GPS Tracking ROI

The following is a paid review. I was compensated for my time to research and write. All opinions expressed are strictly my own.

Introduction: I was asked to look over the products and services of a firm I wasn’t familiar with today, E- Drive Technology Ltd., located in Tirat Hacarmel (near Hafia), Israel. Not unusual to be looking at an international firm in the GPS business, although I find that very few of them have been able to provide the level of support that customers in the US should be looking for. (in fairness, the majority of US-based suppliers can’t provide decent support, either … it’s the number one problem in the GPS tracking industry, in my experience).

Website Findings: The E- Drive Technology (EDT) website is about average for companies in this industry. It’s obviously completely understandable to a company employee who understands the nuances of EDT’s seemingly broad product line, but approaching it as if I were a potential client totally new to the idea of GPS tracking I found it quite confusing and “tech heavy”. There are many places which ask a customer to deice between different EDT products before sending the viewer on … this is a bit clumsy in practice since the customer won’t know the difference and may well leave in confusion. I’d suggest an approach that centered on making an easy to follow “path” for each visitor category: Looking for corporate info, researching the field of GPS tracking, small fleet owner, large fleet owner, government purchaser. Something along those lines would work much better for both company and visitor I believe. (more…)

United Launch Alliance successfully launched a Delta II expendable launch vehicle today from Space Launch Complex 17-A at 8:23 a.m., EDT carrying the Air Force’s GPS IIR-17(M) satellite. This launch marks the third ULA mission this year conducted for the Air Force, and one of the five remaining Air Force Delta II launches.

Following a nominal 1 hour and 8 minute flight, the rocket deployed the GPS IIR-17(M) spacecraft, the fourth modernized NAVSTAR Global Positioning System Block II R-M military navigation satellite. GPS is a space-based radio-positioning system nominally consisting of a minimum of 24-satellite constellation that provides navigation and timing information to military and civilian users worldwide… more Block IIR(M) coverage here.

You know, as I sometime go back and re-read my writings I get the feeling that I often come across as a pretty negative commentator.  I really don’t think a leopard can change his spots, but I will say for the record, it’s not true that I am a negative person.  I’m actually very positive about the GPS segment of the aerospace industry.

I worked in one capacity or another for the US DoD for more than 38 years, so when it comes to comments and critiques of government programs that haven’t performed very well, I could write a book.  Indeed i could, but I’m prohibited by law from writing about a great many things I know in order to preserve national security, or in some cases to protect the guilty … you’ll have to judge that one for yourselves.

But the GPS program is a shining example of how government programs can work, and work well.  The “R” in this vehicle’s’ designation stands for “Replenishment“, a part of the planned program that was to be launched, in some cases years ago, to replace on-orbit original satellites which had ‘died”.  The replenishment program fell far behind, not because of mismanagement, but because the original system birds worked so well, and were so well taken care of by contractor, US Civil Service and military folks at the 2nd SOPS (Satellite Operations Squadron) that they went on doing the job and doing it well that there was no reason to launch replenishment birds.

The program office and their stakeholders collaborated smartly and modernized some of the birds waiting to go up to incorporate the latest advances in hardware and software and to also include a whole new navigational signal which will significantly improve GPS system-wide performance when it rolls out across the space segment.  In effect, the entire GPS system is being rebuilt, in place while it continues to operate supporting military and civilian users world-wide, without regard to their politics, country of origin or religious preferences.

Frankly, in a world of often depressing news, especially the squandering of the resources of the former USSR GLONASS system and the economically and environmentally unsound EU Galileo system, I am pretty happy and proud to report news like this from my former employer, the USAF and proud indeed of my own tiny contributions in the past.  Hats Off!

This just in courtesy of Wired.com.

Full text of Wired Selective Availability Ending Article here:

The White House said today (19 sep 2007) that it is permanently ending a program that had intentionally built error-producing mechanisms into the nation’s fleet of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites.

The so-called Selective Availability (SA) degradation capacity has been part of the military-run satellites since their launch, although it has been turned off following a presidential order in 2000. The idea was to prevent U.S. rivals or enemies from using the system for unwanted purposes …

The timing of the decision may or may not have anything to do with the development of Europe’s Galileo program, which is intended to provide a rival, but partially complementary network to the today-unique GPS system …

Like Wired I would certainly add a disclaimer about how important Galileo is to the decision. SA has always been a “Red-headed stepchild” to the GPS program overall and whatever the motivation this decision today just helps all concerned plan better for the future.

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Nice news that I picked up today from my former hometown paper, The Gazette:

The Air Force is moving control of its navigation satellites to a new computer system at Schriever Air Force Base next month. They expect no one to notice. If things go seriously haywire, however, consequences could vary from bombs missing their targets in Iraq to the world financial markets collapsing into chaos.
That’s why senior Air Force officials are saying that failure is not an option as the GPS ground control system is switched from a room-sized mainframe computer to a state-of-the-art network.
There’s a big safety net in place, and the worst-case scenario is extremely unlikely, but the big shift won’t be easy…

I’m glad to see the modernization going on line.  This has long been needed.  The article, however, is a bit too sensational for me.  I’m not sure if it’s some higher-ups in the Air Force trying to make a bit more of the day-to-day boredom of their existence a bit more exciting, or the news reporter being a little too much in awe of the folks he’s reporting on.

The GPS satellites themselves, once established on orbit and checked out  are essentially autonomous for at least 30 days.  This is the way the system was designed from day one, and the reason the “money men” at the Pentagon have resisted moves for years to establish a second, autonomous control center for the GPS at a location removed from Schriever AFB.  Each bird “takes care” of itself if left alone … so if there is some “glitch” that hasn’t been foreseen in the switchover, no planes are going astray and no world financial systems are going to crash … that’s a bit much, Tom, don’t you think?

 2 SOPS people at Falcon Schriever have done way more than the minimums to keep the system healthy and to improve accuracy above and beyond the system standard accuracies.  They basically “touch” each bird once or twice a day and update clock rates and other parameters that improve the accuracy beyond specs.  They also have been very innovative over the years in doing sophisticated “remote maintenance” to the batteries onboard each satellite to make them “love” long past their designed life.  But any day they don’t “touch’” a specific space segment assets only means the asset will routinely and gradually begin regressing back toward the designed, minimum performance goals … let’s not throw too much drama into the mix.

None the less this is important news because the existing system dates from the 1970s and 1980s and is really no longer maintainable.  Moving the control system software onto a modern, supportable platform will provide  a positive ROI in terms of easier (and thus cheaper) maintenance and will make the control contacts that the operators perform work better, faster, cheaper as well.  As I have said here before, my hat is always off to my former colleagues at Schriever … military, government civil service and contractor personnel.  Keep ‘em flying, guys and gals!

OK, pretty complicated graphic there, eh? (oops, that’s Canadian, not Aussie

As a US citizen I’m always happy to brag on my county’s contributions to the world, especially the free utility we offer up to the world, the US DoD developed, funded and operated GPS. I don’t style myself as Mr. GPS for no reason … I’ve been with the program since the earliest days and it continues to amaze and fascinate me.

But one thing that doesn’t fascinate me is how little my own countrymen make use of the system at the “common folk” level. The US is handicapped by a lot of companies, educational institutions and government agencies that try to make the use of GPS too darn complicated. People think you need to own a huge business or be a PhD. or have special qualifications to make good use of GPS … and it just isn’t so.

Here’s a great site from Australia maintained by a fellow who has written the “real people” book on making everyday use of GPS in Australia. Pretty impressive accomplishment, I’d say … as soon as his next edition hits print I intend to buy a copy, even though I don’t live in Australia.

One of the best pages on this site is a set of resources for NetGPS a small, freeware programme you can use to see where people are in real-time, as they travel around.

Go take a look and explore. No GPS required. Recommended.

Cursor on Target (CoT) is an effort by military and governmental branches, FFRDCs (federally funded research and development corporations) and private companies to standardize an electronic portable data format to define location based data.  I am the biggest geo-geek that I know, so obviously I was very interested when they contacted me about implementing their format into Where’s Tim.  These guys have done a great job of making a simple schema (12 required fields) that is easy to implement.  I blogged about doing something like this while ago, but these guys have the resources to get broad adaptation, so I’m very excited to be working with them

The first thing I’ve did was create an .aspx page that would render XML in the CoT format.  The webpage is here, and the article with the code is here.

Is this a post about GPS, Dave?  Wow, looks geeky …. well, it is, but it’s important.  First of all thanks and a tip of the blog hat to my blogging friend Tim Hibbard for the info above.  Tim’s a bonafide software architect and when he says something’s simple some of us may still be a little mystified, but trust me, this is a great thing for all sorts of mapping and GPS tracking ideas.

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Caught this item just a couple hours ago.  Very, very interesting.  A German startup, BlueSky Positioning has just announced a complete (including antenna) GPS receiver on a SIM (Subscriber Information Module).  This will be as amazing to my Asian, Australian and European readers as it is to me, but for some of my North American readers … attuned to thinking of a cell phone as an “appliance” bought from a carrier, cell phones for years now have gotten their “smarts” from an industry-standard, customer removable chip inside the phone known as the SIM.  About the size of a man’s thumb nail the SIM identifies your phone to the carrier, holds your telephone number and tons of other data depending upon manufacturer and your personal preference.  Here in Asia many cell users carry multiple SIM cards so they can use a different carrier in different areas of the country, use a carrier with a special overseas calling plan, etc.  You buy a SIM card at a cellular dealer, at a carrier’s sales office, from a street vendor or even a vending machine.  But a whole GPS receiver on a SIM?  That’s news and here’s why….

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