The Saga of L

Aron Pinker, Denny Peeples, Stephen Adams

Abstract:	When the GPS was conceived it was believed that two signals, L1 for the public in general and L2 for military use, would suffice for navigation purposes. These notions have been obviated by reality. Far reaching decisions on future GPS signals have to be made in a setting where the returns on recent investments in GPS receivers have not yet been fully analyzed and appreciated. The large contingent of L2 users, albeit unauthorized users, and the relatively long period of uninterrupted such use, have created a new reality with which the DOD had to contend. The FAA too had a vested interest in the continuous civilian use of L2, because it assumed such use in its planning of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). Policy and technology have combined to create a situation in which the DOD had to abandon its exclusivity to L2 and explore a set of options that would better serve the needs of the military and civilians. We discuss the pros and cons of the options that are currently considered, describe the evolution of the GPS signal dilemmas as well as the reality and logic that drive the various proposed solutions.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 1998 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 21 - 23, 1998 Westin Long Beach Hotel Long Beach, CA
Pages:	413 - 421
Cite this article:	Pinker, Aron, Peeples, Denny, Adams, Stephen, "The Saga of L," Proceedings of the 1998 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Long Beach, CA, January 1998, pp. 413-421.
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