ION GNSS conference closed

The ION GNSS conference finished today, and as every year it has been an amazing experience of scientific growth, discussion and networking with the best people in the world dealing with Satellite Navigation.

The NavSAS team had the chance to present 8 papers (eventually all the alternates became oral presentations):

• Signal Compression for an Efficient and Simplified GNSS Signal Parallel Acquisition: M. Nicola, A. Nordio, Politecnico di Torino, Italy; M. Fantino, M. Pini, P. Mulassano, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy
• Reduced Complexity Circuits for Serial Code Phase Search Acquisition: G. Girau, L. Lo Presti, Politecnico di Torino, Italy; M. Fantino, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy
• User Terminal/Local Element System for Network Based Positioning using RTK/EGNOS in Urban Environment: G. Marucco, C. Porporato, M. De Agostino, A.M. Manzino, Politecnico di Torino, Italy; F. Dominici, A. Defina, K. Charqane, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy
• Cooperative LBS for Secure Transport System: A. Tomatis, Politecnico di Torino, Italy; G. Pau, University of California, Los Angeles; P. Mulassano, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy; F. Dovis, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
• An Interference Impact Assessment Model for GNSS Signals: B. Motella, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy; S. Savasta, F. Dovis, D. Margaria, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
• The IRGAL Project: Innovation and Research on Galileo in Piedmont: M. Pini, M. Fantino, P. Mulassano, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy; L. Lo Presti, Politechico di Torino, Italy; L. Bragagnini, Consorzio Torino Time, Italy
• Differential Data/Pilot Joint Acquisition Strategies for Indoor Galileo E1 Signal: T.H. Ta, L. Lo Presti, F. Dovis, D. Margaria, R. Lesca, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
• GNSS Signal Analysis and Monitoring Tools Developed within the SWAN Project: E. Falletti, B. Motella, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy; D. Margaria, CNIT-Politecnico di Torino, Italy; L. Giugno, Wiser, Italy; M. Luise, CNIT-Universita degli Studi di Pisa, Italy; R. Marracci, Intecs, Italy; F. Longo, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana

and another paper was presented by our colleagues of the geomatics department of Politecnico

• The New L2C GPS Code: Signal and Positioning Quality Analysis: M. De Agostino, M. Piras, C. Porporato, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Next year the conference will be again in Savannah, and we will be ready to the funny experience of getting the boat to reach the convention center on the other side of the river facing the city !

ION GNSS conference started

Today the ION GNSS conference started in Savannah, GA. more than 1000 attendees are expected, and 6 people of the NavSAS group are there to give presentations, discuss cooperations, and collect pieces of information on the latest developments in the Satellite Navigation fields.
Again, an outstanding experience for all the researchers of Politecnico and ISMB.

NavSAS at the GNSS Summer School

Here is the report of the first day at the Second International Summer School on Global Satellite Navigation Systems by Gianluca Falco, a NavSAS Ph.D.

After a long trip, finally I reached Berchtsgaden, a quite small village close to the Bavarian Alps that is the established site for the GNSS summer school. Few minutes after my arrival, I had the chance to meet some participants to this school. They come from a lot of countries spread all over the world: Germany (of course), Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Russia, also outside Europe such as Brazil, Australia, USA, and even from Rwanda! I spoke with lots of them: four of them work for Septentrio company in Belgium, other guys work for DLR (German Aerospace Agency) testing GNSS system. Then I talked with Russian guys that work for the Russian Space Agency in Moscow (of course the navigation system they use is GLONASS).

At 6 PM professor Guenther Hein started the opening ceremony.
He provided us an overview of what we'll do in the next ten days of the school, speaking about the content of the lectures we'll follow. A very interesting topic of his speech is that we'll have the chance to receive and test a real Galileo signal computing the user's position thanks to three pseudo-like satellites set up on the top of the mountains nearby Berchtsgaden.

Then he introduced three other famous professors: Prof. Per Enge of Standford University, Prof. Michel Bousquet of ISAE (French Aerospace Engineering Institute) and Prof. R. Grohe of the Technical University in Aachen.

Then we moved to the Congress Hall to follow a lecture given by Thomas Reiter, a former astronaut for ESA who experienced twice how life in space is. In fact he was on board engineer for the Euromir mission in March 1995 when he spent 179 days on board of the space station. Then a couple of years ago he took part to the Astrolab mission, the first European long-term mission on board the international space station. During this lecture he showed us some videos about life on board a space station and what are the tasks that each astronauts has to fulfill every day to maintain a right working of the space station. Then he explained us that a lot of experiment were made inside the space station: biologic ones (about the study of the growth of some vegetables and to make them more robust against disease), tests about plasma particles (used for example to manufacture more advanced semiconductors) and, last but not least, lot of tests on human beings focused, in particular, on heart check up.

NavSAS Mid Term meeting.

Yesterday the NavSAS group had the Mid Term plenary meeting. It has been a chance to verify the personal and team objectives foreseen for the 2008.

The meeting aimed also at sharing among people of the NavSAS who work on different sub-topics the milestone achieved by everyone, sharing some of the good results, and also the weaknesses still to be improved.
Any weakness is in fact also an opportunity.

There are still 6 months for everyone to achieve the year's objectives. Now back to work !!!!

NavSAS at the International Training Course in India

Prof. Letizia Lo Presti and dr. Beatrice Motella are currently in Ahmedabad India teaching some lesson at the International Training Course on satellite navigation and location based services.

The course is held at the United Nations- affiliated Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP), in Ahmedabad, India.


This Training Course is co-sponsored by the Government of the United States of America through the ICG and organized by the UN-affiliated Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP) and will make a major contribution to capacity building in the use of GNSS in various areas of applications.

The UN-OOSA states that this is the first activity in a series of training courses to be organized in the field of GNSS applications in UN-affiliated Regional Centres, and will start the development of a model education curriculum in GNSS supplementing the already existing four education curricula in space science and technology. This is also the first activity to pursue the prospective acting of Regional Centres of Excellence as ICG Information Centres.

A Special Session on GNSS at IEEE CCNC

The Consumer Communications and Networking Conference is an annual event organized by the IEEE Communication Society in Las Vegas, in the same week of the Consumer Electronics Showcase.

http://www.ieee-ccnc.org/

As happened for the 2008 conference (held in January), I've been asked to organize a special session "Beyond GPS: Where Navigation Meets Consumer Communications" for the 2009 conference, addressing the sinergies between navigation/positioning and mass market terminals . This year the special session has been one of the most succesfull as a number of attendees, and I believe also for the quality of the papers presented.

Not to say that the conference is in Vegas, that it's always fun (at least for few days !).


Here is the pic of the people of the NavSAS group attending the 2008 IEEE CCNC, Fabrizio Dominici, Simone Savasta and myself together with prof. Dennis Akos of the University of Colorado @ Boulder, who was my co-session chair.

The call for papers of the special session can be found here.

Deadline for papers abstracts is June 29, looking forward to receiving a lot of submission !!

What are the European Technology Platforms (ETPs) and how Galileo can benefit from them?

European Commission launched the European Technology Platforms (http://cordis.europa.eu/technology-platforms/home_en.html) that have the main objective to provide a framework for stakeholders, led by industry, to define research and development priorities, timeframes and action plans on a number of strategically important issues where achieving Europe's future growth and competitiveness. ETPs have the potential to contribute significantly to the renewed Lisbon Strategy (see http://ec.europa.eu/growthandjobs/index_en.htm ) and to the development of a European Research Areas of knowledge for growth including satellite navigation.

Among the other it has been in fact created an ETP called ESTP (European Space Technology Platform), see http://www.estp-space.eu/. It is managed by European Space Agency and it is declared that it aims to create a non-dependent technology portfolio facilitating European strategic independence for the access to and exploration in space, and to support the development of next-generation technologies best serving Europe’s ambitions in space-related sectors like Galileo and GMES.

Reading the available documents on the web site, it is not clear which benefits the ESTP generated on Galileo. Among the list of stakeholders, is there someone having an experience of cooperation in this ETP?

Expanding the Navigation Lab

Today we started moving some of the NavSAS people to a new room that has been added to the Navigation Lab.
Finally we will have a less crowded environment for working and a better organization of all the test equipment, that in the last months grew a lot.
The old room of the lab will be hopefully less messy of cables, connectors, boards and receivers, at least for some weeks !

The new room is very nice and it is painted with the NavSAS colours. However, once all the people who are now hosted in other labs will have moved there, it will be fully occupied already... We need start working for finding a third room in the next months...... :-)

GIOVE-B succesfully launched

Giove-B launch was succesfull. The full report of the mission can be found on the ESA website.

The GIOVE-B satellite was lofted into a medium altitude orbit around the earth by a Soyuz/Fregat rocket departing from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan by launch operator Starsem. Lift-off occurred at 04:16 local time on 27 April (00:16 Central European Summer Time). The Fregat upper stage performed a series of manoeuvres to reach a circular orbit at an altitude of about 23 200 km, inclined at 56 degrees to the Equator, before safely delivering the satellite into orbit some 3 hours and 45 minutes later. The two solar panels that generate electricity to power the spacecraft deployed correctly and were fully operational by 05:28 CEST.

We look forward now to the switch on of the payload, when finally we will have available a signal-in-space very close to the final Galileo signal to test.

GIOVE-B launch: another step for Galileo

Today we will have evidence that the Galileo programme is actually progressing. After stops, delays, doubts and concerns the day for the 2nd Galileo Satellite has come: GIOVE-B will be launched tonight.


Beginning at 23:35 CEST on Saturday night, ESA will be providing live video coverage of the final preparations, lift off and climb out of the Soyuz launcher from Baikonur via the GIOVE-B website.

The second test satellite hosts a new on-board clock and provide a signal matching the Galileo signal speciications; I am sure this will create many opportunities for research and new results, hopefully boosting again the interest towards Galileo.