Portland, Oregon — JAVAD GNSS announced today that it is partnering with broadband company LightSquared. In promotional material being distributed the ION-GNSS conference in Portland, Oregon, JAVAD GNSS says "LightSquared not only can coexist with GPS, it complements it."
LightSquared’s proposal to build a broadband network has come under fire from users of high-precision GNSS over possible interference issues.
JAVAD GNSS is promoting its latest receiver, the TRIUMPH-LS (LightSquared). "TRIUMPH-LS can benefit from LightSquared communication channels for receiving RTK corrections," JAVAD GNSS said. "LightSquared communication channels are much faster and less expensive than conventional channels for RTK correction transmissions."
LightSquared issued a press release stating the partnership will "develop a system that will eliminate related interference issues for high-precision GPS devices." LightSquared said the system can be adapted to work with high-precision GPS devices including those already in the agriculture, surveying, construction and defense industries.
Javad GNSS has completed the design, made prototypes, and tested those prototypes, LightSquared said. Preproduction units will be released for public tests in October, followed by mass production. High-precision receivers for positioning applications are expected to go to market by November 2011, and precision timing devices by March 2012.
"I have said from the beginning that this interference issue will be resolved as soon as smart engineers like Javad Ashjaee put their minds to it. With this new system, Mr. Ashjaee makes another mark for himself as a cutting-edge pioneer in the precision GPS industry, a field he has helped shape for more than 30 years," said Sanjiv Ahuja, chairman and chief executive officer of LightSquared. "This breakthrough is a final step toward LightSquared’s goal of building a nationwide wireless network that will bring lower prices and better service to Americans from coast to coast."
To develop the technology, Javad GNSS took the existing flagship receivers and reconfigured the filters and linear amplifiers to make them completely compatible with LightSquared’s bottom 10 MHz of spectrum. It was a very simple and inexpensive process and was developed in a matter of days. LightSquared claimed, adding that the additional cost for this technology is not expected to increase the selling price of the device to the customer.
"This interference problem is not a difficult one to solve, once you decide to solve it,” said Javad GNSS founder Javad Ashjaee. "We’ve begun manufacturing preproduction models and expect to have 25 available within two weeks — we are not talking in hypotheticals here."
"The truth is that high-precision GPS users have a wide range of interference issues to contend with — from congested frequencies to intentional jamming. LightSquared made this problem much easier to solve by moving to spectrum farther away from the core GPS frequencies. As LightSquared’s spectrum neighbor, it’s our obligation to build a wall between our spectrum and LightSquared’s. My filter accomplishes that goal,” said Ashjaee. "Good fences make good neighbors.”
"The tests conducted so far by the GPS industry did not take into account the GPS modernization plan that is in place," Ashjaee said. "Since we have demonstrated that LightSquared can certainly coexist with the current GPS satellite signals, the coexistence will be even stronger when the new GPS satellites with modern L1C, L2C, and L5 un-encrypted codes are launched."
JAVAD GNSS said its receiver will offer these features on this timeline:
• LightSquared protected: Protected by the JAVAD LNA (low-noise amplifier) system. For all precision positioning applications. Multipath mitigate features preserved. (November 2011)
• LightSquared compensated: Protected by the JAVAD LNA system and dynamically compensated for group delay variations (better than 100 picosecond.) For precision timing applications. (March 2012)
• LightSquared integrated: Includes the above two features as well as a LightSquared communication module inside. (June 2012).
The promotional brochure can be downloaded HERE.
Source: GPS World