Review of Papers on Open Source at ION GNSS 2006

Guys,

The session name was changed from "OpenSource GNSS Projects" to "Software Receivers 2 (Applications)"
due to the fact we did not receive enough abstracts (hint hint).



Session C6, Paper #1

Integrating the GP2021 and Linux in Open Source GPS
F.A. Niles, Consultant

This is a must read paper for anyone serious about Open Source GPS running under Linux.  Rick explains
his design philosophy and interfaces to get it working under non real-time Linux.


Session C6, Paper #2

The Namuru Open GNSS Research Receiver
P.J. Mumford, K. Parkinson, A. Dempster, The University of New South Wales, Australia

The GP2021 is getting a bit long in the tooth.  Since other receiver chip manufacturers don't seem interested
in providing specs for their chipsets an option is to program your own FPGA.  In this case they have emulated
the GP2021.

Session C6, Paper #3

Block-Repetitive Iterated Processing for Software GPS Receiver: Dichotomized Search of Correlation Peak
C. Yang, Sigtem Technology, Inc.; M. Miller, T. Nguyen, AFRL/SNRN

This is an interesting concept for doing a binary search for the correlation peak down to a very small
fraction of a chip.  The claim was made that this will help in mitigating multipath.  I think it could
if the overall shape of the correlation peak was recorded but I do not agree with the claim that multipath
does not move the correlation peak.




Session C6, Paper #4

Open Signals, Open Software: Two Years of Collaborative Analysis Using the GPS Toolkit
R.B. Harris, T. Craddock, T. Conn, T. Gaussiran, E. Hagen, A. Hughes, J. Little, R. Mach, S. Nelsen, 
B. Renfro, B. Tolman, ARL/The University of Texas at Austin

Ben updated us on the GPStk which is a toolkit of algorithms used for Geodesy, and other research in a
post processed environment.  We had discussions about how it can work together with OSGPS to provide
data for them and validation for the OSGPS project.



Session C6, Paper #5

Geodetic Baseline GPS Processing by a Simple Sequential Technique
M. Vermeer, M. Vaisanen, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland

I'm afraid I didn't understand much of this paper but it is significant in that it shows how open source
software can be leveraged by researchers.



The next 3 papers delt with software receivers (digital sampling of the baseband signal and processing)


Session C6, Paper #6

GeoZigBee: A Wireless GPS Wristwatch Tracking Solution
A. Brown, P. Brown, J. Griesbach, NAVSYS Corporation; T. Boult, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs


An interesting paper on how small sampled time period data sets can be broadcast over a ZigBee network
every 10 minutes with a very small amount of power to a base station which does all of the positioning 
computations.


Session C6, Paper #7

Extended Kalman Filter-Based Deeply Integrated GNSS/Low-Cost INS for Reliable Navigation Under GNSS Weak 
Interrupted Signal Conditions
N.I. Ziedan, Zagazig University, Egypt


A paper about deeply integrating a GNSS and INS.  This involves using a Kalman filter to close the tracking
loops while also taking advantage of integartion of an INS.


Session C6, Paper #8

Testing GPS L5 Acquisition Algorithms Using a Hardware Simulator
C. Mongredien, G. Lachapelle, M.E. Cannon, The University of Calgary, Canada


A paper about the difficulties encountered when trying to do direct acquisition of the L5 signal.



All in all I think it was a good session.  If anyone else wants to add their comments please do.

Cliff