An Alternative To GPS?

A U.S. Army 2nd Lieutenant Uses An Army Issued Smartphone To Pull Up A Map For Afghan Villagers United States Army via Wikimedia

New Ground-Based Indoor Positioning Tech Is Accurate Down 
To Just A Few Inches -- Popular Science

Locata's technology goes where GPS can't, delivering a signal one million times stronger than those beamed from satellites.

 Indoor navigation is most certainly the holy grail for positioning system makers right now. Satellite-based location technologies like GPS work wonderfully out under the open sky, where signals bounced from satellites to receivers on the ground are unhindered by man-made structures or natural obstructions. Take that same technology into the subway or a large shopping mall, and the signal goes dead. But a new ground-based positioning system called Locata could soon replace or augment satnav using radio signals that are a million times stronger than GPS signals, indoors or out.  
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My Comment: The military will love this .... if it works.

Russia's GPS Network Is Put On Hold

RIA Novosti / Oleg Urusov

Russian Military's Support Of GLONASS On Ice After Corruption Scandal, Technical Failures - Report -- RT

The Russian Defense Ministry has reportedly refused to adopt GLONASS, the country’s rival to GPS, due to its technical shortcomings. One of the system’s 24 satellites has malfunctioned, and besides, GLONASS is still in its testing phase. ­

The malfunctioning satellite will not be operational any time soon as it has already exhausted its power after 96 months in service, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports. And due to a difference in orbit inclination, no existing reserve satellite can substitute it.  

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My Comment: After a decade of war the U.S. has clearly shown the value of GPS systems for precision bomb strikes. Not having this essential network is a significant loss for the Russian military.  
Update: A link to how China and other countries are trying to develop their own GPS system.

New Smart Weapons Will Not Use GPS

DARPA Seeks To Wean Smart Weapons Off GPS With Hybrid Inertial Navigation System-On-A-Chip -- Military & Aerospace

ARLINGTON, Va., 18 April 2012. Navigation and guidance experts at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., are trying to reduce the military's reliance on Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite guidance for advanced munitions, mid- and long-range missiles, and other weapons by creating a navigation-system-on-a-chip that combines traditional and atomic inertial guidance technology.

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More News On DARPA Research To Fins An Alternative To GPS For Smart Weapons

DARPA wants navigation chip to guide smart weapons -- Defense Systems
C-SCAN For GPS-Denied Areas -- Shadow Spear
DARPA exploring miniature, atomic sensor systems as alternative to GPS -- Network World
New sensor sought to enable military missions in GPS-denied areas -- Physorg
Wanted: Atomic inertial navigation system -- UPI

My Comment: I guess advances in jamming GPS signals are raising concerns in some quarters.

Glonass To Provide Global GPS Coverage This Year - Top Official

Russia's navigation system Glonass. © RIA Novosti. Maksim Bogodvid

From RIA Novosti:

Russia's top space official confirmed on Monday Russia's navigation system Glonass will cover 100% of the Earth's surface by the end of the year.

"This year, I think, we will provide 100% coverage of the globe with the Glonass navigation system," the head of the federal space agency Roscosmos, Anatoly Perminov, said.

"We will have 24 [operational] satellites in orbit and 3-4 spacecraft in the required orbital reserve," he added.

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Advances In Technology To Track Our Soldiers

Keep moving to fix a position (Image: Chad Hunt/Corbis)

Motion Sensors Could Track Troops When GPS Cuts Out -- New Scientist

KNOWING where troops are during combat operations can be a matter of life and death - but GPS technology used to track troops is fragile, the signal easily lost. Now a UK company is developing a lightweight, wearable tracker that can provide location cover when GPS is down.

The system uses novel software to decipher position data from the signals generated by cheap microchip-based motion sensors - like those used in the Nintendo Wii and Apple iPhone.

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Sat-Nav Systems Under Growing Threat From 'Jammers'

Photo: Society will only get ever more dependent on sat-nav systems

From The BBC:

Technology that depends on satellite-navigation signals is increasingly threatened by attack from widely available equipment, experts say.

While "jamming" sat-nav equipment with noise signals is on the rise, more sophisticated methods allow hackers even to program what receivers display.

At risk are not only sat-nav users, but also critical national infrastructure.

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Air Force Searches For Alternatives to GPS

Echo, NASA's first communications satellite, was a passive spacecraft based on a balloon design created by an engineer at the Langley Research Center. The Mylar satellite measured 100 feet in diameter and could be seen with the naked eye from the ground as it passed overhead. (Photograph by NASA)

From Popular Mechanics:

As the administration dismantles its only backup system, the Air Force looks at replacements to guard against the Pentagon's over-reliance on GPS satellites.

Last week, the Air Force's Chief of Staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, gave voice to a chink in the U.S. military's armor, one that many know about but few like to discuss in public: Without satellites, modern militaries lose most of their edge. "It seemed critical to me that the joint force reduce its dependence on GPS (Global Positioning System)," he told attendees at a national security conference in Washington.

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High-Speed Brain Scan Used to Diagnose War Vets' PTSD With 90% Accuracy

The Stress Of War Different soldiers sharing the same experiences can react very differently. A research group in Minneapolis believes it has found an objective means to accurately identify PTSD through magnetoencephalography.

From Popular Science:

With so many troops rotating into and out of two different war zones, mental health experts in the U.S. are urgently trying to understand the causes – and a means to assuage or prevent – post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Now, a group of researchers at the University of Minnesota and the Minneapolis VA Medical Center may have unlocked the secret to objective PTSD diagnosis: a biomarker in the brain that diagnoses the condition with more than 90 percent accuracy.

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Will Obama Kill Navigation Backup System as GPS Threatens to Fail?

LORAN radio transmission tower. (Photograph by USCG/PA1 Chuck Kalnbach)

From Popular Mechanics:

Obama's budget attempts to ax LORAN-C, a navigation backup program, even as experts at the Government Accountability Office sound warnings about satellite reliability. What will happen if GPS fails?

Even as a government watchdog agency warns that GPS navigation satellites could fail, the Obama administration's proposed fiscal 2010 budget has quietly killed the nation's backup navigation system.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report last week warning, "It is uncertain whether the Air Force will be able to acquire new satellites in time to maintain current GPS service without interruption. If not, some military operations and some civilian users could be adversely affected." The report also notes that the current program is about $870 million over budget and the launch of its first satellite has been delayed to November 2009, almost three years late.

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GPS System 'Close To Breakdown'

From The Guardian:

Network of satellites could begin to fail as early as 2010

It has become one of the staples of modern, hi-tech life: using satellite navigation tools built into your car or mobile phone to find your way from A to B. But experts have warned that the system may be close to breakdown.

US government officials are concerned that the quality of the Global Positioning System (GPS) could begin to deteriorate as early as next year, resulting in regular blackouts and failures – or even dishing out inaccurate directions to millions of people worldwide.

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