The GTI GPS Research blog is a portal for sharing information on GPS related research and applications for the natural gas industry. Here you will find information on current GTI projects that are leveraging GPS technology to improve efficencies, reduce costs, and decrease risk. This portal also serves as a way to share information, ask questions, or discuss new ideas related to GPS. Click on the links below to learn more about specific research projects.
Thought this might be of interest to everyone.
ReplyDeleteScientists and engineers — including those at a sprawling satellite-making factory in El Segundo — are developing an $8-billion GPS upgrade that will make the system more reliable, more widespread and much more accurate.
The new system is designed to pinpoint someone's location within an arm's length, compared with a margin of error of 20 feet or more today. With that kind of precision, a GPS-enabled mobile phone could guide you right to the front steps of Starbucks, rather than somewhere on the block.
"This new system has the potential to deliver capabilities we haven't seen yet," said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst for aerospace research firm Teal Group. "Because GPS touches so many industries, it's hard to imagine what industry wouldn't be affected."
The 24 satellites that make up the GPS constellation — many of them built at the former Rockwell plant in Seal Beach — will be replaced one by one. The first replacement was scheduled to be launched from Cape Canaveral this weekend. The overhaul will take a decade and is being overseen by engineers at Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, where Parkinson and his team developed the current system.
Seeing how this will be in use at about the time that the existing units we have will no longer be upgradeable, new low cost data collection units should be on the market.