During the test campaign of the EPOC (Early Proof-Of-Concept) in the frame of the AALECS (Authentic and Accurate Location Experimentation with the Commercial Service) project, magicGNSS reference products have been broadcast in the Galileo E6 signals.

Orbit and clock predictions have been generated 2-3 days in advance of each test by magicODTS using data gathered by the IGS MGEX network (http://igs.org/mgex/). This high-accuracy (HA) data is then sent to GMS and uploaded to the IOV satellites for broadcast during test slots (see figure below).

The E6-B signal has been tracked both with SCE (Spreading Code Encryption) enabled and disabled. During tests broadcast products are gathered and authenticated via TESLA-based NMA and/or SCE. Then, a high-precision data-authenticated PVT solution is computed by means of magicPPP.

The aim of the test campaign has been to evaluate the E6 data transmission performance, and prove that the system is capable of providing authentication and HA positioning/timing services. Several static and kinematic tests have been conducted from mid-July to late-September 2014. The figure below shows performance of a static PVT with SCE enabled: an RMS below 40 cm in the horizontal plane is achieved, including the convergence period.

From the 10th to the 12th of December, 2008, we are showing magicGNSS Beta at GMV’s booth in NAVITEC 2008 at ESTEC, the European Space Agency centre in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

We are doing live demos of the new *pro* features, including the ability to upload and process your own data and to compare orbits.

If you are attending the workshop, don’t forget to check us out there!

magicGNSS at NAVITEC 08

Today we are at the GIOVE Workshop in ESTEC, the European Space Agency technology center in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. The experimentation results of GIOVE-A and GIOVE-B, the first two experimental Galileo satellites, are being presented to the media. GIOVE-B carries a Passive Hydrogen Maser (PHM) on board, the most accurate atomic clock ever flown in space. This clock has an awesome stability that allows to predict its evolution within just one nanosecond after one day.

GMV has been involved in the different Galileo test beds since the early stages of the mission. In particular, we had the privilege to observe for the first time the behaviour of GIOVE-B’s PHM clock from ground using our EOSPF (Experimental Orbit and Synchronization Processing Facility), the operational software for GIOVE experimentation developed by GMV for ESA.

To celebrate the GIOVE Workshop and the success of the GIOVE Mission, magicGNSS is wearing a new “dress” today: go to the main web page and you will be able to see a colour map showing the geographical coverage of the 13 GPS+GIOVE dual stations that have been deployed by ESA worldwide.

Last week I attended the Google Developer Day in Madrid. It  was a very interesting event where Google engineers and gurus from all over the world gave presentations and workshops, a unique opportunity to have an overview of the state of the art in internet technologies today. Among other things, Android, the new open source operating system for mobile phones was introduced and explained. Chrome, the new web browser from Google, was also presented.

One of the most inspiring speeches was the one given by Dion Almaer on The Future of Web Applications (watch video, or see presentation). Dion Almaer is one of the fathers of AJAX, the web technology that allows asynchronous communication between the browser and the server to update different parts of a web page without reloading the whole page. This creates more responsive and interactive web applications. For example, in magicGNSS you can run a scenario, monitor the progress banner, and at the same time create new scenarios or delete existing ones. AJAX is behind all this.

Dion’s talk gave me the idea to write about the past of the web and Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) and about how much things have changed today. Back in 1993 I got my first job with GMV based at ESOC, the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany… But this entry is getting a bit too long, so I will post the rest of the story in this blog some other time.

To be continued…

We have presented magicGNSS Beta at session C3 of ION GNSS 2008 Conference. We are excited about the interest the attendees are showing!

The slides of our presentation are available here and the paper can be downloaded from here.