ION GNSS+ 2026
September 14-18
Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress
Orlando, Florida
Special Anniversary Event: Masters Short Course Program Featuring Distinguished Lecturers
Monday’s short courses are provided on a complimentary basis to all paid ION GNSS+ attendees, with the compliments of the ION’s Satellite Division and the ION Master Instructors. ION Master Instructors are internationally recognized GNSS experts and educators. All of the ION Masters have generously donated their time and talents to this effort, as a service to the GNSS community, with the ION’s gratitude.
Short courses are presented lecture-style. Electronic course notes are the intellectual property of the ION Master Instructor, and are provided to registered attendees via the meeting website, at the discretion of the instructor.
Cost: Complimentary for registered ION GNSS+ conference attendees with a full, single-day or student registration.
Inertial Navigation for Peppa Pig
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 2:00 p.m. - 2:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 1-2
Position determination using gyroscopes and accelerometers is at the core of almost every high-performance navigation system. Unfortunately, many of the underlying concepts are quite complex. Within a simplified 2D framework, the essential principles will be introduced, including the strapdown equations, error modeling, and why inertial navigation proves that the Earth is spherical.
Dr. Thomas Pany is a professor of satellite navigation at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich and organizer of the Munich Satellite Navigation Summit. He is an ION Fellow.
GNSS Modernization
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 2:00 p.m. - 2:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 3-4
When the first ION Satellite Division conference was held forty years ago, there were only 7 GPS and 5 GLONASS operational satellites. This lecture will trace the evolution of the GNSS to its current state with four global and multiple regional constellations, and additionally provide predictions for what’s next.
Dr. Christopher Hegarty is a Technical Fellow with MITRE, where he has worked mainly on aviation applications of GNSS. He is a Fellow of the ION and IEEE.
Interacting with Software GNSS Receivers
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 2:00 p.m. - 2:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 5-6
Software receivers allow signals to be processed in new and interesting ways. They are used for education, research, and operational applications. This demonstration will feature live stations where you can interact with the author’s pyChips multi-constellation SDR and learn how it is applied across a multitude of applications.
Dr. Sanjeev Gunawardena is a research associate professor with the Air Force Institute of Technology where he leads GNSS technology development. He is an ION Fellow.
Space Applications of GNSS
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 3:00 p.m. - 3:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 1-2
GPS has played a critical role in advancing scientific, defense, and commercial satellite capabilities. Today, international GNSS supports onboard PNT, precise orbit determination, and unique observations in LEO, GEO, and even cislunar space. This class explores the evolution of spaceborne GNSS technology, enabling unprecedented scientific discoveries and societal benefits.
Dr. Penny Axelrad is a University of Colorado Distinguished Professor, and Joseph T. Negler Professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the ION and AIAA.
Integrity: The Invisible Backbone of Modern Navigation
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 3:00 p.m. - 3:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 3-4
Aviation does not demand accuracy—it demands integrity. This lecture traces how safety-of-life requirements transformed GNSS from a positioning tool into a risk-bounded system. From RAIM through augmentation systems to ARAIM, and onward to integrity against spoofing, we explore how protection levels, redundancy, and probabilistic risk reshaped navigation science.
Dr. Boris Pervan is Professor and Frank Gunsaulus Faculty Fellow in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology. He is an ION Fellow.
Using a Sextant: Where Am I?
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 3:00 p.m. - 3:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 5-6
How do modern navigators use a sextant, chronometer, stars, and almanac information to derive ship or aircraft position? Learn about the tools to solve for position: 1) an almanac (or computer) that predicts precise location of celestial bodies as a function of time; 2) a reasonably accurate timepiece; 3) a device to measure the elevation angle of a celestial body (e.g., sextant); 4) a “star finder”; 5) a navigational chart; and 6) a mathematical or tabular method to convert observations to contours (lines) of position. We will focus on the practice of using these six tools to solve for vessel position. Final discussions will focus on experiences with celestial navigation, covering the best times to shoot stars, horizon challenges, sources of error, typical accuracy, and similarities to GPS position-solution methodology.
Dr. Richard J. Hartnett is a professor of Electrical Engineering at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, having retired in 2009 from the USCG as a Captain (O-6).
Eleven Critical Hinge-Factors that Enabled/Enhanced GPS and Made it a System for Humanity
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 3:00 p.m. - 3:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 7-8
Hinge-factors are pivotal (and critical) enabling moments that could have easily gone “the wrong way”. This talk will highlight eleven of these critical junctures. The birth and maturation of GPS was very perilous on many dimensions. Most critically, it was strongly opposed by the Operational Air Force, which tried to cancel funding on several occasions. Potential civilian users generally had no awareness of its potential. For GPS success, some hinge-factors required deliberate effort by the original GPS Program, while for others, chance or circumstances enabled success. While Dr. Parkinson had told Congress, contrary to many histories, that there would be a civil positioning capability from the start, the full guaranteed use was many years in the future. Fortunately, these pivotal hinge-factor moments went in the right direction, and GPS has become a “System for Humanity” with more than 5 billion units in use worldwide.
Dr. Bradford Parkinson was the Chief Architect for GPS, and led the original advocacy for the system as an Air Force Colonel. He was appointed a Professor at Stanford University in 1984, after six years of industry experience. He is an ION, AIAA, and IEEE Fellow.
Ionospheric Mayhem: Space Weather, Solar Storms, and the GNSS We Trust
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 4:00 p.m. - 4:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 1-2
This tutorial explores how the ionosphere and space weather shape GPS/GNSS performance, from scintillation to signal delays. Through dramatic historical storms, surprising failures, and innovative experiments, we reveal how solar eruptions ripple through navigation systems—and how scientists and engineers detect, model, and outsmart them in an increasingly connected world today.
Dr. Jade Morton is a University of Colorado Distinguished Professor, a Helen and Hubert Croft Professor of Engineering, and the head of the Satellite Navigation and Sensing (SeNSe) Labora tory at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is an ION, RIN, and IEEE Fellow.
It’s All in the Mix: A System of Systems
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 4:00 p.m. - 4:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 3-4
Future resilient PNT will require a ‘system of systems’ approach, blending complementary navigation technologies. This, however, is not new thinking; for years, multi-sensor integration has been at the core of many positioning solutions. This course will review the background and developments, and will be illustrated through numerous example applications.
Prof. Terry Moore OBE is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Nottingham, where he was previously the Director of the Nottingham Geospatial Institute (NGI). He is an ION and RIN Fellow; and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
Constellations in Your Pocket: How GNSS Conquered the Smartphone
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 4:00 p.m. - 4:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 5-6
The fascinating and surprising tale of science and subterfuge, tiny startups, mighty political forces, and the creative engineering that brought GNSS to every smartphone. Equal parts espionage thriller and technical deep-dive, this fast-paced story will permanently rewire how you understand the device in your hand.
Dr. Frank van Diggelen is a Distinguished Engineer at Google, working on high-accuracy GNSS. He is a pioneer in Assisted GNSS. He is an ION, RIN, and IEEE Fellow.
The Parade of Clocks
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 4:00 p.m. - 4:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 7-8
As long as we have had civilization, we have had clocks. Dr. Matsakis will trace the story of clocks across cultures and across time, from prehistoric time, to the atomic age. Each technology has a high-tech aspect, and each contributed to the society that fostered it.
Dr. Demetrios Matsakis, Masterclock, is a former Chief Scientist of the Time Service Department at the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO), keeper of the official Master Clock not only for the Department of Defense but for all of America.
5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m., Meet the Masters Cocktail Hour
Indoor Navigation as GNSS in Disguise
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 6:00 p.m. - 6:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 1-2
Indoor navigation appears fundamentally different from GNSS, yet the same geometry, multipath physics, and estimation principles govern both. This lecture demonstrates how GNSS-inspired modeling and factor-graph methods unlock robust indoor positioning, and why seamless navigation across indoor and outdoor environments is fundamentally one unified estimation problem.
Dr. Li-Ta Hsu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering (AAE) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Look at the Stars: LEO PNT with Satellite Mega-Constellations
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 6:00 p.m. - 6:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 5-6
The first post-TRANSIT results with LEO signals of opportunity were demonstrated by Kassas’ lab at ION GNSS+ 2018, navigating a UAV with Orbcomm signals. LEO PNT has come a long way since then. Dr. Kassas will overview the most advanced intercontinental LEO PNT results with satellite mega-constellations across land, air, stratosphere, Arctic sea, and the edge of the Earth.
Dr. Zak Kassas is the TRC Endowed Chair of Intelligent Transportation Systems and a Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at The Ohio State University, where he is the Director of the U.S. DOT Center for Automated Vehicles Research with Multimodal AssurEd Navigation (CARMEN). He is an ION and IEEE Fellow.
Quantum Navigation: Science Fiction, Science Fact, and What Comes Next
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 6:00 p.m. - 6:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 3-4
This interactive workshop takes participants on a fast-paced journey from Hollywood’s portrayal of futuristic navigation to the real quantum technologies emerging today. Through games and scenarios, attendees differentiate between what’s myth and what’s possible, and explore the breakthroughs likely to occur within the next decade. Participants leave with a clear, practical understanding of quantum navigation’s capabilities, limits, and real-world applications across defense, transport, and space.
Dr. Allison Kealy is the Director of the Innovative Planet Institute at Swinburne University, coordinating research programs in PNT, energy transition, and sustainability and resilience. She is a RIN and IAG Fellow.
Dr. Andrew Greentree is the Professor of Quantum Physics at RMIT University where he is a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics. He is a Fellow of the UK Institute of Physics.
From the Halls of Cornell’s Campus to the Shores of Italy: The Story Behind the First Public GPS Spoofer
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 6:00 p.m. - 6:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 7-8
Long before GPS spoofing was found “in the wild” — first on the Black Sea in 2016, then along the coast of China, and now spreading through the Middle East and Eastern Europe — it was studied and demonstrated by a team from Cornell and UT Austin.
Dr. Todd E. Humphreys holds the Ernest Dashiell Cockrell II Chair in Engineering in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is the Director of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group and of the UT Radionavigation Laboratory. He is an ION and RIN Fellow.
Navigation for Aviation Applications
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 7:00 p.m. - 7:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 1-2
Reliable navigation is essential for aviation applications ranging from commercial and general aviation to unmanned aircraft systems. This course will describe the parameters used to define aircraft navigation performance and discuss their relationship to safety. The course will also provide an overview of navigation systems (e.g., GNSS) currently used to support the various phases of flight and discuss the navigation challenges that aviation is facing.
Dr. Maarten Uijt de Haag is a Professor at the Technical University of Berlin, where he leads the Chair of Flight Guidance and Air Traffic in the Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He is an RIN Fellow, a Senior member of the IEEE, and an Associate Fellow of the AIAA.
Resilient PNT: Some “Assemply” Required
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 7:00 p.m. - 7:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 3-4
Widespread jamming and spoofing have exposed the need for resilient PNT systems tolerant of diverse obstacles. Having the right mix of sensors is not enough; they must also be properly integrated, tested, and labeled. This talk explores how resilient systems can be constructed to tolerate threats both known and unknown.
Logan Scott is a consultant specializing in radio frequency signal processing and waveform design. He is an ION Fellow.
Guidance, Navigation, and Control: Nature vs. Engineers
Date/Time:
Monday, September 14, 7:00 p.m. - 7:50 p.m.
Room: Windsong 5-6
We see many incredible feats in the areas of guidance, navigation, and control in both the natural world and in human engineering. This lecture compares and contrasts these capabilities, expressed as a light-hearted competition. Engineers vs. Nature—who wins?
Dr. John Raquet is currently the director of the IS4S Dayton site, where he leads the development of open-architecture approaches to navigation systems. Previously, he was the founding director of the Autonomy and Navigation Technology Center at the Air Force Institute of Technology. He is an ION Fellow.
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