Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The proposed research program centres on the development and assessment of techniques and algorithms for positioning and navigation using global navigation satellite systems (GNSS - including the U.S. Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS); the Russian GLONASS system; and Galileo, the European system now under development) and is a continuation of my NSERC-supported research in this field. The work over the next five years will be targeted to significantly improve the performance of real-time, high-accuracy GNSS positioning techniques that can used for establishing reference points for a host of surveying tasks, for machine control, for monitoring the stability of walls and benches in open-pit mines, and for use in other areas needing the combination of high positioning accuracy and high integrity. Although real-time high-accuracy systems based on GPS do currently exist, they suffer from limitations in areas of coverage, susceptibility to certain types of measurement errors, and poor performance in sub-optimum environments such as urban canyons, industrial areas, and in mines. The proposed research program will address these limitations by developing new techniques and procedures for using GPS measurements as well as in combining GPS measurements with those from GLONASS and the prototype Galileo constellations. A new signal for civil users is now available from the most recently launched GPS satellites. And starting with launches in 2009, a new class of GPS satellites will transmit a third additional civil signal. Although behind schedule, the Galileo program already has one test satellite in orbit with more to come within the next few years. The proposed research program will take advantage of these new signals. The Canadian Space Agency has identified satellite navigation and positioning as one of the key Canadian space-sector markets. The proposed research will lead to the development of a high-performance real-time positioning system which could have significant economic benefits to Canadian industry and for our export markets.