GLONASS beats GPS in accuracy: Roscosmos

[Invincible INDIAN]

MOSCOW (ITAR-TASS): Russia's navigation system GLONASS is more accurate than American GPS, Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) Deputy Director Anatoly Shilov has claimed.

"Today the accuracy of GLONASS is 6 metres, and that of GPS is 7 metres," Shilov said at the 5th international forum on satellite navigation on Wednesday, June 1.

He said the accuracy of the Russian navigation system would have to be improved to 2-3 metres in the years to come.

In his opinion, this can be done only if the system operates at full capacity with 24 satellites.

Russia plans to launch another GLONASS-M satellite in August and another three in September-October from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

GLONASS system will become fully operational by the end of 2011.

The previous satellite, launched in late February 26, is designed to operate longer - ten years - and provide more accurate coordinates of down to 1.5 metres.

The next launch from Baikonur is scheduled for this summer. "At any rate, the system will become fully operational by the end of 2011, with 24 satellites covering the whole planet," First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said earlier.

Russia launches Glonass satellite, a boost for India

Russia has successfully launched a next-generation navigation satellite for its Glonass global communication system.

The Glonass-K satellite was hauled into orbit on Saturday morning from the northern Plesetsk space centre by the upgraded Soyuz 2-1b launcher, featuring advanced digital avionics and a more powerful Fregat upper stage. The new satellite has a longer design life, more navigation channels and is smaller than previous Glonass-M spacecraft.

Saturday's launch will increase the deployed Glonass grouping to 23 satellites, one short of the minimum needed to provide 100-per cent global coverage.

In December the launch of three Glonass-M satellites failed when the carrier rocket crashed into the ocean after it was filled with excessive fuel and deviated from course.

Russia plans to launch five Glonass satellites this year to replace the ones that crashed and deploy back-up satellites.

Glonass will be integrated with the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), as well as with the European Union's Galileo system and China's Compass network when they are deployed. Experts said the use of a two-signal receiver that supports both GPS and Glonass increases reliability by 15 per cent.

Under a 2007 accord, Russia agreed to share the Glonass signal with India. India will be the only country to have access to the military segment of the Glonass system, which will enable the Indian military to greatly improve the accuracy of its land-, sea-, air and space-launched weapon systems. In September the two countries signed a deal to jointly manufacture Glonass/GPS twin system receivers and other navigational equipment

 

[DV RULES]

Putin wants Russian GLONASS to be as efficient as US GPS


MOSCOW, February 10 (Itar-Tass) —— Prime Minster Vladimir Putin said on Thursday the Russian global positioning GLONASS system should not be inferior to US GPS.

“By all parameters GLONASS shall be not worse but even better than GPS,” he told the government.

Despite launch problems faced by the Russian space industry last year “we succeeded to deploy the orbital group of GLONASS,” Putin said. Currently there are 31 GLONASS satellites in orbit and 24 are operating.

GLONASS is the second global system in the world after GPS, Putin sad.

In the past five years its positioning accuracy grew from 35 to 2.8 meters while GPS accuracy is 1.8 meters.


ITAR-TASS : Putin wants Russian GLONASS to be as efficient as US GPS

 

[Bhim]

Most of the guys here use GPS on road, and it takes us right to the door step.

 

[Rajaraja Chola]

Most of the guys here use GPS on road, and it takes us right to the door step.

Well we havent tried out glonass yet !!!

 

[gambit]

Dang...This is so damn lame...

Trimble - GPS Tutorial

First, one of the basic assumptions we've been using throughout this tutorial is not exactly true. We've been saying that you calculate distance to a satellite by multiplying a signal's travel time by the speed of light. But the speed of light is only constant in a vacuum.

As a GPS signal passes through the charged particles of the ionosphere and then through the water vapor in the troposphere it gets slowed down a bit, and this creates the same kind of error as bad clocks.

There are a couple of ways to minimize this kind of error. For one thing we can predict what a typical delay might be on a typical day. This is called modeling and it helps but, of course, atmospheric conditions are rarely exactly typical.

Atmospheric induced errors occurs more often than the GPS using public know. Just like how radar signals are affected by 'hydrometeors', fancy word for rain and snow, and other water based meteorological phenomena, GPS radio signals are no different.

Multipath Signals: How do they make my GPS have errors?

Why does my GPS position jump around a lot when I operate my GPS indoors? (or in mountains, or in city canyons, or under tree cover?)

2) Multipath results when the direct path to your receiver is blocked (by your body, your house, roof, trees, mountains, buildings, etc) and the signal from the satellite is REFLECTED by some object. The reflecting surface may be: buildings, mountains, the ground, or any object that happens to be a radio reflector at 1.6Ghz.

Multipath propagation or interference plagued ordinary TV signals so why should GPS signals be any different?

Garmin | What is GPS?

Satellite geometry/shading - This refers to the relative position of the satellites at any given time. Ideal satellite geometry exists when the satellites are located at wide angles relative to each other. Poor geometry results when the satellites are located in a line or in a tight grouping.

So if a GPS user just happened to be unfortunate enough to catch several satellites that do not have as ideal the spatial array, as in across the sky but instead in a cluster, his GPS receiver will not be as accurate as advertised.

In short, there are so many causes as to how any GPS receiver can be less than helpful there is no reason to put any value in this Russian claim.

 

[Alpery]

There are two versions of GPS ..military and civil
civil version has low accuracy..due to security.
Russia going to enter "Navigation Electronics Market"
another alternative is Galileo satellite navigation system

 

[Nishan_101]

I hope that Pakistan would going to integrate the "Glonass" in to their own equipments.