GPS History and Applications

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Applications The Global Positioning System, while originally a military project, is considered a dual-use technology, meaning it has significant applications for both the military and the civilian industry.

Military The military applications of GPS span many purposes:

Navigation: GPS allows soldiers to find objectives in the dark or in unfamiliar territory, and to coordinate the movement of troops and supplies. The GPS-receivers commanders and soldiers use are respectively called the Commanders Digital Assistant and the Soldier Digital Assistant.[41][42][43][44] Target tracking: Various military weapons systems use GPS to track potential ground and air targets before they are flagged as hostile.[citation needed] These weapon systems pass GPS co-ordinates of targets to precision-guided munitions to allow them to engage the targets accurately. Military aircraft, particularly those used in air-to-ground roles use GPS to find targets (for example, gun camera video from AH-1 Cobras in Iraq show GPS co-ordinates that can be looked up in Google Earth[citation needed]). Missile and projectile guidance: GPS allows accurate targeting of various military weapons including ICBMs, cruise missiles and precision-guided munitions. Artillery projectiles with embedded GPS receivers able to withstand accelerations of 12,000G have been developed for use in 155 mm howitzers.[45] Search and Rescue: Downed pilots can be located faster if they have a GPS receiver. Reconnaissance and Map Creation: The military use GPS extensively to aid mapping and reconnaissance. The GPS satellites also carry a set of nuclear detonation detectors consisting of an optical sensor (Y-sensor), an X-ray sensor, a dosimeter, and an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) sensor (W-sensor) which form a major portion of the United States Nuclear Detonation Detection System.[46][47]

Civilian See also: GNSS applications

This antenna is mounted on the roof of a hut containing a scientific experiment needing precise timing.Many civilian applications benefit from GPS signals, using one or more of three basic components of the GPS: absolute location, relative movement, and time transfer.

The ability to determine the receiver's absolute location allows GPS receivers to perform as a surveying tool or as an aid to navigation. The capacity to determine relative movement enables a receiver to calculate local velocity and orientation, useful in vessels or observations of the Earth. Being able to synchronize clocks to exacting standards enables time transfer, which is critical in large communication and observation systems. An example is CDMA digital cellular. Each base station has a GPS timing receiver to synchronize its spreading codes with other base stations to facilitate inter-cell hand off and support hybrid GPS/CDMA positioning of mobiles for emergency calls and other applications. Finally, GPS enables researchers to explore the Earth environment including the atmosphere, ionosphere and gravity field. GPS survey equipment has revolutionized tectonics by directly measuring the motion of faults in earthquakes.

To help prevent civilian GPS guidance from being used in an enemy's military or improvised weaponry, the US Government controls the export of civilian receivers. A US-based manufacturer cannot generally export a GPS receiver unless the receiver contains limits restricting it from functioning when it is simultaneously (1) at an altitude above 18 kilometers (60,000 ft) and (2) traveling at over 515 m/s (1,000 knots).[48] These parameters are well above the operating characteristics of the typical cruise missile, but would be characteristic of the reentry vehicle from a ballistic missile.

GPS functionality has now started to move into mobile phones en masse. The first GSM handsets with integrated GPS were launched already in the late 1990’s, and were available for broader consumer availability on networks such as those run by Nextel, Sprint and Verizon in 2002 in response to US FCC mandates for handset positioning in emergency calls. Capabilities for access by third party software developers to these features were slower in coming, with Nextel opening those APIs up upon launch to any developer, Sprint following in 2006, and Verizon soon thereafter.

History The design of GPS is based partly on the similar ground-based radio navigation systems, such as LORAN and the Decca Navigator developed in the early 1940s, and used during World War II. Additional inspiration for the GPS came when the Soviet Union launched the first Sputnik in 1957. A team of U.S. scientists led by Dr. Richard B. Kershner were monitoring Sputnik's radio transmissions. They discovered that, because of the Doppler effect, the frequency of the signal being transmitted by Sputnik was higher as the satellite approached, and lower as it continued away from them. They realized that since they knew their exact location on the globe, they could pinpoint where the satellite was along its orbit by measuring the Doppler distortion.

The first satellite navigation system, Transit, used by the United States Navy, was first successfully tested in 1960. Using a constellation of five satellites, it could provide a navigational fix approximately once per hour. In 1967, the U.S. Navy developed the Timation satellite which proved the ability to place accurate clocks in space, a technology the GPS relies upon. In the 1970s, the ground-based Omega Navigation System, based on signal phase comparison, became the first world-wide radio navigation system.

The first experimental Block-I GPS satellite was launched in February 1978.[40] The GPS satellites were initially manufactured by Rockwell International (now part of Boeing) and are now manufactured by Lockheed Martin (IIR/IIR-M) and Boeing (IIF).

Timeline

In 1972, the US Air Force Central Inertial Guidance Test Facility (Holloman AFB) conducted developmental flight tests of two prototype GPS receivers over White Sands Missile Range, using ground-based pseudo-satellites.

In 1978 the first experimental Block-I GPS satellite was launched.

In 1983, after Soviet interceptor aircraft shot down the civilian airliner KAL 007 that strayed into restricted Soviet airspace due to navigational errors, killing all 269 people on board, U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced that the GPS would be made available for civilian uses once it was completed.[49][50] By 1985, ten more experimental Block-I satellites had been launched to validate the concept.

On February 14, 1989, the first modern Block-II satellite was launched.

In 1992, the 2nd Space Wing, which originally managed the system, was de-activated and replaced by the 50th Space Wing.

By December 1993 the GPS achieved initial operational capability[51]

By January 17, 1994 a complete constellation of 24 satellites was in orbit.

Full Operational Capability was declared by NAVSTAR in April 1995.

In 1996, recognizing the importance of GPS to civilian users as well as military users, U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a policy directive[52] declaring GPS to be a dual-use system and establishing an Interagency GPS Executive Board to manage it as a national asset.

In 1998, U.S. Vice President Al Gore announced plans to upgrade GPS with two new civilian signals for enhanced user accuracy and reliability, particularly with respect to aviation safety.

On May 2, 2000 "Selective Availability" was discontinued as a result of the 1996 executive order, allowing users to receive a non-degraded signal globally.

In 2004, the United States Government signed a historic agreement with the European Community establishing cooperation related to GPS and Europe's planned Galileo system.

In 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush updated the national policy, replacing the executive board with the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Executive Committee.

November 2004, QUALCOMM announced successful tests of Assisted-GPS for mobile phones.[2]

In 2005, the first modernized GPS satellite was launched and began transmitting a second civilian signal (L2C) for enhanced user performance.

On September 14, 2007, the aging mainframe-based Ground Segment Control System was transitioned to the new Architecture Evolution Plan. [3]

The most recent launch was on March 15, 2008[53]. The oldest GPS satellite still in operation was launched on July 4, 1991, and became operational on August 30, 1991.[54]

Satellite numbers[55][56] Block Launch Period Satellites launched Currently in service

I 1978–1985 10+11 0

II 1985–1990 9 0

IIA 1990–1997 19 13

IIR 1997–2004 12+11 12

IIR-M 2005–2008 6+22 6

IIF 2009– 0+102 0

Total 58+21+122 31

1Failed

2In preparation.

Awards Two GPS developers have received the National Academy of Engineering Charles Stark Draper prize year 2003:

Ivan Getting, emeritus president of The Aerospace Corporation and engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, established the basis for GPS, improving on the World War II land-based radio system called LORAN (Long-range Radio Aid to Navigation). Bradford Parkinson, professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, conceived the present satellite-based system in the early 1960s and developed it in conjunction with the U.S. Air Force. One GPS developer, Roger L. Easton, received the National Medal of Technology on February 13, 2006 at the White House.[57]

On February 10, 1993, the National Aeronautic Association selected the Global Positioning System Team as winners of the 1992 Robert J. Collier Trophy, the most prestigious aviation award in the United States. This team consists of researchers from the Naval Research Laboratory, the U.S. Air Force, the Aerospace Corporation, Rockwell International Corporation, and IBM Federal Systems Company. The citation accompanying the presentation of the trophy honors the GPS Team "for the most significant development for safe and efficient navigation and surveillance of air and spacecraft since the introduction of radio navigation 50 years ago."

Other systems Main article: Global Navigation Satellite System Other satellite navigation systems in use or various states of development include:

Beidou — China's regional system that China has proposed to expand into a global system named COMPASS. Galileo — a proposed global system being developed by the European Union, joined by China, Israel, India, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Ukraine, planned to be operational by 2011–12. GLONASS — Russia's global system which is being restored to full availability in partnership with India. Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) — India's proposed regional system. QZSS - Japanese proposed regional system, adding better coverage to the Japanese Islands.

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