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GPS vs. Galileo; Where Are They Headed?
ben_ writes "This keynote speech from the recent European Navigation Conference talks about the history between the US military's GPS and the proposed EU Galileo system, as well as where they're both going. Interested in how you know where you are and what's going to happen to those satellites?"
I'd say they'll be going in circles around the planet.
"This quote is a product of the Frobozz Magic Quote Company."
The correct links for the US-administered GPS satellite constellation, known as NAVSTAR:
NAVSTAR GPS Joint Program Office - responsible for operational maintenance of NAVSTAR GPS equipment, services, and infrastructure
Interagency GPS Executive Board - executive management of NAVSTAR GPS
GPS fact sheet - US Air Force facts about NAVSTAR GPS
US Naval Observatory NAVSTAR GPS home page
Further information:
FAS GPS background info
Global Security GPS background info
lots of geocaching...
As long as GPS is the only game in town, the US has a stranglehold on the superpower market. The US can regulate the GPS satellites and could cut off anyone else at any time. Seeing as GPS has revolutionized warfare, this means the US gets an automatic bonus in any war.
Until the EU has an alternative, it's military (should it form one) will be at a severe disadvantage in a theoretical conflict, and potential power in a theoretical conflict is a major bargaining chip. (It's a chip that's not talked about, but people pay attention to it on their own.)
After manuevering fuel runs out a slow decay of orbit followed by firery reentry.
Most of the time competition is good: software, hardware, cola. Sometimes monopolies are more acceptable: stringing up electric transmission cables, streets to my (your) house, large constellations of bright satellites that interfere with astronomic studies and general enjoyment of the night sky. Sure, GPS is very handy but more than one system seems a little redundant.
Problem: Hmmm, Ive got 100 kilometers to my destination and 15 gallons of gas. I am driving an Hummer H2, that gets 9 miles a gallon, can I make it? Solution: It doesn't matter, the H2 can't drive around the corner before needing a refuel.
I guess they should be a little more careful this time as they don't want to end with another Beagle disaster!
Does anyone know what this refers to?
irb(main):001:0>
Makes me wonder if China is working on its own global positioning system (see previous slashdot story/thread)
I think that they will need to develop a system in the next 5-10 years that can be used through buildings and underground, otherwise it might be useless. I would think GPS devices would be useful for people like cave explorers, but maybe that's unreasonable or would be too dangerous to the rest of the population.
For more information look at the Article featured on Slashdot about 6 months ago.
:)
Galileo System To Include Jamming Capability
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
Whatchu talkin' about? They never found the new world intentionally to begin with - they got lost, remember? :)
Will the ESA Galileo satellite navigation system be sufficiently different that you'll need all-new receivers to pick up Galileo navigation information?
That could get VERY expensive as manufacturers of satellite navigation receivers will have to accommodate both systems for airplanes, automobiles, trucks, boats, etc.
Here is a technical comparison. They seem more alike than different to me.
I know of a few very high-powered geologists who cross-check GPS with GLONASS. Having a third system would seem to only help.
It would be nice if the US DOD would work with the EU to allow them on the same freqs as GPS. I probably go out and get an combine reciver that would not only work on both systems, but work with both systems at once, aka if it get 2 gps and 2 of the EU ones it could still calculate the infomation.
one aside is I would like to get the reciver in the Magellan 3xx seraries form factor.
I suppose that also means they will have a say in deciding the different features availble etc. If that's the case with many other countries (and I DON'T know the data. Sorry.), the European one will be more standardised and better equipped for use by more people. Besides, its always good to have redundancy built into such systems, now that everyone depends on them so heavily.
Just my 2 rupees. Don't mind me too much.
So long as the US and the EU are on good terms, we should be able to access both systems with the correct receiver. I can see a great benefit to a receiver that can read position from both systems and cross-check on the fly, reducing your PDOP and increasing your resolution of position far more quickly than before. Imagine having upwards of 10 satellites providing you with position data! I'd be in heaven!
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
This is also about global redundancy. The world increasingly depends upon navigational technologies like this. It's a little dangerous that there's only _one_ point of failure (whether technical, economic, political, etc).
A perfect example of this redundancy is to look at the US cell phone providers. Where I am at there are signals of GSM, TDMA, CDMA and iDEN. All different standards.
Evolution or ID?
Go to any Army unit on the ground.
Look at how many commerical GPS units there are, and how many military ones.
The ratio will be at least 3:1. The military GPS units, in a word, suck. They are about as big as a small boombox and fail for various reasons every 5 minutes. Ask any soldier who's had to use one in a combat environment. They will tell you that anyone who actually cares about finding out where they are will buy a Garmin.
That's why the US stopped degrading the signal and won't do it again. Even in a war zone, most of the commercial GPSes in use are those ofUS soldiers.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Just like China wanting to be independent technologically, the EU also does not want to be dependant on the USA.
Read the FAQ where it says one of the objectives is just that:
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
... is that if I can alwas tell exactly where I am through GPS, I'll never know how fast I'm going.
The speeding tickets alone are going to kill me.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
A huge international consortium will build this thing? I think it's great that this article appears the same day that the Chinese are pulling the plug on compliance to international standards. I know, I know, they can always comply with any given sub-system, but this highlites the disadvantage of a huge conglomeration of countries. Have fun, send a few billion my way for research, but don't expect anything to get built.
The same applies to Galileo. How can anyone be sure that the EU won't "throw the switch"? The answer is that this question is obsolete. Next Generation Positioning Systems will be able to get information out from GPS, from Galileo and maybe from LORAN-C or the local GSM-cellphone cell information as a fallback. I consider redundancy as a mayor pro argument even in the eyes of American companies and .gov institutions.
The only super power, major or otherwise, in the current world is the US. If it decides to attack Eurpoe, it is unlikely that the US will come to it's defense, due to the strong political and cultural ties between the US and said superpower.
GPS and Galileo: where are we headed? David Last University of Wales, UK jdl@navaid.demon.co.uk ABSTRACT Many in Europe see a combination of GPS and Galileo as the basis of a viable future Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). This paper argues that, although Galileo and GPS may well complement one another, they are so dissimilar in important aspects as to make combining them in this way exceptionally difficult. The attempt to do so has already led to tensions between the US and Europe. Although GPS serves both civil and military functions, it was originally a military system and is still operated by the armed forces of a single nation. It plays a vital role in the security of the US and of European NATO members, in addition to the commercial benefits it brings to both regions. Galileo, in contrast, will be a civil system, operated by the many nations of the European Community, with others possibly contributing, too. Although both systems offer open, free-to-air access, Galileo promises additional commercial services, on a user-pays basis, with real-time integrity and legally-enforceable service guarantees. The two systems will be obliged by technical and commercial pressures to share common frequency bands and to employ compatible codes, timing sources, and geodetic frameworks; users' receivers will need to accept both sets of signals. Galileo thus requires US cooperation for its commercial success, while at the same time apparently threatening US national security and industrial advantage! Not surprisingly, the process of combining these two disparate systems into a single entity has been fraught with difficulties. A modus operandi now appears to have been reached by the US and Europe. This paper examines the compromises on which it is based. It notes the significant challenges that Galileo still has to overcome, and it questions the degree to which Europe's ambition to be independent of the US in GNSS has survived the realities of combining the two systems. The paper argues, however, that what has been achieved bring us much closer to the objective of a truly global satellite navigation system, a goal of great value. INTRODUCTION GPS and Galileo are both Global Navigation Satellite Systems. Most people regard them as very similar to one another, using the same principles and frequencies, virtually the same thing. We see them as complementary. Well, complementary they may be; those who will use combined GPS-Galileo receivers will neither know, nor care, that there are two separate systems. But similar they are not; and if we ignore the profound differences between them, we put both at risk. Think of their origins. GPS started life as a military system. It now serves both military and civil functions, but when push comes to shove, as in the recent US-EU tensions, the military requirement prevails. Galileo, in contrast, started life as a civil system. Only gradually have questions of its possible military role emerged. GPS is the sole property of a single nation; others may use it on terms that suit that nation's interests. That is clear. It is entirely reasonable. But, an inevitable consequence is that GPS looks inwards, to the US. Galileo belongs to the many nations of the European Community. It is outward-looking; those countries have welcomed, and sought, the active participation of other nations, including China, India, and Canada [1]. But these are just a few of the profound differences between the two systems. There are also differences of radio frequencies, codes, modulations, of time standards and geodetic frameworks. One system is free of charge, the other operate under the user-pays principle. One is run by the military, the other will involve a public-private partnership. Then, GPS is now a mature system; it has been a stunning success. Galileo is essentially a proposal and has still not disturbed the heavens or the ether. Glen Gibbons said recently: "It would be hard to imagine a more different approach to participation in defining, deploying, and operating a system than that between GPS and Galileo" [2
Of course, 2-frequency phase tracking receivers cost a fortune (well, not by military standards...). In addition, it takes a certain amount of time to resolve ambiguities, which is even harder when you're moving (ie, a missile) and even harder when you're moving fast. And should a cycle slip occure, you have to start all over again, not something very practicle for a missile. (for the laymen: phase tracking is only useful when the number of frequency cycles between the receiver and the satellite are known. When this isn't known, there isn't nearly as much of an advantage)
Also, AFAIK GPS can be selectively turned on and off over a given region, either by turning off L1 (the civilian frequency) or both L1 and L2 (unlikely to ever happen). If they were to turn L1 off, any civilian receiver in the area would be useless, even top-of-the line civilian Trimbles. On the plus side, they can also turn the y-code encryption off on L2, like they did in Gulf War 1 (they didn't have enough military receivers at the time).
Of course, GPS isn't the only way to have precision munitions. In Gulf War 1, most of the munitions dropped by the US were laser-guided.
(n/t)
Other than a healthy reference page for the interested, there's not much new information in Last's article.
Politicus
Yes. I personally see nothing better than another nation putting up their own GPS system. In fact, I think every nation should have their own system. And while they're at it, everyone should have their own Internet that no other nation can access. But why stop there? Everyone should make their own space agency that has the exact agenda that everyone else's space agency has and... oh... wait... nevermind...
According to legend the US millitary forces did not have enough millitary GPS systems at the time of the first Gulf War. The troops would instead use civil GPS systems. The SA jamming of the GPS signal was then turned off right before the invasion. If just Saddam had monitored the GPS signals he would have known about the attack.
If the story is true it is a sign of the commercial success of the GPS system and may also have been a factor in the decision to turn off SA in 1996.
Making a receiver flexible enough to speak GPS, Galileo and even Glonass if one wants it should be just a matter or filling a black box with sufficiently general-purpose components to be adaptable and writing the firmware in such a way to configure them to understand the appropriate system. In the age of software radio, FPGAs and reconfigurable processors, this isn't far-fetched. Such a system might be marginally more expensive than a GPS-only receiver, but the added flexibility would more than make up for it, and economies of scale would do the rest.
I dunno if that was supposed to be funny, sarcastic, or possible a trolling attempt (though I give you the benifit of doubt, and select no. 2)
Let me tell you why Redundancy is a good thing:
It reduces the (critical) importance of the single system and allows for back-up in case of failures.
What is bad about Redundancy is that is costs, possibly wastes, alot of money.
But still I fail to see why you think this is bad - basically this system gives people the choice between GPS and Galileo, with the distinction that the former is controlled by the US and the latter by the EU + other countries - and I can't see where offering this choice is a bad thing.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
But alas there is this remark:
Alas, this cultural difference has been with us at least since the days of Thomas Jefferson and those earlier terrorists, the Barbary Pirates. European nations paid off the pirates rather than fight. Under Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. had a policy, "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." It seems someone has posted more about that history at:Barbary Pirates
Then as now, Europe thinks being nice to nasty folk is a better than getting tough, sending out the frigates, and making them behave. Hence their policy of leaning toward the Arabs. In contrast, the U.S. supports feisty little Israel, perhaps the only nation in history to fight four major wars in one lifetime with foes that outnumber them twenty to one and win every one. We back a democracy and a winner. They (particularly the French), back repressive dictatorships and losers.
In that context, it helps to remember what Churchill warned in 1939 after the Munich Agreement, "Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war."
In the end, every people gets the government they deserve. If the Europeans have so little sense of 'honor,' that they cannot defend their free and democratic societies from an ideology driven by hatred and revenge, then perhaps they deserve to drop into history's dustbin, always knowing precisely where they are thanks to a Galileo that will never be turned off to fight terrorism. And in their obsession with not fighting a few brush wars, they may lose a far greater and more critical cultural war. Europe may become Eurabia. In a generation, European women may only leave their homes clad in a sack from head to toe.
Am I the only one to catch the madness of all this? For perhaps two decades we've been told that there was a 'religious right' or 'fundamentalism' spanning from Jew and Christian to Arab that is a threat to free and democratic societies. But when push comes to shove, when religiously sanctioned terrorism and repression must be fought, it is the secular left who apologizes for religious repression and who wants little or nothing done to open up brutally repressive Arab societies. The left of western democracies is defending Saddam with all the zeal they once had for cruel Stalin.
All this brings to mind the Chinese proverb about the curse of living in "interesting times."
Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle
Disabling civilian GPS receivers during wartime may not be that feasable anymore. The military often uses civilian GPS receivers due to their low cost when the accuracy of P code devices is not required.
Gee, thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt. While I agree with redundancy, my choice of words was not exactly correct. This is duplication of services, which can be good as well. However, I tend to look towards science to be a realm for testing, unification, and diversification. Having China attempt (well, maybe not anymore) to travel to the moon using old technology is wasteful. Having two competing (possibly compatable?) systems in orbit telling you where you are is wasteful. Is it really going to excite people to be able to have their GPS units defualt to kilometers rather than miles? I would just be happy with something that works.
Maybe someone can explain this to me, cause none of my physics teachers ever could.
In modern physics, there is no "absolute" frame of reference, correct? There's no notion of something that is TRUELY stationary against which all other motion is measured, it's all relative to each other.
So say you had a hypothetical universe containing only two bodies - lets say a large moon with no atmosphere, and a spaceship. The moon is spinning, and the spaceship is in geostationary orbit around it.
What's to say that the spaceship is actually in geostationary orbit and not just STATIONARY if there is nothing else to measure their motion against? These two things are all that exist in this hypothetical universe and they are stationary relative to each other, so why aren't they 'absolutely' stationary, causing the spaceship just to fall? How do you know the moon is really even spinning?
The way I usually phrased this to physics professors was that if the spaceship, floating in space for all it knows, comes flying past the moon at near light speed, why do we assume the spaceship is moving at near lightspeed and therefore clocks on it run slower, rather than the moon is hurtling through space at near lightspeed past a stationary ship?
I can't seem to reconcile this in my mind without some notion of an absolute frame of reference, even if we can't measure what it is. I suppose we could tell what is closer to that frame of reference by seeing if, for example, the spaceship falls from it's "geostationary" orbit because the moon wasn't actually spinning, etc; or seeing which clocks dialate which way when two objects move relative to each other at high velocities...
Can someone clear this up for me?
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
if the US gets a say in galileo (ie when and where its turned off and its accuracy during war etc etc) does europe get the same say in the US system?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Last time I checked, the US was irked (fairly so, I think) because Galileo was to be broadcast on the exact same carrier frequency as GPS, making jamming of only Galileo but not GPS very difficult.
More information about Galileo can be found here . Also take a look at the video.
Putin has a problem. He has surrounded himself with former colleagues from the St. Petersburg KGB/FSB, the siloviki. His wresting of control though is down to the problem of how to cmpensate the new inhabitants of the Kremlin when all the choice bits are already privatised. Easy, you privatise again! Double-plus ungood for the market economy as you are wrecking the normal way of ownership.
A better approach is to accept those who have been behaving themselves and to expect taxes. Nobody really owns raw materials under the ground, effectively there is just a license to extract. There are many ways to extract money with a "windfall-profits tax" which is happening (++good). Unfortunately there have been very few reforms to corporate governance and to protect the shareholder's interests (++ungood). Markets need a light hand, but Putin is not the man.
Most military has problems because of the untransparent way they are run and the way they procure resources. This applies doubly so in Russia under Ivanov. However bad Russia is for corruption, it is ten times worse in the military (I heard this indirectly from a staff officer). Russia desperately needs military reform.
China doesn't want land. It needs resources and Central Asia's gas and oil reserves are interesting and much less well protected than Russia's far eastern border. Unfortunately, the US soldiers in Uzbekistan are a bit of an inconvenience for them.
Classic Slashdot repartee...
how about the nukular winter that would follow
What of it?
What of it? He's talking about a Nuclear Winter, we'd be back in the stone age very quickly. I hope someone like you doesn't have his finger on the trigger.
My ancestors were said Italians and I find this funny :-)
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
First, it should be obvious that the EU needs a lot more than Galileo to achieve any kind of military parity with the USA.
Second, the USA will have disabling power over Galileo. Either the EU will agree to give the USA that power, or the USA will exercise that power unilaterally when needed by destroying the satellites. If you think the EU will be able to stop the USA from doing this, see the first point.
Galileo may or may not be a good idea for any number of reasons: innovation, redundancy, business, etc. But anti-Americanism is not one of them.
You slashdot folks should think twice before modding up things you don't understand (read: politics).
...I just remembered that said Vikings were also my ancestors, so maybe that's why I think it's so funny :-)
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
You misunderstand the reason for Galileo. Europe is (mostly) inhabited by grownups, who do not need to prove their military superiority / penis size by arming against imaginary Belarussian invaders.
Galileo has a number of justifications:
- the GPS system is not warranted to keep working or be correct. No-one accepts responsibility if it fails (in civilian use). Mostly this doesn't matter, but for safety critical apps like aviation it matters a lot. Galileo will offer a paid-for service with a stability guarantee.
- hopefully, Galileo will offer increased performance, e.g. metre level accuracy, reduced power consumption, better urban receivability. This may be on a paid-for service - I'd pay a few dollars to get a GPS that runs for a month on a battery rather than a few hours.
- there is also scope for added value applications, e.g. traffic warnings
While not up to the standards of the US, the EU contains several members whose militaries are quite sufficient to kick the arse of any invader on home turf, including the US, by the way. Not to mention the fact that the UK and France are nuclear powers. Now, if you were going to make the more subtle argument that the EU relies on the US's military muscle to secure its oil supplies, you might have a point. But the claim that Europe needs a massive remilitarization to protect against a conventional military threat is complete hogwash.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
So in a universe with only two objects in it, there is no way to tell whether the spaceship is orbiting a spinning planet, or if they are just sitting there next to each other.
Therefore, the spaceship will fall.
In our universe, a geostationary satellite is stationary relative to the Earth, but is moving relative to everything else in the universe.
(Actually, for the most part, pretty much everything in our universe is moving relative to everything else.)
Now, if, somehow, the Earth did not rotate, but everything else in the universe orbited the Earth once every 24 hours, the satellite would hang there in the sky in the exact same way (due to forces exerted by the movement of everything else in the universe), even though it would not be orbiting the Earth.
At least, that's my understanding of the thing.
It's all pretty weird.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana