SCADA, Telematics & GPS Technologies

Blue Force Tracking is a United States military term used to denote a GPS-enabled system that provides military commanders and forces with location information about friendly (and despite its name, also about hostile) military forces.

In military symbology, the color blue is typically used to designate friendly forces while red is used for enemies, and green or yellow are used for neutral forces.

Blue Force Tracking systems consist of a computer, used to display location information, a satellite terminal and satellite antenna, used to transmit location and other military data, a Global Positioning System receiver (to determine its own position), command-and-control software (to send and receive orders, and many other battlefield support functions), and mapping software, usually in the form of a GIS, that plots the BFT device on a map. The system displays the location of the host vehicle on the computer’s terrain-map display, along with the locations of other platforms (friendly in blue, and enemy in red) in their respective locations. BFT can also be used to send and receive text and imagery messages, and Blue Force Tracking has a mechanism for reporting the locations of enemy forces and other battlefield conditions (for example, the location of mine fields, battlefield obstacles, bridges that are damaged, etc.). Users will include the United States Army, the United States Marines Corps, the United States Air Force and the United Kingdom. Recently, the United States Army, the United States Marines Corps have reached agreement to standardize on a shared system, to be called “Joint Battle Command Platform”, which will be derived from the Army’s FBCB2system that was used by the United States Army, the United States Marines Corps, and the Army of the United Kingdom during heavy combat operations in Iraq in 2003. (more…)

Nissan has announced a new driving aid system called the Navigation-Cooperative Intelligent Pedal which basically uses data from the car’s satellite navigation system to help smoothen the drive when it comes to a curving road.

How many times have you approached a bend and then suddenly realised you’ve gone in too fast? Can you see ahead past a blind corner in a bend? Some bends can sharpen mid-way… and then you panic and have to deal with understeer or worse! If the system detects that you are about to do this, it sounds an audible warning.

If you persist, the system moves the accelerator pedal upwards to assist the driver to release it. Once the foot is lifted off, the system will smoothly reduce vehicle speed by braking. The system will debut on the new Nissan Fuga when it is unveiled in fall 2009. As it currently is, the Fuga is the Japanese name for the Infiniti M.

A similiar system was introduced earlier this year on the Toyota Crown Majesta, though it doesn’t work exactly the same. The Toyota system uses gear changes and engine braking to help slow the car down in anticipation of a corner (the car is aware of this via the in-car GPS system too) or a toll booth.

In addition to that, the Toyota system will activate a brake-assist function if it thinks the driver is too late in decelerating when approaching a stop sign or a junction.

[florin] was given the task of repairing a gps unit that wouldn’t boot up. what he found was unfortunately a bad processor. fortunately, he was able to make a project out of it. after scavenging the good bits, the gps module and the lcd, he set about making it a usb device. he now has an eeepc with gps.

Source: Hack A Day

TeleNav announced that AT&T has added TeleNav Vehicle Tracker to its portfolio of enterprise mobility services.

TeleNav Vehicle Tracker is a GPS-enabled device that is hard-wired or embedded onto a vehicle for monitoring and managing fleet operations. Once installed, TeleNav Vehicle Tracker powers up and is active without requiring any additional driver interaction or resources.

TeleNav says its Vehicle Tracker is accompanied by TeleNav’s password-protected and Web-based management console. Managers can log onto the site and view the location of each vehicle in the fleet.

TeleNav Vehicle Tracker is available immediately on AT&T’s wireless network. The TeleNav Vehicle Tracker device is $399, with a monthly service charge of about $34 per device (additional taxes and fees apply) with a qualified AT&T data plan and TeleNav Vehicle Tracker service plan rates. Customers also pay a one-time setup fee of $19.99 per unit and an $18 data plan activation fee. Volume pricing may be available.

Source: Wireless Week

With millions of GPS-based navigation devices on the road today, it is time someone considered the question: What if there’s an attack on the GPS network itself?

Researchers at Virginia Tech and Cornell University spent more than a year building equipment that can transmit fake GPS signals capable of fooling receivers.

“GPS is woven into our technology infrastructure, just like the power grid or the water system,” said Paul Kintner, electrical and computer engineering professor and director of the Cornell GPS Laboratory in a statement. “If it were attacked, there would be a serious impact.”

GPS is a U.S. government-built navigation system of more than 30 satellites circling earth twice a day in specific orbits. The satellites transmit signals to receivers on land, sea and in air. Based on the signals received from the satellites, devices are able to triangulate their exact positions on the globe. But if those satellite signals were wrong — or were spoofed — a GPS device might come up with the wrong location based on the signals it was receiving.

The researchers started by programming a briefcase-size GPS receiver used in the research of the uppermost part of the Earth’s atmosphere, known as ionospheric research, to send out fake signals. The phony receiver was placed in the proximity of a navigation device, where it anticipated the signal being transmitted from the GPS satellite. Almost instantly, the reprogrammed receiver sent out a false signal that the GPS-based navigation device took for the real thing.

The experiments to show the vulnerability of GPS receivers to spoofing could help devise methods to guard against such attacks, says Brent Ledvina, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech, and will be detailed in a research paper to be released Thursday.

“It’s almost like someone nearby is spoofing your favorite radio station by transmitting at the same frequency but higher power fooling your receiver into believing it is getting the right station,” says Ledvina.

The idea of GPS receiver spoofing has already been considered by federal authorities. In a December 2003 report, the Department of Homeland Security detailed seven countermeasures including monitoring the absolute and relative GPS signal strength, monitoring the satellite identification codes and the number of signals received and checking the time intervals between the received signals to guard against spoofs.

Still those fall short and would not have successfully fended off the signals produced by a reprogrammed receiver, said the researchers.

Instead they have suggested a few countermeasures that involve both hardware and software changes. “We have two patent applications which include a software algorithm to help make changes to how receivers react to signals,” says Ledvina.

The other patent is around the spoofer tool used, he says. “The idea is to help government and other companies use it to potentially make better receivers,” says Ledvina.

Photo: NASA

Links: HomeLandSecurity, wired

RFID producer Intelleflex Corp. has announced a joint solution with Minds Inc., a information systems provider for the road construction and agriculture industries, to create a system that would automate tracking of crop harvesting.

The solution combines GPS, RFID and wireless communications technologies to provide real-time visibility into the time-sensitive operations of field harvesting. Using this solution, growers and harvesters can track the exact location, timing and efficiency of harvesters, as well as the arrival, loading and departure time of crop transport vehicles.

“In the crunch of harvest time, people are focused on the task at hand (i.e. the harvesting of crops), and not the tracking, recording and communications of operational data. As a result, there is often a lack of the information required to ensure the most efficient operation,” said Pierre Vidaillac, president of Minds Inc.

In the new system, GPS units and RFID readers are mounted on harvesters to track their whereabouts in the field as well as the arrival, loading and departure times of transport vehicles. The information is then transmitted wirelessly for immediate access over the web and mobile phones.

Intelleflex and Minds Inc. have previously collaborated on a similar system which tracking hot mix asphalt for the road construction industry.

Source: RFID News

Selective Availability

The most relevant factor for the inaccuracy of the GPS system is no longer an issue. On May 2, 2000 5:05 am (MEZ) the so-called selective availability (SA) was turned off. Selective availability is an artificial falsification of the time in the L1 signal transmitted by the satellite. For civil GPS receivers that leads to a less accurate position determination (fluctuation of about 50 m during a few minutes). Additionally the ephemeris data are transmitted with lower accuracy, meaning that the transmitted satellite positions do not comply with the actual positions. In this way an inaccuracy of the position of 50 – 150 m can be achieved for several hours. While in times of selective availability the position determination with civil receivers had an accuracy of approximately 10 m, nowadays 20 m or even less is usual. Especially the determination of heights has improved considerably from the deactivation of SA (having been more or less useless before).

The reasons for SA were safety concerns. For example terrorists should not be provided with the possibility of locating important buildings with homemade remote control weapons. Paradoxically, during the first gulf war in 1990, SA had to be deactivated partially, as not enough military receivers were available for the American troops. 10000 civil receivers were acquired (Magellan and Trimble instruments), making a very precise orientation possible in a desert with no landmarks.

Meanwhile SA is permanently deactivated due to the broad distribution and world wide use of the GPS system.

The following two graphs show the improvement of position determination after deactivation of SA. The edge length of the diagrams is 200 m, the data were collected on May 1, 2000 and May 3, 2000 over a period of 24 h each. While with SA 95 % of all points are located within a radius of 45 m, without SA 95 % of all points are within a radius of 6.3 m.

Plot of the position determination with and without SA
(Diagram from http://www.igeb.gov/sa/diagram.shtml (page no longer available)
With friendly permission of Dr. Milbert (NOAA))

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