N-GENE presentation @ the Asilomar conference

Today, dr. Fabio Dovis of the NavSAS group presented at the IEEE Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers 2008 a paper on the novel algorithms implemented in the N-GENE fully software receiver.

The paper is entitled Efficient Signal Acquisition for a Real Time GPS/Galileo Software receiver and is co-authored by Maurizio Fantino, Marco Pini and Fabio Dovis.

It describes some architectural choices for acquisiton, in order match the real time constraints, keeping the performance level high, and for the tracking in order to make it robust to lock loss at low C/N0.l

The presentation was hosted in a special session, where also other papers reated to GNSS signal processing have been presented by University of New South Wales, Stanford University and University of Westminster.

Sat-Surf & Sat-Surfer Suite brought to life!

Education on GNSS topics is sometimes difficult and often lacks of practical experience. In order to train students and professionals to face real issues and manage satellite navigation data, the NavSAS group developed Sat-Surf and Sat-Surfer: the Training Board & the Software Suite for GNSS Training!
This solution includes hardware and software facilities as well as practical exercises. It is dedicated to the GNSS students but it can be also useful for all the professionals in the field of navigation.

For a complete GNSS training the theory is provided by the NAVKIT distance learning tool, and the practical skills are trained by means of the Sat-Surf & Sat-Surfer suite. The Sat-Surf is a compact, lightweight and versatile device able to accommodate different GPS receiver. It can embed different kinds of GPS receivers, such as: the new uBlox5 Galileo Ready, the uBlox – Antaris4, the Falcom JP13 LP based on SiRF Star III technology and the Falcom JP15 based on SiRF Star II. In the next months the platform will be adapted to accommodate also other chipsets.

Sat-Surf includes communication capabilities using a GSM/GPRS quad-band unit that enables the development of innovative A-GPS strategies as well as the study of DGPS techniques.

The Sat-Surfer software thanks to its flexibility allows the interface to the Sat-Surf and includes the possibility of data collection and storage.Hardware and software are complemented by a set of proposed exercises, included in the package, that ranges from a simple level of usage, to an advanced for development of original navigation algorithms for data processing.

More information are available on the official web site: http://www.navsas.ismb.it/sat-surf or contacting us at: sat-surfer@ismb.it

IRGAL Workshop

Today in Torino a major event is concluding the activities of the IRGAL project. The IRGAL project has been co-funded by the European Union, the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Piedmont Region within the DOCUP 2000-2006 Mis. 3.4 programme and aimed at increasing the competitive edge of the Piedmont ICT district in the crucial areas of Time and Receivers that can be regarded as the core of satellite navigation. Specifically, research was focused on the areas of atomic clocks, optical links for time transfer, GNSS SW receiver and HW RF components with the objective of developing innovative technologies and finalizing them up to pre-competitive prototypes.

In the demo session the software receiver developed by the NavSAS group is presented, working in real time on the L1 band.

160 attendees made the workshop very successfull, demonstrating the capability of the sinergies between research and industry in the Turin area on the GNSS topics.