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GeoEye offers to buy DigitalGlobe.

by gps4us news 2012-05-05 14:14

GeoEye, a commercial satellite imagery company, offered to buy its rival, DigitalGlobe, for $792 mln.
GeoEye and DigitalGlobe are the only two companies that provive satellite imagery to US military and intelligence agencies. The companies also provide satellite imagery to companies like Google for its Google Maps technology, and navigation device manufacturers, like Garmin.
[More]

Tags: geoeye, digitalglobe, satellite, navigation, digital imagery

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Increased Military-Civilian cooperation on space programs.

by gps4us news 2012-02-10 18:35

Even though defense-related budgets are tightening, Richard McKinney, deputy undersecretary for space programs said in February that US Military continues its coopetation and international collaboration on space programs. [More]

Tags: WGS, GPS, satellite, navigation Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Pentagon

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Aerial Sheriff surveillance drone flights provide greater safety of crime-fighting operations

by Rus Abz 2012-01-12 13:09

Adaptations of military surveillance technology are finding their way to help in everyday police operations as an efficient crime-fighting solution. The small factor unmanned aerial vehicle could be quickly deployed to track and chase down drug shipments and assess potentially precarious situations such as armed standoffs. The operating cost of the drone is tenfold lower in comparison of that required for a helicopter crew. Fully loaded the 50-pound Aerial Sheriff is compact enough to fit into the back of a truck. It can be airborne in minutes, and only takes five minutes to completely refuel. Designed to fly for extended period of time to support police surveillance operations and to get to the crime scene in no time. Equipped with night vision cameras, infrared and thermal imaging equipment the unmanned vehicle uses GPS course compass unit and GPS enabled autopilot. In fully autonomous mode the onboard flight control system relies on GPS navigator to stabilize the flight while the ground operator analyzes the real time video information. The flying sheriff captures high-resolution video and aerial photos and transmits live video stream which is secured from interception. The Aerial Sheriff is the first drone capable of carrying not only surveillance payloads like thermal imaging camera for night use, zoom lens camera and a heat seeking device, but armed weapons ranging from Tazer to small grenade launcher or a gun that fires bean bags, however there are no plans to fly weaponized police drone. A pilot on the ground is using a laptop and joystick to fly the drone by remote control. The video streaming information is used to direct officers on the ground in in the search of the suspect. Aerial Sheriff is always ready to be called to quickly get to any place miles away from the mobile host vehicle. With GPS course compass and autopilot quidance and live video stream coming from an unmanned aircraft it is a powerful tool for all kinds of police work and is always ready to be called precisely to the scene of a traffic or other accident. Law enforcement agencies are planning to use the drone helicopter to deal with criminal activities. The flying sheriff can read a license plate from 400 feet in the air and identify suspects and the vehicles that they are in. The flying sheriff could also fly to seek for missing child or the Alzheimer's patient that has wandered off and in many cases when police can take this drone and launch it and give rescue teams a greater capacity to be able to find those missing individuals. An unmanned drone uses its heat seeking camera to help a police officer track down a suspect. Equipped with powerful cameras, high precision GPS navigation and transmitting technology, the UAV can quietly hover high in the skies over any location while sending its operators real-time video of the crime scene. Police forces in the UK have been flying drones for surveillance operations for several months. In the US the drone will only be used in mission specific situations. Police departments adopting the drone technology have been working with the Federal Aviation Administration to get clearance for drone flights, come up with operator training and flight regulations for law enforcement use of unmanned aerial vehicle. As always with new technology there are concerns that application of the drone technology is moving at a faster rate than the laws. The complete number of checks and balances on the law system are currently missing. American Civil Liberties Union and civil rights monitoring organizations are working with the police and law enforcement agencies to ensure the primary use of the drone is to provide greater safety protection of SWAT teams in their legitimate police work. Flying Sheriff adds a lot of value as it discovers critical information about crime scene ahead of time for the safety of the officers. Use of the drone ensures SWAT team members are not getting hurt. Aerial Sheriff flights have demonstrated new crime-fighting technology can be utilized to provide for greater safety of SWAT teams operations.

Tags: Aerial Sheriff, SWAT, unmanned aerial vehicle, video stream, course compass unit, autopilot, GPS course compass

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NASA Navigator detects GPS satellite constellation from Lunar distances

by Russel 2012-01-11 13:05

For spacecraft operating above the GPS constellation, which is about thirteen thousand miles above Earth in an area normally referred to as high-Earth orbit, the onboard GPS navigation for spaceflight operations at geosynchronous orbits has been extremely challenging. Existing GPS receivers could not adequately pick up the GPS signal, which is transmitted toward Earth to serve millions of GPS navigator devices widely used in terrestrial applications. However. the constellation does not transmit GPS signals away from Earth and into the open space. As a result, spacecraft above the GPS constellation could not reliably detect GPS signals for tracking and navigational purposes, which is the case with many upscale projects forcing them to use much more expensive ground-tracking assets. Open space exploration and high-altitude science missions are relying on the expensive ground stations to track high altitude geosynchronous spacecraft. Scientists have discovered an alternative, which at fraction of cost offers same or better navigation performance in weak-signal and highly dynamic environments, such as space projects with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. To help lower mission costs NASA Navigator research and development group developed new GPS signal-processing algorithms and sophisticated hardware for a ultra high orbiter spacecraft GPS receiver. The innovative GPS device and tracking method is used for spacecraft orbiting much higher than GPS constellation, as far as at Lunar distances. Spacecraft operating in weak-signal areas, such as geosynchronous orbits where global communications and weather satellite services spacecrafts typically operate, will be able to acquire and track the weak GPS signals to determine their locations. The next-generation GPS navigator receiver can acquire the GPS signal even if the spacecraft carrying the receiver is located at lunar distances to maintain their precise orbital position. The task which seem to be impossible with existing GPS receivers as they could not recognize signals of GPS constellation satellites in the open space, has been solved by Navigator GPS receiver. With new technology spacecraft orbiting well above the constellation will be able to reliably use low strength GPS signals for tracking and navigational purposes, instead of using expensive ground-tracking assets. The new enabling navigation technology, the NASA Navigator provides accurate positioning, navigation, and timing services. The solution will be used in the Magnetosphere research missions. The sensitivity of the Navigator GPS receiver is so high that it would allow spaceship to acquire and track weak GPS signals at an altitude of over sixty two thousand miles above the Earth. The mission is made up of four identically instrumented spacecraft which require extremely precise positioning in a unique formation in a very high-altitude Earth orbit, while measuring the three dimensional structure and dynamics of Earth’s protective magnetosphere. The mission relies on the newly invented weak-signal Navigator GPS receiver with improved sensitivity to help the Magnetospheric MultiScale mission spacecraft maintain their precise orbital position. NASA Navigator GPS receiver has been instrumental in a unique experiment carried out during the last Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission. The radar measurements of GPS signals that were reflected off the Hubble telescope were used for range estimates during docking and undocking, proving a key relative navigation sensing technology for a robotic rendezvous with the Hubble in the future. The invention will serve as the primary navigation sensor on NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement Mission, which will study global rain and snowfall when it launches in 2013. The Air Force Research Laboratory is planning to use a Navigator engineering test unit in its Plug-and-Play spacecraft, an experimental satellite that has modular structure with an interchangeable components that easily hook together. The Navigator's revolutionary signal-processing design will be also used in an engineering test unit to the next-generation weather satellite which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration plans to launch in 2015.

Tags: geosynchronous, NASA Navigator, signal-processing, GPS constellation, Magnetosphere, spacecraft, Hubble space telescope, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, weather satellite

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GPS collar tracking system helps understand the wildlife migration habits

by gps4us news 2012-01-10 13:44

Nature scientists have tracked the movements of wild animals with electronic collars that emit radio signals in the VHF band. The data received from the collars helps researchers to better understand the animal's social structure, mortality rates, feeding ecology and other behavior patterns. That method of tracking wild animals requires ecologists work extensively in the field to search for the radio signal from the collars, then record the wild animals location on a handheld GPS, which is a cumbersome process. The new generation of GPS collars is designed to calculate the exact location of the wild animals with adjustable polling intervals from seconds to hours and send a data packets and text messages to a central processing application via the first tier of the distributed GPS tracking system which consists of multiple VHF transmitting GPS enabled tracking collars. In many cases the researchers use custom built expensive GPS tracking collars for larger animals, but often the less expensive GPS tracking systems such as Astro DC 40 or DC 30 transmitters and and Astro 320 receivers could be used at a fraction of cost. The collars are instantly paired with GPS navigation handheld receivers either Astro 220 or Astro 320 among most advanced models. Originally designed as hunting dog collars the Dc 30 and Dc 40 have been proven to be suitable not only for dogs but for many other animals including wild cats, mountain lions as one example. GPS tracking collar helps researchers bring to light critical information about pumas and mountain wild cats as many regions most active predator, so that key conservation objectives can be initiated to preserve this essential member of the ecological environments. Biologists have collared growing numbers of wild animals for tracking in studies to better understand the migration habits of wildlife across geographical areas. Lynx, pumas and mountain wild cats have been fitted with innovative GPS tracker collars with an embedded accelerometer to provide new insight into puma wildlife range, habitat, biology and behavior. Depending on the goals of the wildlife research the GPS navigation and tracker system may take shape of a complex multi-tiered distributed platform. The Astro 320 combo bundle of the navigation handheld and DC 40 tracking GPS collar is a good example of the first tier at the heart of the more complex wildlife animals tracking system. Both the collar and the host station are receiving the GPS satellite constellation information in real time. Multiple Astro units are individually paired and work as universal VHF radio communication devices with collars transmitting the tracked animal's most current GPS location Astro 320 host device which compares the received GPS location information with its own reading of the GPS satellite constellation. Next tier of distributed application may perform the consolidation of information from GPS navigators and involves a cloud computing web services enabled dedicated servers, which are collecting information from GPS devices and store in the database. The processing application queries the data cube, extracting records containing most current information about animal's location, and then translates it into an electronic messages for the distribution to the subscribed researchers and to the e-mail web service application. In parallel, the data then is analyzed, formatted and aggregated on an open-source topographic map that displays the wild animals' movements, allowing nature researchers to know when the animals have strayed too close to livestock herds. The GPS tracking collar advanced antenna design safeguards against the animal location information is getting lost when the animal enters into the water to cross the river. Astro DC 40 is rugged and reliably works in all weather conditions. Combination of a high-sensitivity GPS collar receiver, quad helix GPS antenna and extended range VHF antenna into an all-in-one transmitter makes this orange colored collar the universal wearable tracking device eliminating the need to put two separate collars on an animal. Each collar transmitting circuitry has an unique electronic lock which uses a four-digit PIN number that helps keep the data packets broadcast by the collar secured in transmit. The paired Astro 320 navigator unlocks the information for the nature scientists to see tracked animal whereabouts. The GPS satellite acquisition system keeps connectivity with the GPS constellation satellites even in the heavy bush or densest covered forest. The DC 40, in combination with the Astro 320 pinpoints the tracked animal position in preselected intervals to keep optimal balance between frequency of the transmit intervals while checking the animal current location and longer battery life. With an increased range and simplified user interface the Astro also offers rich mapping capabilities. Depending on terrain Astro 320 keeps track of up to ten animals as far as nine miles away. Animals that are too far away to fit on the Astro 320 map’s current zoom scale can be notated on the display’s margin in the direction of the animal’s location. The researcher also can choose the duration that each animal’s track-log is viewed on the display, and optionally completely toggle it off for a cleaner display. The nature animal scientist or nature explorer can mark the exact spot - a special waypoint that will keep the exact location, time of day and elevation where the animal performed certain activity such as has found its prey. The tracker page allows to view a compass pointing to most current animal location. Astro tracking system lets the researcher save other special waypoints, such as location of the vehicle and base camp for each trip in the field.

Tags: tracking system, wildlife, puma, wild cat, GPS collar

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Space tourism attracts science and education customers to pioneer safe and clean access to space

by Rus Abz 2011-12-30 12:50

Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo achieves new milestones on its way to become the first commercial vehicle to take space tourists on high-altitude flights to suborbital space and return them safely through the atmosphere to Earth. Safety is at the heart of the design of new space vehicles. Fundamentally safe by design the new space ship technology is focused on a number of innovative features which are believed to make the vehicles many thousands of times safer than any manned spacecraft of the past. Overlayed with experience in transportation operations it presents an unique opportunity to transform levels of safety into a new dimension and take steps to expand the mission beyond commercial space tourism. Scaled Composites is progressing towards commercial space exploration phase with 30 SpaceShipTwo flights and 75 WhiteKnightTwo flights to date. Over 450 future astronauts worldwide have signed on to join for a future voyage to pioneer safe, affordable and clean access to space. New spacecraft uses carbon composite construction and design. It will carry six passengers and two pilots. Its large cabin is similar in size to an executive jet aircraft, albeit with no floor dissecting the cabin to allow maximum room for the astronauts to float in zero gravity. Each passenger gets the same seating position with two large windows, one side window and one overhead. This allows astronauts to float free in space, or to remain in their seats, with a great chance to see the view. The views of earth will be maximized by large windows. Powered by a hybrid rocket motor, new space ship offers important safety and environmental advantages over liquid or solid powered systems that are more commonly used on manned space vehicles. Its enhanced safe operation feature means that the pilots will be able to shut down the SpaceShipTwo rocket motor at any time during its operation and glide safely back to the runway. The most radical feature employed by SpaceShipTwo is the unique way it returns into the dense atmosphere from the vacuum of space. The unique feathering system is designed with innovative approach which does away with the need for sophisticated computer driven flight control systems or the need to rely on the pilots. Instead it uses aerodynamic design and the laws of physics for a care-free and heat-free reentry followed by a glide runway landing. The spaceship can be thought of as an air launched glider with a rocket motor and a couple of extra systems for spaceflight. Just like any conventional flying machine, it requires aerodynamic forces to provide its stability and control which, clearly, it only has whilst in the atmosphere. In space it follows a purely ballistic trajectory, but here it can use small thrusters known as the reaction control system which allow the pilots to maneuver the vehicle in space and provide a changing view for the passenger astronauts. Among new features which are focused on increased safety the sophisticated GPS enabled navigation and flight control system is developed and tested as an important component of the future space operation. During last decades the designers and builders of space launch system introduced and tested the world's most innovative experimental aircraft along with efficient flight control system. The safety record is second to none established a culture and an approach to design which is predicated on safety. Spacecraft design philosophy is based on simplicity with the rationale that a complex system has an increased chance of failure, therefore risk reduction has been the most important design element in the new space vehicles. While new spacecraft feathering system dramatically simplifies the operation of the new spaceship, for the situations when spacecraft will need to rely on autopilot, safer spaceflight onboard flight control system is also designed to process the Global positioning satellite constellation information employing the latest achievements in the artificial intelligence and GPS navigation technology. One of the new approaches includes the micro nuclear navigation assist components. The heart of the new autopilot, positioning, navigation and timing system includes a nano chip which uses a micro-nuclear magnetic resonance gyroscope. Having no moving parts it uses a gyroscopic spin of nuclear particles in a magnetic field to determine orientation, and also measures the spin of atomic nuclei to measure rotation. The solid micro-nuclear high performance quantum gyro is not sensitive to acceleration and vibration, therefore providing the ability to achieve navigation-grade performance with a two orders-of-magnitude reduction in size, weight, and power from state-of-the-art positioning and navigation gyroscope currently used in inertial measurement units. The micro-nuclear magnetic resonance gyros are developed to be embedded in evolving GPS navigation enabled artificial intelligence flight control systems for next generation of safer spacecraft.

Tags: astronauts, SpaceShipTwo, spacecraft, feathering system, safe by design, carbon, composite, quantum, magnetic resonance, gyroscope, spaceflight, artificial intelligence

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Global positioning and geographic information systems help create an environmentally friendly farm

by Rus Abz 2011-12-28 11:53

New uses of global positioning systems are invented every day and are most efficient at the edge of multiple technologies combining the best aspects of each technology into an integrated solution. Art and science of modern agriculture joins together global positioning and geographic information systems to develop and implement new methods of processing critical location and environmental information for precision agriculture and site-specific farming. The latest agricultural innovations rely on the integration of simpler Gpsmap 78 or Dakota 20, Legend HCx, Dakota 10, to more sophisticated Rino 655t and on-board computers, data collection sensors, and GPS time and position navigation and coordinate reference systems. These technologies enable three dimensional elevated topographic maps rendered in real time. Onboard GPS navigation devices for trucks and tractors and real time GPS enabled topographic mapping technology guides farmers in low visibility field conditions such as rain, dust, fog, and darkness. Where farmers may have once treated their fields uniformly, they are now seeing benefits from precision managing of their fields. Precision agriculture is gaining in popularity largely due to the introduction of high technology GPS instruments, radars, tools and applications into the agricultural community that are extremely accurate, cost effective, and user friendly. Precision agriculture controls application of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers along with accurate dispersion of chemicals reduces expenses and produces a higher yield environmentally friendly farm. The geographic information system allow for real-time data collection and integration with data received from GPS satellite constellation producing an accurate position information which is leading to the efficient management and analysis of large amounts of geospatial data. The precision farming integrated solution includes suite of GPS and GIS enabled applications which together are being used for farm planning, field mapping, soil sampling, tractor guidance, crop scouting, variable rate applications, and yield mapping. Precision agriculture is about collecting timely geospatial information on soil-plant-animal requirements and prescribing and applying site-specific treatments to increase agricultural production and protect the environment. By using integrated global positioning and geographic information system to guide fleet of tractors the entire process from leveling the field to planting the seed to irrigating the crop has become much more efficient. Multi-GNSS Glonass enabled devices, such as eTrex 10, could be integrated with computerized tools to help farmers and agricultural businesses become more productive and efficient in their precision farming activities. Equipped with advanced GPS navigation systems comprised of sensitive GPS receivers, GPS enabled radars, quad helix antennas, multi functional displays, agricultural communities successfully enhance operations in their farming businesses. Location information is collected by GPS receivers, processed by multi functional displays and delivered by means of the onboard GPS integration network and field command centers for mapping field boundaries, roads, irrigation systems, and problem areas in crops such as weeds or disease. The accuracy of GPS allows farmers to create farm specific topographic maps with precise acreage for field areas, road locations and distances between points of interest, for farmers to navigate to specific locations in the field, collect soil samples and monitor crop conditions.

Tags: Rino 655t, Dakota 10, Dakota 20, Gpsmap 78, eTrex 10, Legend HCx, agriculture, farming, environmentally friendly, geographic information, topographic maps, GPS navigation, geospatial

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GeoEye offers to buy DigitalGlobe.

Increased Military-Civilian cooperation on space programs.

Aerial Sheriff surveillance drone flights provide greater safety of crime-fighting operations

NASA Navigator detects GPS satellite constellation from Lunar distances

GPS collar tracking system helps understand the wildlife migration habits

Space tourism attracts science and education customers to pioneer safe and clean access to space

Global positioning and geographic information systems help create an environmentally friendly farm

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