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2 days ago | 
gpsworld.com | Matteo Luccio
The fire at an electrical substation that shut down London’s Heathrow Airport, Europe’s busiest hub, for 18 hours on March 21 was one of many periodic reminders of the vulnerability of much of our critical infrastructure to a single point of failure (SPOF). A previous one was the CrowdStrike software bug that disrupted hospitals, airlines, banks and scores of other businesses and services around the world on July 19, 2024.
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2 weeks ago | 
gpsworld.com | Matteo Luccio
More than 20 years ago, in these pages, we referred to television broadcast signals as “signals of opportunity” that might be used for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). Since then, several other signals with a different primary purpose have also been considered as sources of PNT, and some have been used routinely for years now, such as WiFi routers for indoor navigation. On Feb.
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1 month ago | 
gpsworld.com | Matteo Luccio
We each arrived at our current involvement with the GNSS/PNT industry by a different path. For many, it was through engineering, perhaps initially thinking of focusing on completely different challenges than those posed by extremely weak RF satellite signals, intentional interference, or ionospheric scintillation. For others, it was through surveying, which they might have entered to make a living traipsing through open fields — well, traversing them — while working independently and in nature.
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1 month ago | 
gpsworld.com | Matteo Luccio
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair, Brendan Carr announced in a March 5 blog post that the commission would be addressing GPS alternatives along with Next Generation 911 issues at its next meeting.
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2 months ago | 
gpsworld.com | Matteo Luccio
Machine control systems, which combine positioning sensors — both GNSS receivers and inertial systems — with computer displays, give operators better insight into and control over their work. Whether moving dirt on a construction site, spraying crops on a large farm, or moving cargo containers in a port, machine control increases efficiency and precision while decreasing accidents and fuel consumption.
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2 months ago | 
gpsworld.com | Matteo Luccio
I am very pleased to announce that professor Washington Yotto Ochieng has agreed to join our Editorial Advisory Board. He is the current head of the department of civil and environmental engineering and chair professor in positioning and navigation systems at Imperial College London, where he has been on the faculty since 1997. He is also the interim director of the college’s Institute for Security Science and Technology.
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Jan 3, 2025 | 
gpsworld.com | Matteo Luccio
On December 12, 2024 the European Union decided to include Bulgaria and Romania in the Schengen visa-free zone. On the same day Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia, began experiencing interference with GPS signals. The interference, as reflected in aviation ADS-B systems and reported on GPSJam.org, continued through the new year and is on-going as of this writing.
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Dec 26, 2024 | 
gpsworld.com | Matteo Luccio
As we approach the holidays and if I get tired of writing about weighty scientific, technical and policy issues, I might apply for a copywriting position at Hallmark Cards. But for now we begin to think concretely about the coming year. In fact, due to our production timelines, as you are reading this issue we are busy completing the January one. So, what can you expect to see in these pages in 2025? First, more of the same… excellent content.
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Nov 18, 2024 | 
gpsworld.com | Matteo Luccio
The November 2024 issue of GPS World features Professor Richard Langley’s 300th and final “Innovation” column. His first one appeared in the January/February 1990 issue, the magazine’s very first. In celebration of Richard’s decades-long contribution to GPS / GNSS / PNT, we are publishing a selection of testimonials and photos from some of his colleagues and friends, gathered by his former students Sunil Bisnath and Attila Komjathy. It was 1990, late into a night in Trinidad.
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Sep 23, 2024 | 
gpsworld.com | Matteo Luccio
Change from one generation of GNSS receivers to the next is generally evolutionary, not revolutionary. As with other technologies, it follows a feedback loop between end-user requirements and technical advances. Additionally, GNSS receivers can now take advantage of four full GNSS constellations, two regional ones, and a plethora of corrections/augmentation services — and increasingly must be able to counter jamming and spoofing.
