Six Foot Accuracy With GPS Differential

When experts from around the world gather in Nashville next month for the premier conference on Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, sponsored by the Institute of Navigation (ION), they likely can receive signals that will position them in real-time to within one or two meters of the conference door in the capital city of Tennessee.

A beacon station about 50 miles distant at Hartsville, TN, part of the U.S. National Differential GPS (NDGPS) system now under construction, broadcasts corrections available to all users to improve the accuracy of signals received from the GPS constellation of 27 satellites.

The result: rather than the standard civil 100-meter accuracy, users routinely can achieve accuracies today of less than two meters in downtown Nashville with receivers equipped to receive both the corrections and the GPS signals.

The 12th international ION GPS ’99 conference and exhibition, sponsored by the Satellite Division of the ION, opens at the Nashville Convention Center, Sept. 14-17. President Clinton’s Science Advisor, Dr. Neal Lane, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, is scheduled as the Keynote Speaker.

The conference will include presentations of more than 300 technical and policy papers covering a wide range of developments in GPS navigation, positioning and timing. GPS is a shared civil/military system operated by the U.S. military.

It now is used worldwide in a wide variety of civil applications, from guidance for emergency vehicles and city transit buses, to precision approaches for aircraft, and measurements of centimeter movements of the earth’s crust. Utility grids, TV networks and telecommunications systems rely on timing signals derived from atomic clocks on GPS satellites.

Several major meetings will be held in conjunction with, but separate from, ION GPS ’99. They include a two-day meeting to report on results of a worldwide program that gathered important data on GLONASS, the Russian navigation satellite system, and a three-day meeting of the Civil GPS Service Interface Committee, an open forum where government and civil users exchange information on GPS developments. Two full days of training seminars precede the main meeting.

The conference, with some 30 sessions of expert panels over three days, attracts registrants from the U.S. and more than 35 countries. Major companies showcase the latest GPS technology in the exhibit hall.

ION GPS ’99 participants can register direct by contacting: on the Internet, www.ion.org or e-mail to [email protected]. Facsimile 703-683-7105. A limited number rooms are available at six hotels for conference participants.