How do Satellite Navigation Systems Work? These days it is commonplace to jump in your car and happily tap in a location or postcode of where you would like to go and to hear a cheery voice reply through the dashboard ‘take the next right’.

Satellite navigation systems have become part of our everyday lives with many vehicles having sat navs fitted as standard by the manufacturers now.  Thirty years ago the only talking car was famously known as KITT, a heavily modified Pontiac Trans Am controlled by a computer with artificial intelligence.  KITT starred in the TV series Knight Rider alongside David Hasselhoff!   Today even the most modest car will gleefully talk you through directions to your chosen destination.

Sat navs have very much replaced the awkward and notoriously hard to fold paper maps or the bulky atlas that use to clutter glove boxes.  Driving to somewhere you are unfamiliar with is now so much easier and safer, but how do these clever pieces of modern day equipment actually work.

Using satellite triangulation, sat nav systems get their signals from three satellites and where the lines from all the satellites meet is where the user is located.  Then by using clever programs it is able to work out a route to take you where you want to go, keeping track of you all the time by using a network of Global Positioning Satellites, which orbit the earth. The GPS locks into the sat nav receiver in your vehicle locating its position on the surface of the earth, by calculating longitude, latitude and altitude the position is laid over a standard road map which accurately reveals the drivers position to within ten metres.

Software within the sat nav systems can find the easiest, quickest or pick out special points of interest along the route by combining average road speeds and other data.  It also lets you know how long the journey will take and expected arrival time.

Whilst this may make driving less stressful, sat navs are not perfect and there have been several stories highlighted in the press about drivers being taken up dead ends or one way systems the wrong way!  Common sense is needed along with reading local road signs and not just following the sat nav instructions blindly.

So next time you enter a postcode (http://www.simply-postcode-lookup.com/geographic_data.htm) into your satellite navigation system to your required destination, spare a thought for the satellites we take for granted enabling us to drive seamlessly and without stress, well most of the time!!  You have now reached your destination…

Simply Postcode Lookup offers address and postcode software (http://www.simply-postcode-lookup.com/for_web.htm), which can be added to your own web site, giving your customers a better shopping experience.

CASE STUDY: TEPPA / TORNADO ELECTRONIC PERFORMANCE PLANNING AID

In 2008, the RAF sent the Tornado GR-4 to Afghanistan to support British Forces. Inzpire’s staff knew that the RAF would want to maximize the Tornado’s operational capability and combat availability.

We immediately set to work, in advance of the deployment, to design an IT System that would quickly and accurately calculate critical data for take-off, landing and tyre temperature performance. On deployment of the Tornado, the MoD submitted an Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) for Performance Planning Software to aid Tornado crews in Afghanistan.

Inzpire was ready for this and was successful in winning this UOR, securing the contract to supply the Tornado Force with their TEPPA. Our product was in operational combat use within 10 weeks of contract award to great acclaim from the Tornado crews. It is a sophisticated and robust product that is fully certified to DO-178B standard. It is making a real difference to combat effectiveness and CAS availability in Afghanistan and is undoubtedly helping save lives, since it saves vital seconds and ensures that aircraft are operated to the absolute maximum of their allowable performance.

EPPA's “stand alone” capability, combined with its ability to provide accurate performance information for any aircraft type, not just Tornado, makes it a gold standard system. This is the best performance planning system the Tornado GR-4 has ever had. The Officer Commanding Tornado STANEVAL at RAF Marham had the following to say about our system....

"TEPPA is intuitive, easy to use and extremely useful for Tornado operations around the world"

Tornado GR-4 STANEVAL

Find out More about Inzpire atwww.inzpire.com

Saab signs an extension to the Counter-IED Training contract with the British Army

Defence and Security company Saab has signed a two year extension for the Collective Counter- Improvised Explosive Device Trainer (CCT) managed service from the UK Ministry of Defence. The order amounts to £ 11.1 million (app. 125 million kronor).

This extension will ensure that UK military personnel continue to receive the very best C-IED live training capabilities in the UK and abroad. By closely simulating IED events in training, individuals and groups can better react and detect the IED. This extension clearly demonstrates the confidence the UK MoD has in Saab in supporting this life saving training and evaluation.

“It is extremely rewarding to be able to provide training that helps saving lives of men and woman working in a very complex environment. We are also glad to see that more countries are interested in following the example of the UK MoD to provide the best tools possible for the soldiers to perform a dangerous job in the safest possible way,” says Henrik Höjer Managing Director Saab Training & Simulation.

Since November 2010 Saab has supported C-IED training for all UK personnel deploying on operations in Afghanistan. In addition Saab provides instrumented live simulation for UK MoD training exercises in Kenya, Canada and the UK mainland.

Saab is proud of its continued support to the UK Armed Forces.

Saab serves the global market with world-leading products, services and solutions ranging from military defence to civil security. Saab has operations and employees on all continents and constantly develops, adopts and improves new technology to meet customers’ changing needs.

For further information, please contact:

Saab Press Centre, +46 (0)734 180 018,

pressc...@saabgroup.com 

www.saabgroup.com 

BAIDU.COM SIGNS MULTIYEAR SUBSCRIPTION FOR DIGITALGLOBE IMAGERY

DigitalGlobe (NYSE: DGI), a leading global provider of high-resolution earth imagery solutions, today announced that China's most influential internet search portal,Baidu.com Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) ("Baidu"), has signed a subscription for DigitalGlobe high-resolution imagery covering 344 cities in China.

This agreement will enable Baidu to provide its end-users with a more robust online mapping experience in Baidu Maps and its third-party developers with increased functionality in its Baidu Maps application programming interface (API) for location-based services.

Baidu is the world's largest Chinese search engine and is China's largest online advertiser, with 80 percent market share and over 50 percent year-over-year growth.

"Baidu is excited to enter into a new relationship for DigitalGlobe imagery as we continue to grow and expand our online location-based services," said Dongchen Zhang, head of business development at Baidu. "With this agreement, Baidu can offer new ways for users to engage with the Internet while continuing to solidify Baidu's presence at the heart of China's Internet ecosystem."

DigitalGlobe's industry-leading ImageLibrary offers customers over 85 million square kilometers (km²) of highly accurate imagery in China, and over two billion km² of imagery worldwide.

"China is one of DigitalGlobe's most strategic geographic markets, and establishing this relationship with Baidu is an important step in strengthening our position in the Chinese consumer segment," said Rafay Khan, senior vice president at DigitalGlobe. "Our ever-growing ImageLibrary continues to outpace our competition, and gives us a considerable edge in rapidly changing countries like China."

About DigitalGlobeDigitalGlobe is a leading global provider of commercial high-resolution earth imagery products and services. Sourced from our own advanced satellite constellation, our imagery solutions support a wide variety of uses within defense and intelligence, civil agencies, mapping and analysis, environmental monitoring, oil and gas exploration, infrastructure management, Internet portals and navigation technology. With our collection sources and comprehensive ImageLibrary (containing more than two billion square kilometers of earth imagery and imagery products) we offer a range of on- and off-line products and services designed to enable customers to easily access and integrate our imagery into their business operations and applications. In China, DigitalGlobe imagery is distributed through Siwei WorldView Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. For more information, visitwww.digitalglobe.com.

About Baidu Baidu, Inc. is the leading Chinese language Internet search provider. As a technology-based media company, Baidu aims to provide the best way for people to find information. In addition to serving individual Internet search users, Baidu provides an effective platform for businesses to reach potential customers. Baidu's ADSs, each of which represents one Class A ordinary share, are currently trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "BIDU."

DigitalGlobe is a registered trademark of DigitalGlobe.

LiDAR mapping a game changer in Afghanistan

Until recently, coalition commanders in Afghanistan have often been forced to rely on outdated British terrain maps, but thanks to the latest light detection and ranging (LiDAR) equipment, operations are becoming safer and more efficient all the time. And the dangers of military engagement in an area like Afghanistan should not be underestimated. The country is home to some of the world's most unforgiving terrain, as well as ferocious improvised explosive device (IED) attacks that make both accurate mapping and unmanned ground vehicles an absolutely critical requirement.

One of the fastest-emerging solutions is LiDAR, an optical remote-sensing technology that promises to be a game changer, Defense Systems claimed in a recent report. It noted LiDAR's capability for yielding data flows that are "orders-of-magnitude quicker, more accurate and clearer" than the mapping tools that have traditionally been available. It works by bouncing pulsed lasers off objects, rather than electromagnetic radio waves as with both sonar and radar. It is able to detect incredibly fine particles on objects and their surrounding areas, meaning, unlike radar, LiDAR can even be used for aerosol detection.

"Some laser radar systems can perform multiple sequential scans over a scene. Others create images in target or mapping modes. In targeting, the sensor continually focuses, saturating a target with laser pulses to generate a high-resolution product. Mapping is wide-area collection, where the laser pans to collect data along a set path," the Defense Systems report explained. Announcing the ALIRT LiDAR project at the GEOINT 2010 Symposium, Air Force Lieutenant General John Koziol, director of the Defense Department's Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Task Force, lauded its "amazing capabilities" for incredibly in-depth coverage.

Its many advantages over conventional mapping tools have seen the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) deploy LiDAR in aircraft to map Afghanistan's entire 647,500 sq km. Earlier this year, Regina Dugan, Director at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said its photon-detecting arrays were "so sensitive it's now possible to make range measurements with fewer than ten photons received" – rather than tens of thousands.

Another thought leader in this area is Mathias Kolsch, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Naval Postgraduate School. He works with an ISR Task Force at the school's Remote Sensing Center on LiDAR issues such as semantic compression algorithms, computer-vision analysis and multimedia. Kolsch sees the depth calculation capability of the Afghanistan-mapping technology as the prime attraction for its deployment. The lasers' width and other parameters are determined by mission tasking, but the detection range can be from just a few centimetres to a full metre.

Kolsch explained: "The most advanced LIDAR sensors for critical depth measurements are called Flash LIDAR, and they do more or less what a flashlight does: send out a big broad pulse of laser light…[with] multiple receivers [for the returns]. Instead of the traditional LIDAR with its single receptor, [these sensors] have a whole detection array — banks of digital [charge-coupled device] cameras — so they simultaneously get multiple depths."

But this is certainly not the only mapping equipment being deployed or in late-stage development. Others include the US Army's holographic Tactical Battlefield Visualization program and the Air Force research lab's High-Altitude LiDAR Operations Experiment. Ongoing research is largely thought to focus on troops' ability to use LiDAR to perform fully-automated feature extractions, 3D urban modelling and vertical obstruction analysis. As light detection technology is evolved, its capabilities may extend to semi-automated feature extraction and display, for roads, vegetation and buildings.

For more information about LiDAR mapping and all other aspects of geospatial intelligence visit www.dgieurope.com