than
30 seconds. These statistics are useful
for future research on suitable GNSS
augmentation methods.
䡲 System accuracy performance de-
grades when vehicles operate in DPOS
mode and transition in and out of the
V2I zones. Potential solutions should
be incorporated into the systems to take
care of these limitations. 
The authors thank the Crash Avoidance
Metrics Partnership Vehicle Safety Com-
munications-Applications team, in par-
ticular the Vehicle Positioning Technol-
ogy Development team, for input. This
work was conducted as a part of a CAMP
VSC-A project under a cooperative agree-
ment with the U.S. DOT.
CHAMINDA BASNYAKE is a senior research engi-
neer at General Motors Global Research and
Development and GNSS technology expert
for GM OnStar. He leads GNSS-based vehicle
navigation technology R&D efforts at GM and
holds a Ph.D. in geomatics engineering from
the University of Calgary.
TOM WILLIAMS is a postdoctoral researcher in the
PLAN group in the Department of Geomatics
Engineering at the University of Calgary.
PAUL ALVES is a Calgary-based geomatics consul-
tant specializing in RTK. He obtained his doc-
torate from the University of Calgary.
GERARD LACHAPELLE holds an iCORE/CRC Chair in
Wireless Location and heads the PLAN Group
in the Department of Geomatics Engineering
at the University of Calgary.

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www.gpsworld.com October 2010 | GPS World 43

SURVEY | Mapping
Sparse Network
Wide-Area, Sub-Decimeter Positioning for Airborne LiDAR Surveys
The use of a precise wide-area positioning technique for airborne trajectory solutions for LiDAR surveys provides
both relative and absolute accuracies similar to those derived from using a local GNSS reference station.
Oscar L. Colombo, Shane Brunker, Glenn Jones, Volker Janssen, and Chris Rizos
A
irborne light detection and
ranging (LiDAR) surveys are
among the most advanced
means of producing high-resolution, ac-
curate surface elevation models used for
many applications in surveying and civil
engineering. Precise geolocation and
orientation (or georeferencing) of the
LiDAR instrument with a combination
of on-board GNSS and inertial sensors
at the times when the measurements are
made provides the key to high-quality
elevation products.
The usual practice deploys reference
GPS/GNSS land receivers in the area
where the aircraft will be flying, to ob-
tain a precise trajectory by short-base-
line differential GNSS techniques. This
could mean installing and operating re-
ceivers at many sites during a flight mis-
sion if the area surveyed is a large one.
We have tried a different approach:
using as reference receivers those of a
sparse network of Continuously Operat-
ing Reference Stations (CORS) in New
South Wales known as CORSnet-NSW,
and a wide-area differential GPS tech-
nique for obtaining the aircraft trajec-
tory with sub-decimeter accuracy even
with baseline lengths of several hundred
kilometers. This may be comparable in
precision and accuracy to the short-base-
line method, but without the cost and
44 GPS World | October 2010
logistical complications. This opens up
a new level of operational capability, al-
lowing flexibility for weather conditions
and priority response applications.
The tests described here were orga-
nized and conducted by the NSW gov-
ernment’s Land and Property Manage-
ment Authority, in collaboration with
the University of New South Wales, in
June 2009. CORSnet-NSW consists, at
this writing, of 46 stations and by 2012
will provide statewide GNSS position-
ing infrastructure across NSW with a
planned 70 stations in operation.
Precise Wide-Area Positioning
We used a technique for long-baseline
differential, off-line positioning, able to
deliver centimeter precision for fixed re-
ceivers and sub-decimeter precision for
moving receivers. This choice was dic-
tated by three considerations:
 The intended application was the
geolocation of the data of an airborne
scanning LiDAR sensor to be used in
the generation of high-accuracy digi-
tal elevation models (DEM).
 Off-line processing, where all the
GNSS data collected during the
flight are available for processing
and (as in this case) there is no need
for immediate results, is intrinsically
more reliable than real-time process-
ing, where the data are available only
up to the present epoch, and accurate
results must be obtained right away,
with no chance for a second try.
 Differential processing makes it pos-
sible to resolve the carrier-phase
ambiguities using well-understood
methods.
Technique. It is common practice in
airborne LiDAR surveys to use GNSS
both to position the instrument precisely,
and to assist an inertial navigation system
(INS) to obtain the orientation of the
aircraft in space, as both position and
orientation are needed to interpret the
data properly. FIGURE 1 illustrates the
relationship between the sensors used for
airborne LiDAR surveys. The aircraft uses
a GNSS antenna combined with an INS to
georeference its trajectory. The bore-sight
calibration process aligns the individual
sensor orientations and standardizes the
range measurements. However, if the
survey is to achieve the now-expected
high level of vertical accuracy (⫾15
centimeters, 1 sigma), then the position of
the GNSS/INS-derived aircraft trajectory
for each laser swath must be determined
with a relative precision in the order of
just a few centimeters. This is achieved
via differential GNSS post-processing of
the kinematic airborne data together with
static observations collected on precisely
www.gpsworld.com

surveyed ground reference stations. The GNSS positions are then
blended with high-frequency measurements taken by the onboard
INS to produce the final trajectory and reference orientations.
To such ends, the aircraft trajectory is usually determined
by short-baseline differential GNSS, with ground receivers de-
ployed near the intended flight path of the aircraft. In this way
it is possible to use GNSS data analysis techniques that are
both precise and quite straightforward to implement in soft-
ware. The simplicity of these techniques is possible because,
in short-baseline differential solutions, the data of the aircraft
receiver and any nearby network receivers have much the same
systematic errors (due to such things as satellite ephemerides
errors, transmission delays, and so on) that cancel out — or
nearly so — when their observations are differenced between
them. This also makes it possible to resolve quickly and reliably
the cycle ambiguities in the observed carrier phase, the most
precise type of GNSS data, overcoming one of the main ob-
stacles to obtaining good results. Furthermore, it is possible to
get such results with single-frequency receivers, as ionospheric
delay is one of the systematic effects that can be largely can-
celed out.
In wide-area solutions, those cancellations are not complete
enough to ignore the systematic data errors, and they have to
be included in the form of additional unknown parameters in
the observation equations. Also, it is necessary to account for
the ionospheric delays using dual-frequency data, which means
using more expensive GNSS receivers and antennas.
Resolving the carrier-phase ambiguities is no longer straight-
forward or assured. The standard way of dealing with the am-
biguities is to include them as unknowns in the observation
equations and adjust them along with the other unknowns:
this is often referred to as “floating the ambiguities.” Fixing
(or resolving) those ambiguities to their most likely integer
values in a matter of seconds to a minute is possible on occa-
sion, when the aircraft is within less than 20 kilometers from a
ground receiver, or very precise corrections for the ionospheric
delay are available; otherwise slower techniques, that require
tens of minutes, may be used. It is also necessary to correct as
well as possible such things as the neutral atmospheric delay of
the GNSS radio signals, the movement of the “fixed” stations
due to plate tectonics, the solid earth tide using mathematical
models, and, in the case of the tropospheric delay, estimating
the error in the corrections made using a standard formula as
an additional unknown per receiver.
Over the years all these difficulties have been gradually dealt
with more effectively, more efficiently, more reliably and, from
the user’s point of view, less painfully. Originally developed for
the repeated determination of station positions to measure the
slow tectonic deformations of the Earth’s crust, and to calcu-
late precisely the orbit of Earth-observing satellites, these days,
after nearly 30 years of steady progress, GNSS wide-area tech-
niques and the corresponding software find many applications
in science, engineering, and navigation, and are becoming
www.gpsworld.com
Mapping | SURVEY
ÅFIGURE 1 Airborne LiDAR reference frame.
widely used in remote sensing.
Software. We used the Interferometric Translocation (IT)
wide-area positioning software developed by one of us for the
long-baseline aircraft trajectory solutions and also to re-position
in the IGS05 international reference frame some CORSnet-
NSW stations, so their data could be used consistently in the
differential wide-area solutions. These stations were originally
given in the Geocentric Datum of Australia (GDA94). For
both purposes we used the precise final GPS orbits computed
and distributed by the IGS.
To validate the aircraft trajectories calculated with the wide-
area method, we relied mainly on the quality of the LiDAR
DEM results obtained with those trajectories. We also used
commercial software to generate short-baseline differential
solutions with receivers deployed near the intended aircraft
flight-path, as is common practice in this type of survey, and
compared them with the wide-area solutions (they turned out
to be quite similar to short-baseline solutions obtained with the
wide-area software).
Airborne Tests
This study has used data from two airborne LiDAR surveys
conducted by the NSW Land and Property Management Au-
thority (LPMA) in June 2009. The first took place near the
township of Glen Innes, and the second was a bore-sight cali-
bration flight near the city of Bathurst. For both LiDAR sur-
veys, the following data were acquired:
䡲 Aircraft trajectory, raw dual-frequency GPS (1 Hz) and
IMU data (200 Hz).
䡲 LiDAR (raw return data for each laser pulse).
䡲 GPS reference station data from local receivers and mul-
tiple CORSnet-NSW sites.
Glen Innes Test. This operational LiDAR survey estab-
lished GND1 as the local reference station within the survey
area. CORSnet-NSW data were collected for the test from
GNSS receivers in Ballina (BALL), Grafton (GFTN), Nowra
(NWRA), and Wagga Wagga (WGGA). FIGURE 2 shows the
distribution of the reference stations and the flight runs.
Bathurst Test. Bathurst Airport is LPMA’s LiDAR calibra-
October 2010 | GPS World 45
SURVEY | Mapping
The ”IT” Software
䡲 Runs under Windows, Unix, Linux, and FreeBSD.
䡲 Source code compatible with most Fortran compilers.
䡲 Follows the IERS 2003 conventions.
䡲 Available mainly for collaborative research purposes, with a
Free Software Foundation General Public License.
Type of solutions:
䡲 Recursive, post-processing (Kalman filter + smoothing).
䡲 Kinematic and static.
䡲 Stop-and-go for rapid mobile surveys with pre-surveyed way-
points.
䡲 Differential, precise point positioning, mixed mode (precise
differential + point positioning).
Data corrected for: Earth tide, neutral atmosphere radio signal
delays, carrier phase windup, and so on.
Estimated parameters:
䡲 Receiver position in the IGS05 reference frame, with the
WGS84 reference ellipsoid, earth spin-rate, light speed, GM
constant.
䡲 Biases in ionosphere-free carrier-phase linear combination
(“floated” ambiguities).
䡲 Neutral zenith delay correction error.
䡲 Broadcast orbit errors (allows precise differential near-real
time solutions).
䡲 Integer ambiguity resolution available in differential mode,
with short baselines up to 20 kilometers (in minutes), and
baselines of unlimited length (in tens of minutes — or just
minutes, with a precise ionosphere correction).
tion site and has various arrays of accurate ground checkpoints.
AIR2, near the runway of the Bathurst airport, is the locally
established GNSS reference station. CORSnet-NSW data were
collected for the test from receivers in Ballina (BALL), Dub-
bo (DBBO), Grafton (GFTN), Newcastle (NEWC), Nowra
(NWRA), and Wagga Wagga (WGGA). FIGURE 3 shows refer-
ence-station distribution and a schematic of the flight runs.
Effect on LiDAR Data
Rather than simply comparing aircraft trajectories, this study
aimed to determine what effect the use of wide-area GNSS
positioning has on the actual LiDAR point data and associated
Å FIGURE 2 Glen Innes survey of June 9, 2009, showing the
distribution of reference stations with baseline lengths and the
survey area with (numbered) flight runs.
46 GPS World | October 2010
elevation surfaces. In terms of the horizontal accuracy required
for LiDAR surveys, initial tests showed that the differences be-
tween the horizontal positions of various trajectories was neg-
ligible; therefore, only the vertical component was considered
in this analysis.
To quantify differences between LiDAR data generated
from trajectories using various combinations of distant GNSS
reference sites, we applied four types of analysis:
䡲 Comparison of trajectories — directly compare the
locally computed trajectory (assumed to be truth) with
each wide-area derived trajectory.
䡲 Relative LiDAR point comparison — compare the posi-
tions for a sample of LiDAR ground points derived from
the locally computed trajectory with those derived from
each wide-area derived trajectory.
䡲 DEM comparison — difference the raster surfaces
derived from the locally computed trajectory and a wide-
area derived trajectory to find the effect over a LiDAR
run.
䡲 Absolute LiDAR ground control comparison — com-
pare the LiDAR derived surface from various trajectories
to the surveyed ground control (Bathurst Calibration test
site only). This also involves vertically shifting the result-
ing surface so that its offset relative to the one used as
control is zero, thus removing the effect of using different
reference frames for the GNSS trajectories and the con-
trol surface.
Trajectory Comparison
The comparison between the locally determined and each
wide-area derived trajectory was made along the entire trajec-
tory for each flight. The importance of this step lies in the as-
sumption that all LiDAR data are directly positioned from the
trajectory and so any systematic effect in the trajectory should
be reflected on the ground. For each test site the locally derived
solution is assumed to be “truth” with the vertical difference
computed against wide-area solutions for each combination of
reference stations used (TABLE 1).
Å FIGURE 3 Bathurst test of June 16, 2009, showing the distribu-
tion of reference stations with baseline lengths and the survey
area with (numbered) flight runs.
www.gpsworld.com
 Mapping | SURVEY

Glen Innes Bathurst Calibration

GND1 (the local solution) AIR2 (the local solution)
BALL/GFTN BALL
WGGA/NWRA BALL/GFTN
DBBO/WGGA/NEWC
WGGA
WGGA/GLBN/NEWC
ÅTABLE 1 GNSS reference station combinations used in each
test area.

ÅFIGURE 5 Trajectory elevation differences for entire Bathurst

calibration flight

and WGGA and NWRA, respectively) against the locally de-

ÅFIGURE 4 Trajectory elevation differences for entire Glen Innes
flight.
Glen Innes Test. FIGURE 4 shows the vertical comparison of
two wide-area derived trajectories (using BALL and GFTN,
rived trajectory (using GND1). It can be seen that once the
aircraft attained its stable operating altitude, the wide-area
derived trajectories are generally within 5 centimeters of the
locally derived solution.
Bathurst Test. The Bathurst test differs from the Glen Innes
test in that both the duration of the flight and the length of
each run are significantly shorter. FIGURE 5 shows the vertical
component of five wide-area derived trajectories, using several
combinations of CORSnet-NSW reference stations, compared
against the locally derived trajectory (using AIR2). The results

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SURVEY | Mapping

GNSS Reference Station Min. Max. Average Std. Dev. GNSS Reference Station Min. Max. Average Std. Dev.
BALL/GFTN East -0.008 0.029 0.011 0.008 BALL East -0.013 -0.005 -0.009 0.002
(average 200 km baseline) (626 km baseline)
North -0.027 0.018 -0.004 0.011 North -0.034 0.012 -0.012 0.013
Vertical 0.004 0.045 0.025 0.009 Vertical -0.031 -0.003 -0.020 0.008
WGGA/NWRA East -0.050 0.024 -0.017 0.021 BALL/GFTN East -0.009 0.002 -0.004 0.002
(average 600 km baseline) North (average 570 km baseline) North -0.036 0.007 -0.015 0.011
-0.106 0.083 -0.018 0.057
Vertical -0.050 0.001 -0.024 0.014 Vertical -0.048 -0.014 -0.037 0.008
ÅTABLE 2 Displacement vectors for each combination relative to the DBBO/WGGA/NEWC East -0.035 -0.026 -0.031 0.002
local solution for Glen Innes run 002 (values in meters). (average 220 km baseline) North -0.031 -0.002 -0.016 0.008
Vertical -0.020 0.017 -0.008 0.009
once again show a remarkably consistent comparison with the WGGA East -0.024 -0.009 -0.018 0.004
locally derived solution. Data spikes showing up in the DBBO/ (280 km baseline) North -0.028 0.000 -0.014 0.006
WGGA/NEWC (yellow) solution were attributed to small Vertical -0.027 0.015 -0.016 0.010
data glitches at the DBBO CORSnet-NSW site. Unfortunate- WGGA/GLBN/NEWC East -0.006 0.004 -0.002 0.002
ly, LiDAR data were not collected at those instances; therefore, (average 210 km baseline) North -0.029 0.003 -0.015 0.009
the effect on ground data could not be fully assessed. Vertical -0.020 0.017 -0.009 0.009

ÅTABLE 3 Displacement vectors for each combination relative to

Relative Comparison
Regardless of the trajectory and orientation used to georefer-
ence LiDAR data, the same number of points will be created.
It is therefore possible to create a LiDAR dataset using the
same raw LiDAR data but different GNSS trajectories, and
compare the results to determine the relative positioning dif-
ferences on the ground.
Given the large number (many millions) of points in a Li-
DAR dataset, we used a representative sample of evenly spaced
10 ⳯ 10 meter areas each containing 50–100 points (on level
ground) for statistical analysis. We calculated displacement
vectors between points computed from the locally derived
trajectory and those using wide-area trajectories. Results from
flight run 002 at Glen Innes (see Figure 2) and run 7 at the
Bathurst Calibration test site (see Figure 3) are presented here.
Glen Innes Test Run 002. The displacement vectors from
46 sample areas (4,620 points) are summarized in TABLE 2,
being points computed using the two wide-area solutions com-
pared with the locally derived solution using reference station
GND1. Note the high accuracy achieved in the all important
vertical component.
Bathurst Test Run 7. The displacement vectors from 25
sample areas (1,700 points) are summarized in TABLE 3, being
points computed using the five wide-area solutions compared
with the locally derived solution using reference station AIR2.
Once again the results clearly show that the height values agree
to within a few centimeters, even over baselines of more than
600 kilometers in length.
DEM Comparison
To investigate how the LiDAR surfaces derived from each tra-
jectory compare across the entire data swath, we created raster
surfaces from the LiDAR point data. Each surface was then
subtracted from the local solution to create a difference sur-
face. Visual inspection and interpretation was then used to
discern any patterns or effects.
The result shown in FIGURE 6 (Bathurst Calibration flight
48 GPS World | October 2010
the local solution for Bathurst Calibration run 7 (values in meters).
run 7) was typical of the cyclical effect evident for all solu-
tions. The magnitude of the difference was in the order of 2–3
centimeters and is in the direction of flight (north to south).
If this cyclical variation is compared with the trajectory com-
parison for just the 33-second duration of flight run 7, a clear
(expected) correlation with the variation in height is evident
(FIGURE 7).
No DEM comparison results are presented for the Glen
Innes data because of significant variation in terrain and veg-
etation, making interpolation difficult and unreliable.
Absolute LiDAR Comparison
Ground control points serve two purposes in a LiDAR survey:
䡲 The calculation of statistics to describe vertical accuracy,
that is, quantifying the match of the surface to the local
height datum.
䡲 The calculation of a surface adjustment to enable trans-
formation of the LiDAR points to fit the local height
datum.
Additionally, ground control points with accurate heights
are used to calibrate the sensor before use in active LiDAR
surveys to account for internal electrical delays in the ranging
and measurement system. LPMA maintains a calibration site
at Bathurst Airport for this purpose, and regularly surveys the
area to ensure the sensor is operating at maximum accuracy. It
should be noted that the sensor was calibrated using Bathurst
Airport ground control data prior to this study.
Surveyed Ground Control. The airport runway centerline
vertical profile for the Bathurst Calibration site (FIGURE 8) was
re-computed in terms of the same IGS05 reference frame de-
termined for the LiDAR trajectories, thereby allowing an inde-
pendent comparison with ground truth.
Point Comparison. Data from Bathurst run 7 were used
to compare LiDAR results with the established ground con-
trol using a basic triangulated irregular network (TIN) surface
www.gpsworld.com
 Mapping | SURVEY

ÅFIGURE 6 Subtraction surface for Bathurst

Calibration run 7 (AIR2 vs. BALL).
ÅFIGURE 8 Runway vertical profile at the
Bathurst Airport calibration site.
ÅFIGURE 7 Trajectory comparison for Bathurst Calibration run 7 (031318).
comparison (FIGURE 9 and TABLE 4). In
Figure 9, the TIN surface is indicated by
the white line, while the ground control
points are shown with yellow buffers.
The first trajectory in Table 4 is the
original calibration comparison using
commercial software and orthometric
height data. All wide-area solutions dis-
play a similar vertical offset, because of
the use of different reference frames for
the GrafNav and wide-area solutions
(IGS05 vs. GDA94), and differences in
the implementation in software of, for
example, antenna corrections and at-
mospheric modeling. At first glance, the
significant differences to the GrafNav
trajectory caused the wide-area result to
not satisfy the accuracy specifications for
LiDAR. However, had the wide-area so-
lutions been used for the sensor calibra-
tion, the figures would have been much
closer to the ground truth.
Block-Shifted Data Comparison. In
an operational environment, because of
systematic errors in the resulting DEM
relative to the local height datum, this

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www.gpsworld.com October 2010 | GPS World 49
SURVEY | Mapping

Trajectory Mean Min. Max. RMSE

mean vertical offset is a common occurrence with comparisons
AIR2 (commercial software) 0.008 -0.074 0.097 0.034
against ground control similar to those shown in FIGURE 10.
Again, the TIN surface is indicated by the white line, and the AIR2 -0.102 -0.177 -0.002 0.106
ground control points are shown with yellow buffers. BALL -0.102 -0.177 -0.002 0.106
In standard LiDAR operations, the mean vertical offset between BALL/GFTN -0.117 -0.191 -0.015 0.122
the initial results and the ground control, at the control points, pro- DBBO/WGGA/NEWC -0.089 -0.161 0.009 0.094
duces a zero-mean offset. Following this procedure in this case re- WGGA -0.098 -0.170 0.000 0.103
sults in the variation in the comparison of LiDAR data with ground WGGA/GLBN/NEWC -0.090 -0.164 0.008 0.096
truth now being well within the required limits of ⫾15 centimeters ÅTABLE 4 Comparison of LiDAR surface against ground control
(TABLE 5). The values show that after a block shift, trajectory so- points (all values in meters).
lutions are virtually identical with a root mean square error of 32 Trajectory Mean Min. Max. RMSE
millimeters. Thus, local GNSS reference stations can be replaced AIR2 (commercial software) 0.000 -0.082 0.089 0.033
by distant CORS sites without loss of accuracy. AIR2 0.000 -0.075 0.100 0.032
BALL 0.000 -0.075 0.100 0.032
Conclusions BALL/GFTN 0.000 -0.074 0.102 0.032
A precise wide-area positioning technique for airborne trajecto-
DBBO/WGGA/NEWC 0.000 -0.072 0.098 0.032
ry solutions provides both relative and absolute accuracies simi-
WGGA 0.000 -0.072 0.098 0.032
lar to those derived from using a local GNSS reference station. WGGA/GLBN/NEWC 0.000 -0.074 0.098 0.032
Irrespective of which reference sites are used and once calibra-
tion and antenna modeling issues are addressed, the absolute ÅTABLE 5 Comparison of block-shifted LiDAR surface against
ground control points (all values in meters).
comparison with ground control is well within the required
accuracies. With the configuration of a GNSS network such SHANE BRUNKER is an airborne LiDAR and imaging specialist working in
a consulting capacity for specialized LiDAR survey company Network
as CORSnet-NSW (when complete, at least one site will al- Mapping (United Kingdom).
ways be within 150 kilometers of any point within New South GLENN JONES is a senior surveyor at the NSW Land and Property
Wales), an airborne LiDAR survey in the network’s service area Management Authority in Bathurst, Australia.
can provide data for computation of an accurate sensor trajec- VOLKER JANSSEN is a GNSS surveyor (CORS Network) in the Survey
Infrastructure and Geodesy branch at the NSW Land and Property
tory. This potentially negates the need to place and maintain Management Authority in Bathurst, Australia.
ground reference stations close to the survey area — an exercise CHRIS RIZOS is head of the School of Surveying and Spatial Information
which not only requires significant resources but also reduces Systems of the University of New South Wales, has a surveyor’s
degree and a Ph.D. from the same university, and is an specialist in
the operational flexibility of the aircraft. geodesy and GNSS positioning.
The challenge for this technique in an operational environ-
ment is to define and maintain a precise reference frame for all
CORSnet-NSW sites and observations, including the use of a
stable ellipsoidal height datum with compatible geoid model-
ing in order to provide local orthometric elevation data. The
knowledge base required for computation of wide-area GNSS
solutions is significant and requires understanding of geodesy,
GNSS positioning, absolute antenna modeling, application of
precise ephemerides, and derivation of the other parameters in-
herent to successful ambiguity resolution over long distances.
Regardless of processing method, a LiDAR survey will always ÅFIGURE 9 Comparison of LiDAR surface and ground control
points.
require independent ground surveys for collection of vertical
checkpoints, which provide quality control to ensure the accu-
racy meets specifications, and the means to define any transfor-
mations necessary to fit LiDAR data with local height datum.

Manufacturer
NovAtel’s WayPoint GrafNav software (www.novatel.com) was
used for comparison purposes. 
OSCAR L. COLOMBO received a degree in electrical engineering from
the National University of la Plata, Argentina, and a Ph.D. in
electrical engineering from the University of New South Wales, ÅFIGURE 10 Usual operational comparison of LiDAR surface and
Australia. He is an independent consultant. ground control points.

50 GPS World | October 2010 www.gpsworld.com

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