Slashdot Mirror
US GPS, EU Galileo to Work Together
saintory writes "The US and EU are in talks to allow their separate GPS systems to work together. The future uses would allow enhanced location information based on two readings, among other benefits. 'The market probably will drive dual-use receivers. We think probably that single (U.S.) GPS-specific, or Galileo-specific receivers — the market will phase out in time [...] It just doesn't make sense to limit yourself to just one system'."
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Global Positioning Systems
I like the way that sounds!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
...refreshing. Seriously, I've gotten rather sick of the acrimony that seems to be building across the Atlantic. It's nice that people see this as a chance for better technology (at least in some respect) rather than pure nationalistic chest-thumping.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
I hope these two combined work better than GPS alone, because I've used GPS quite a bit and have resorted back to map and compass more than once. Between poor reception in mountainous terrain or during bad weather or while in the woods and bad information from the satellites I've pretty much given up. Heck I've seen readings that were more than 100 miles off! And this was not a single device. We had a Magellan with WAAS and a Garmin with a powered external antenna and both gave absurd readings while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail even when they had access to 5 or more satellites.
Get a web developer
I do not think that word means what you think it means. :)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If you go digging through my post history, you can probably find out which side I'm on, but in this case I meant across in the same sense as a bridge is built across the water.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
International cooperation is a good thing. And it's nice to share a standard frequency.
But I also think this is nothing more than a recognition of reality. Unless they deliberately enforced licensing restrictions preventing it, I'm quite sure the market would have provided a dual-system device very shortly after Galileo was operative.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Where does this leave the US ability to jam the GPS signal whenever they wanted?
I thought the reason that Europe wanted their own satellites is that the US basically reserved the right to scramble the signal whenever they wanted, and the EU didn't want to be beholden to US technology. If they broadcast on the same frequency, does this make it easier or harder for the US military to degrade the signal when they wish?
Is this a good thing in terms of assuring access? Or is this a backdoor for the US to exert more control over it? TFA is vague on that point. It would kinda suck if all they've done is water down the reasons they had for wanting to do it in the first place
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And I thought the whole point in Galileo was to be independent of USA's mercy. The US can turn off GPS at any time they want. The EU don't want to be dependent on the USA and so they build their own system.
Now perhaps this story refers to times when both Galileo _and_ GPS are working. Would that increase the accuracy so that both systems together are more effective? I don't really think so. I don't think that Galileo (which has an accuracy of 0.1 meters afaik) can be enhanced by some GPS satellites (which has an accuracy of 15 meters). They are way too old, the GPS satellites (at least, most of them).
Receivers that use both GPS and GLONASS satellite signals have been available for years. Maxim just announced a new receiver chip which receives both and only costs $2.95 in quantity, so that capability is likely to become more available.
GLONASS was in bad shape after the USSR tanked, but new GLONASS satellites are being launched again, and the constellation is currently about half populated. As of today, 11 GLONASS satellites are functioning, 5 are down, and one new one is being brought into position. 24 operational satellites are a full set.
The earlier GLONASS sats only had a two year design life, but the latest models have a 7 year design life, and they're going for a 10-year model. They launch a new batch every December, so they're starting to catch up.
Misguided or not, the missile shield is not intended to divide you. If you want to argue that will be an unfortunate side effect, that's one thing, but if you seriously believe that it's part of a strategy of divide-and-conquer, then I truly think you're putting motives in there that don't exist.
Now, assuming that you merely meant that it would be an unfortunate side effect, you also should realize that Poland and the Czech Republic dearly want us to put the missile shield in their countries (or at least their governments do). I'm not arguing that's a sufficient reason to do so - I'm just pointing out that we're not imposing this on them. They want it. This came out quite strongly after Putin suggested that it be put in Azerbaijan instead, if the goal was truly to protect Europe from a Middle East attack.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Isn't Galileo having funding issues at the moment? If so, isn't this 'deal' a bit...redundant?
ilovegeorgebush
I've used a Timex GPS device during my runs for several years now, and I've never had it be that far off, but there have been occasions where I've managed to pull a 2-minute mile. I've just assumed that the GPS training has been very effective. ;)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
This article is so thin on actual information, its incredible.
1. The Euros still have barely made 1 satellite broadcast a NAV message.. if in fact, they actually did. The most accurate discription of what the whole Galileo program has done to this point is bitch-n-moan, and put up a used Frigidaire into space with a HAM radio and a metronome hooked together with bailing wire broadcasting the opening 3 seconds of Weird Al's "Like a Surgeon" track for the last few years.
2. Teenagers keep hacking the ICD-spec'd encryption in a handful of days, thus ensuring that any possible monitary beneift the 72 countries "invovled" with Galileo will become naught once some industrious Chinese manufacturers start making receivers which bypass the payment scheme. (can you say "region-free/CCS-free DVD players?" I knew you could)
3. The Euros could shut-down Galileo anytime they wanted - why should the US depend on a system that could be shut-down anytime someone else wanted? Answer - they probably won't.
they killed the Concorde because they couldn't get along. They stopped supporting Airbus because they couldn't get along. They haven't accomplished anything of merit with Galileo because they can't get along.
Perhapse we'll just all do what we know everyone will do... what Euro's do best...
keep using GPS for free while complaining the whole while about it and keep bitching about the colonials until they're in deep shit and ask for help.
tossers.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
One reason for this sudden cooperation is that the US might want to be in on the party when it comes to the EU plans to implement a tracking system for every vehicle on its roads. This intention is revealed in UK Department for Transport documents that show that a high priority for our GPS-based "road pricing" system plans is compatibility with European systems.
Or it could be because Galileo is designed to be more effective in urban areas, which the US have taken to occupying recently.
If the one system is free, working, reliable, and most importantly, existing.
"..It just doesn't make sense to limit yourself to just one system.."
No, what we need is like 500 different systems. Just like in the world of memory cards.
Full Tilt
do I have to add anymore than just the question?
Has ESA actually launched any of the Galileo satellites yet? Last I heard the program was having management and budget problems.
[Insert pithy quote here]
I'm just reporting what's been in the news. I definitely wasn't say it was a good idea - I was just trying to clarify the context around it.
OTOH, playing devil's advocate, a missile shield would (theoretically) stop missiles coming from a terrorist group were they to acquire one. It would presumably not be meant to stand alone but rather be part of an entire well thought out system (stop giggling). You could scan for dirty bombs at the border, have great devices for detecting pathogens, make your airline passengers fly naked, but none of that will stop a missile coming towards your country any more than a missile shield would prevent the discreet release of poisons into the drinking water.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Very US biased, highly generalised, and highly negative of anything not US.
Whoever said the A380 isn't supported any more? Pure FUD - I love it!
175 orders and counting - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A380#Orders , which for the biggest plane ever manufactured by the human race is pretty good. And before you bring up the delays issue, I would point out the 747 nearly bankrupted Boeing (http://www.aviationexplorer.com/747_facts.htm) - a far cry from Airbus today.
And for fucks sake, grow up - it's entirely possible the EU + US can get along just fine. There wouldn't be much of a global market place if we didn't now would there? Sometimes it pays to get on.
throw new NoSignatureException();
After the US-EU GPS story broke, the Air Force decided to announce their plans for contract bidding for the upcoming GPS III.
It's amazing how this Galileo topic ALWAYS ends up in people slagging off against America. OK moving on: The American GPS system is a fantastic FREE product (free to uses, not free to US citizens who pay through their Federal Taxes). The rest of the world has used the system for years and benefited. Then a European venture (made up of several disparate partners) decided there was a business opportunity to launch a rival system and pay for it by offering PAY services to users, in return for increased accuracy. Unfortunately while the tests went OK the European partners did not step up to formally fund the venture. Possibly fearing the financial numbers didn't work. This alliance of the existing US service and a likely "rightsized" Galileo, probably makes huge sense. The new Galileo Satellites can be launched, in far less numbers, while accuracy can be improved by combining the signals from both systems. In other words, everybody wins here. So enough of the bickering posts please and let's congratulate the new American/European alliance and improved future GPS products.
Think about it. It's better to have both than one in case a GPS scrambler won't knock out the Galileo signal (once it exists.) It's probably worth spending a few thousand dollars more per tank for that kind of redundancy--accurate positioning information has made a huge difference in how well modern armies fight. Ipsa scientia potest est--Knowledge itself is power.
The concept of combined receivers isn't all that unusual. There are receivers out there, primarily used in aerospace, that combine GLOSNASS and GPS to render a more accurate position.
I think one must be at least 13 to post on Slashdot.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
The GPS system is capable of being re-programmed such that it will give the wrong coordinates to all but the US military. If GALILEO stays independent and keeps giving the correct coordinates a significant advantage is lost. I don't think the US military will accept that, so the getting the systems to work together may very well mean they will give the same wrong coordinates should the US military want that. I don't see the Europeans oposing such a demand.
Also, the article seems to imply that GPS is used for drawing pictures:
:-) /
"work together to provide more accurate images and information"
"would be able to create a more accurate picture especially in areas where reception is weak"
So, farmers ploughing profanities in their fields will be able to use better fonts now.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/31/huge_word
I am not trying to be snarky but... Why would a French Soldier take orders from the U.S. Government? Maybe there is a reason that the U.S. is up on its high horse.
I am currently training a new dog. He is an alpha male. If I do not put the dog on its back to show him that he has to submit to me then he will think of himself as the dominate one. Diplomacy is no different.
If your government keeps rolling over for mine, why on earth would you blame my government instead of your own?
And by the way... I for one humbly welcome our New Combined GPS System Overlods.
$diff terrorists hippies
$
$rm -rf *terrorists *hippies
Now I won't have to switch from one system to the other on long drives.
that your partners position is as important as yours; timing is also equally critical.
The cellular modem should provide an adequate backchannel. They even go so far as to budget 100 GBP for each unit.
b ilitystudy/studyreport/feasibilitystudyofroadprici n4002?page=5#a1020
But the key here is still the "GPS" part. Rather than the present efforts which involve number-plate recognising cameras, or my own personal design which utilises RFID enabled number plates and existing pickup loops in the roads (installed for traffic light sensors), this proposed system can (and does) track a road vehicle anywhere it goes. This is somewhat overboard for their stated aim of reducing congestion on key roads during rush hour.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/roadpricing/feasi
Note in particular section 4.18 which mentions Galileo in this context. If you browse around for the financials, their projected revenues should pay for Galileo in very short order.
The article summary is somewhat misleading - the US and the EU decided a couple of years ago to work together and talks have been ongoing since then. The only real news here is that they are about to reach agreement.
I suspect the EU may be pressing for agreement to help smokescreen the fact that Galileo is badly behind schedule.
Thanks man, you said it for me :)
throw new NoSignatureException();
While the US is certainly interested in developing ASAT capabilities I doubt they're really intending to use them anytime soon - especially against EU nations.
However, there is a legitimate concern about sensitive technology like real-time imaging getting into the hands of somebody you're at war with. If in ANY war in history somebody came along and started selling intel to the highest bidder you can be sure they'd be treated as a military target.
The EU isn't going to let private industry sell anything of high military value to anybody - it would just lead to some kind of retaliation - probably in an underhanded way (aiding corporate espionage of competitors, maybe providing data to terrorists likely to strike the EU, etc). Not many nations have high-tech gadgets useful for advanced warfare - none of them are going to just give it away to 3rd-world nations. If the EU blusters about selling satellite images to Iran or something it is probably just a negotiating tactic to get a better rate on some kind of imports/exports - the US would just find a compromise of some kind and the appropriate powers will get their take. US/EU conflict is mainly a tool for getting votes and negotiating in trade. Nobody is going to actually start a shooting war...
What I expect to hear from my new "dual mode" Magellan after renting a car in London and asking for directions to Big Ben.
Error:
Concorde was only ever profitable in the first place because they were sold at a loss to the initial operators. The SST had a huge line-up of orders before production, but mass outcry over sonic booms in the first flights led to many countries banning overflights and making the plane a lot less useful than it first seemed.
I'm not crapping on the Europeans over Concorde, because the US wanted to make an SST too. It seemed to make sense at the time. But in reality, the demand for such an expensive flight was rather low.
The US was fortunate in that we weren't nearly as far along on our SST when the shit hit the fan. Luck was the big difference between US and European efforts here, neither side was acting stupid.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The A380 has 175 orders. Many are from low-quality operators who may never come up with the money. Another problem is half the orders are from one operator, and no one is sure how this operator will be able to use that many planes. Neither of these means the A380 is a failure, but they're serious issues.
o mparison.svg
The A380 is NOT the biggest plane ever manufactured by the human race.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Giant_planes_c
It's really uncool to make such basic mistakes when your trying to portray yourself as the voice of reason.
The 747 did almost bankrupt Boeing, and I would say that the financial issues the A380 has presented to Airbus are VERY serious, making your comment that these situations aren't similar rather hollow.
Boeing was a much smaller company at the time they were making the 747 than Airbus is now. Airbus has over 5,000 orders for A320s and has delivered 3,000 of them. When Boeing was making the 747, they had sold/booked a lot fewer planes than this.
Now, leaving the realm of fact and going into opinion, I like Airbus, but the A380 is a bad deal. I can't see how it'll ever make a true profit now. I don't know if it'll be an outright failure either, because I think the demand for a plane of this size is large (as Airbus thinks) and I think they will sell more than 175 over the life of it. But the problem is they've sunk in so much money now, I can't see how they'll ever poke their head above water by any cost-accounting system that takes into opportunity costs and such.
I think in the end they'll sell 300 or so, and they'll be in the air, doing well. A company could do a lot worse than that.
What they need to do now is get this project to bed and get back on the A350 and the narrow body market, where the real money is.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I don't know what's been done with the SiRF Star III chipset over the II but it's amazing. There's one in my car satnav and it picks up a signal indoors (like no other GPS I've owned ever has).
I have been looking for a decent GPS system that offers the following:
Real-time data tracking via USB or serial connected to a Linux laptop.
Onscreen display of maps and directions
Destination input via the unit. (Systems like the Garmin Quest only allow you to select places that you have already been to and "Save this Location")
Bonus points if it is mobile.
It _must_ be linux compatable, I refuse to run Windows just to 'unlock' the device.
I am willing/eager to use GPSBabel + Google Maps.
I know of several devices that fit 3-4 out of the above 5 points (like GlobalSat Bluetooth products). But it's not what i am looking for. And I find the elite attitude in the GPS forums to be the worst combination of #fluxbox & #gentoo. =)
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
I forgot one othe major item. Data Logging.
I need it to save tracks/waypoints for later downloading to the PC (for GPSBabel & Google Maps)
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
...it's because the increase in accuracy is *expensive*. survey-grade GPS, such as that supplied by Trimble, also use differential GPS and land beacons to get the accuracy down to inches. This isn't practical for consumer grade navigation units, or indeed necessary. Such devices aren't licenced or restricted, they're just expensive.
If they could somehow make the two systems act as one, and you could read a channel from one system with no extra power cost, then I agree that getting a fix from best available satellites and mixing-an-matching during the process is superior to limiting yourself to one system.
ato
Animoog.org
I did address the Cessna question (the whole flippant part about flying naked). The missile shield (hopefully) would be part of a larger solution. It would prevent missiles from hitting you, not Cessnas, hence the name. Ideally, you would also have a solution for Cessnas. Call it a Cessna shield, if you like.
Again, I'm no advocate for missile shields, but I will point out the fallacy of saying things similar to "because aspirin won't cure cancer, it shouldn't be used for headaches". For that matter, being somewhat more realistic, there is no cure for (most) cancers (just like there might not be a good Cessna shield). That doesn't mean we shouldn't have cures for those things we can cure (or at least treat).
In analyzing the missile shield, the real question is what it won't stop so much as what it will stop, the likelihood of that event happening (with and without the shield), and the cost of the shield (in economic, political, military, and possibly environmental or social senses). I.e., the real question is does the benefit of the missile shield outweigh its costs? I think the answer to that is probably "no", but the Cessna perspective is not really addressing what the missile shield is designed for.
(One admitted flaw with the aspirin analogy is that the headache won't deliberately choose to morph into cancer once it sees that you have aspirin.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
You also have Orbcomm, Globalstar, Inmarsat, and a couple of others that I can't remember the names of right now. All of them need clear view of the sky to transmit though which mostly likely translates into an external antennae routed through the vehicle and under the dashboard/in the engine bay (because you want to run the tracker off the vehicle battery/alternator). For this you would need the full cooperation of vehicle manufacturers to make it any way reliable and I can't see that happening easily. The UK government is underestimating the difficulty of the task by a long way. They don't even seem to have considered unit failure - how do you make someone go out of their way to have a tracker repair done when it offers them no benefit?
This is true. I was sort of ignoring the geosynchronous communications satellites because they require somewhat larger antennas than Iridium does; although I suppose you could put a flat patch antenna on top of a car's roof if you wanted to use them.
... half-cocked.
But anyway, I'm in agreement with you; the whole scheme seems a bit
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
SA was turned off years before the 9/11 terrorist attacks and wasn't even re-enabled during or after them. SA has only since ever been used in isolated locations such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
You do realize that you just contradicted yourself. You apparently agree that the DoD can enable SA for part of the set of satellites.
Also, that "in isolated locations" sounds like FUD. It's well-known that the GPS system doesn't do bidirectional conversations. Rather, the GPS satellites constantly broadcast their position and their clock's time to all receivers that can see them. A GPS satellite isn't "in" a ground location like Afghanistan or Iraq; it is in orbit. If a satellite starts sending out invalid numbers, every receiver for which that satellite is above the horizon will receive those numbers. This can't be restricted to an area like a small country.
The only thing silly is you believing that if SA is re-enabled for a location, Galileo won't be degraded either.
That's a good point, and I hope that people writing software to talk to Galileo will consider it. Galileo is owned by "Europe", which almost certainly means that NATO will have a strong influence on its design and operation. NATO is rather dominated by the US. Anyone who doesn't understand the implications is a fool.
Of course, this is just a stronger form of the more general warning: Galileo, like GPS, is a bunch of computers in orbit, subject to the usual effects of cosmic radiation, and running software developed by a bunch of different competing companies and government bureaucracies. Yes, it'll be a valuable addition to our world's navigation capabilities. But anyone who totally trusts it is a fool.
And, of course, we all know that the population running our corporations and governments has a significant "fool" component. Thus, we've already seen reports of commercial navigation for shipping and airlines that is effectively dependent on GPS, because the crews have gotten too rusty with other kinds of navigation to use it effectively in an emergency. This isn't yet true for all of them, but we are slowly moving to a world that depends totally on GPS (and Galileo and maybe GLONASS) for all navigation. So we should be having serious discussions of how to keep this world safe despite the actions of corporate and government bureaucracies.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Differential GPS is the use of several GPS receivers (and possibly inertial sensors) at multiple locations on a vehicle in order to determine the vehicle's velocities, attitudes (pitch, roll, yaw), and position (latitude, longitude, and altitude). Since the most useful things a GPS user can measure using GPS are "GPS time" and the distance from the receiver to the satellite. Getting the signal from a single satellite will tell you the range "r" that you are from that one satellite - in the naive sense, all of the possible positions the receiver could be are described as a sphere with radius "r" centered on the satellite; if you know that you are not above the satellite (an important assumption in space navigation), then it's a hemisphere. Each additional satellite's range narrows down your possible position to the set of the points of intersection of all the possible ranges. Examining the changes in these distances over time will help you zero in on your true position. But knowing your position, and even your velocity, is not enough to determine if you are, say, upside-down. This is where differential GPS comes into play, since receivers at multiple locations with fixed distances between each other can determine this.
The scheme that the Coast Guard has developed is a "pseudo-lite" (false satellite) system. It is basically another satellite that a user can use to fix their position, or potentially perform differential GPS with respect to a naval vessel or airplane.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?