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Boeing filed patent to enhance GPS with Iridium satellite network


Thursday, April 12, 2007 The Boeing Co. has patented several concepts for combining the global positioning system network with the Iridium low-earth orbit telecommunication network, Boeing executives said Wednesday (April 11). Executives have briefed Pentagon and industry officials about the software upgrades required for the IGPS network, but there is no firm plan to turn it into a fielded system.

"In any event, this would not obviate the need for GPS upgrades in any way," said retired Maj. Gen. Craig Cooning, vice president and deputy general manager of space and intelligence systems at Boeing. "What it does represent is an elegant solution for augmentation of GPS."

GPS signals could be acquired more quickly through amplification and rebroadcasting in a low-earth-orbit system, he said. Not only could this hasten the time stamping and improve accuracy, but it could also make signal acquisition more likely in urban environments, where skyscrapers block signals. Iridium is a constellation of LEO communication satellites originally developed by Motorola Inc. in the late 1990s. When the system proved uneconomical, it was almost de-orbited early in the decade, until the Defense Department and private investors put in new money to keep the systems in orbit.

The Iridium constellation would have to be replenished in order to support the IGPS concept, Cooning said, but an upgrade of the system would be necessary in any event by 2014. Cooning said that current Iridium investors probably would need to have additional marketing applications to support IGPS, because the extension of GPS would not be profitable in its own right.

Boeing executives updated their plans on GPS, Wideband Global System and Transformational Satellite in a briefing at last week's National Space Symposium. Boeing is participating in GPS II and IIF satellites, which add the M signals for "war fighters," and L2 and L5 signals for civilian use. Military navigational accuracy will approach a centimeter on the earth's surface when the M signal is added.

By: DocMemory
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