Category Archives: GNSS/Location Tech
Ongoing Adventure
Mini-hydro surveying is wet, wild, and wonder-filled in the Scottish Highlands. When Scottish surveyor Stuart Ross heads to the Highlands to survey for one of the region’s many small-scale hydro schemes (mini-hydro), he always packs his camera. When the rain stops and the sky clears, he wants to capture the view, not just the data. ...
Keeping Workers Safe in the Field
Above: Users in the field can pair the inReach wirelessly via Bluetooth with a smartphone or tablet to provide a dashboard control panel for the unit and facilitate easier typing and messaging. Credit: DeLorme Satellite communication technology provides a critical lifeline for teams working off the grid. Editor’s note: Cellular coverage is not as ubiquitous...
Advancing GNSS
A Profile of Septentrio Editor’s note: The name Septentrio may not be familiar to you, but after their formal acquisition of Altus (with which Septentrio has collaborated for a decade) you may be hearing more about this internationally recognized, high-precision GNSS developer. A leader in GNSS research and development since 1999, Septentrio has a...
Location Technology
Terms and Uses Below is an infographic of location technology: end-use sectors, example activities, types of technology typically employed, and respective precision ranges. To help make sense of this complexity, we have developed several categories of location technology. None truly stands alone (as all employ at least some complementary technologies), but we have noted what prevalent...
Indoor Positioning
The next frontier in personal navigation poses both limits and promise. Imagine that you’re disembarking from an airplane at Chicago O’Hare airport. You have a connection to Seattle for an important customer meeting. Your smartphone begins to buzz; you’re informed that your connecting flight is pre-boarding. But you’re not worried. Your smartphone provides indoor directions...
The Value of Location Tech
The term “location tech” has been around for a long time, but recently it seems to have been co-opted by Silicon Valley and the makers of consumer technologies. This is epitomized by the most prevalent tech that has rudimentary but ubiquitous location capability: phones. It’s estimated that as many as 65% of cellphone apps access...