The Key to Unlocking the Emerging Market for Civil (and DoD) Applications of Navigation Technology: Cost Scalable Interface Standardization

A. Tetewsky, A. Soltz, T. Bogner and E. O'Neil

Abstract:	The civil market is on the verge of an explosion in applications for positioning and rotational information. The most notable applications that are already in production are in automobiles, where Global Position System (GPS) measurements are combined with information systems to aid the driver, and where angular rate and acceleration sensors are used to control the deployment of airbags and as inputs to skid controllers. In the near future, position reporting will become a mandatory component of E-911 calls from mobile phones. Manufacturers are already offering cell phones that are integrated with GPS receivers. Technology “think tanks, such as the MIT Media Lab, look forward to a future when positioning information will be a key feature of applications that exploit mobile Internet technology. The development of mass market applications that combine navigation inputs obtained from inertial sensors, radionavigation, heading references, altimeters, and so forth will be facilitated if there is an equivalent of "plug and play" for integrating equipment from a variety of manufacturers. We believe that this mass market will not develop fully until hardware manufacturers, system developers, and application engineers collaborate to develop workable, cost effective standards (Ref. 6). We also believe that just as the widespread adoption of GPS by civil users has had benefits for the DoD, so will the DoD derive similar benefits from commercial-off-the-shelf (COTs) standards that allow any number of navigation sensors and or subsystems to be integrated. This paper builds on ongoing efforts to develop interface standards for certain GPS/Inertial applications (Refs. 1) and for plug and play communication between sensors (Refs. 2, 3, 4, 5). The paper 1) broadens the scope of those proposed standards to provide for a wider class of navigation sensors, 2) addresses the need to implement test points for cost- effective developmental and diagnostic testing, 3) addresses the need to synchronize outputs from sensors that contain their own independent oscillator, 4) provides a path to reduce development costs, and 5) provides a means for vendors to restrict access to internal information without resorting to proprietary interfaces. Our recommendations are based on the experiences of engineers from Draper Laboratory and from GPS equipment manufacturers. These recommendations are presented as a set of strawman navigation interfaces having the following features: 1. An object-oriented approach. Navigation objects that allow any combination of low-level signals, compen-sated measurements, subintegrations of subsets of sensors, and if available, stand-alone navigation solutions are defined as output or input quantities. These interfaces will also be independent of the particular integration algorithm to be used. 2. Scalable interfaces. This accommodates a wide variety of dynamics, precision, and throughput rates, all of which impact cost. 3. Generalized time-tags. These are defined to handle any range of clock offset between sensors, from tightly synchronized to completely unsynchronized systems. 4. Standard test points. 5. Compatibility: applicability to legacy and emerging interfaces buses. 6. Provision for multiple levels of security, including vendor controllable dissemination of information.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 57th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2001) June 11 - 13, 2001 Albuquerque, NM
Pages:	722 - 732
Cite this article:	Tetewsky, A., Soltz, A., Bogner, T., O'Neil, E., "The Key to Unlocking the Emerging Market for Civil (and DoD) Applications of Navigation Technology: Cost Scalable Interface Standardization," Proceedings of the 57th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2001), Albuquerque, NM, June 2001, pp. 722-732.
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