SiRFtitan is one of SiRF’s Multifunction Platform products, a GPS and multi-functional processor designed to push along GPS navigation’s acceptance as an embeddable technology. The multi-functional SiRFtitan processor is just what mobile device manufacturers require for design flexibility and reduction of hardware and development costs for portable navigation devices which include GPS and other converging features such as infotainment.

It is not a case of GPS receiver capability/sensitivity being compromised by other functionalities as the SiRFtitan is just as signal sensitive as the ubiquitous SiRFStarIII and actually has 10 times the number of effective correlators (2,000,000) for fast TTFF (time to first fix).
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Geotate, a geo-software company, has announced a new instant response, low power, Geotagging GPS technology ideal for digital cameras, camera equipped cell phones and other mobile geotagging devices. The key to success for Capture and Process technology is the separation of capturing a short sample of the GPS satellite signal (less than 0.2s) and the later position calculation which uses remote servers through a web-based service to access necessary GPS data. Worldwide trials have revealed good accuracy (< 10m), with a good fix location established in 96% of cases.

The attractive combination of low power consumption, speed of action and separation of fix calculation (lower onboard processor demands) should see geotagging functionality penetrate deeper into the digital camera market and further boost location based services demand. Consumers will appreciate the lack of processing delay while a position fix is calculated. The five-fold increase in GPS enabled consumer devices by 2011 already predicted by IMS research will not doubt be exceeded.

Geotate Capture and Process Technology Demonstration

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The predicted ramping up of location based services depends on the proliferation of GPS enablement - particularly mobile handsets such as cell phones and PDAs. This proliferation process will receive a boost from the rollout of mobile handset platforms based on CellGuide’s new CGX5900 ultra-miniature GPS co-processor designed specifically for mass-market mobile devices.

Cost Breakthrough

The ACLYS GPS receiver chip has a claimed 70% cost reduction compared to conventional dedicated GPS receiver chip products. Cost reduction comes from the lack of duplication of computing power of the host CPU and reduced signal processing requirements from unique algorithms.
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Technorati Tags: GPS enablement, CGX5900 ultra-miniature GPS co-processor, ACLYS GPS receiver chip

It’s always fascinating to discover something new among the myriad of applications to which GPS positioning technology can be applied such as parachute guidance, weather forecasting and location based services. Now one of the principles which underlie global positioning technology, trilateration , is being used to assist surgeons with orthopedic, ear nose and throat, soft tissue and prosthetics surgery.
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Technorati Tags: GPS positioning technology

SiRF has introduced its new SiRFDiRect(TM) technology , which delivers to portable navigation devices the navigation accuracy and coverage which has previously only been available with expensive in-dash car GPS navigation systems.

The SiRFDiRect technology integrates the award-winning SiRFstarIII(R) architecture with low-cost, small footprint heading and acceleration sensors which provide dead reckoning data for greater navigational accuracy in weak GPS signal conditions. Significantly, SiRFDiRect technology allows considerable orientation flexibility without performance degradation. To ensure continuous optimum performance, the heading and acceleration sensors and continuously recalibrated by the closely coupled GPS/DR (Dead Reckoning) architecture of SiRFDiRect technology. (read more..)

GPS component manufacturers are in a race to produce GPS chip receivers at a lower cost and with increased sensitivity, reduced footprint size and reduced power consumption. Driving their efforts is the desire of mobile device manufacturers to integrate GPS into more devices and feed the expansion of location based services. To see where the market is at the moment, specifications from a number of GPS chip manufacturers were surveyed for comparison in the table below.

The number of chips available is growing and some manufacturers have more than one chip available (the best were selected). Judging by sensitivity alone is not enough to separate the contenders. The more prominent differences are in position accuracy. SiRF and u-Blox come out in front on position accuracy but, unfortunately TTFF data is not available for u-Blox to separate the two chips overall.

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According to the Natrick Soldier Center, High altitude, precision airdrop is expected to be a key enabling technology for the Future Force. Allowing transport aircraft to safely stand off the combat area and exposing troops to less danger during retrieval are just a couple of advantages of a precision airdrop capability.

Natrick Soldier Center conducts research and engineering on military personnel parachuting and cargo airdrop systems. This includes management of the Joint Precision Airdrop Systems initiative for development of autonomous delivery of cargo from high altitudes and significant standoff.

Para-Flite, a military ram air parachute system developer, has the 10,000 lb DragonFly and 2,000 lb FireFly JPADS systems and is currently developing the US Army’s 30,000 lb (13.600 kg) Joint Precision Airdrop System (JPADS). Para-Flite’s systems are capable of delivering equipment loads over 30km horizontally from a release altitude of 25,000 ft.

JPADS systems use a GPS receiver and a specialist flight algorithm to independently fly equipment to a designated target point. The flight algorithms can be programmed, even en-route, with weather forecasts, terrain details and environmental threats.
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The SiRF Star III chipset family has proved a watershed innovation GPS chip architecture by offering impressive performance improvements to the GPS receiver manufacturing industry. They have been adopted by major GPS manufacturers including Garmin, TomTom and Magellan. The SiRF Star III chipset family was developed by SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc. (SIRF - Nasdaq Stock Exchange) of San Jose, California.

There are three primary reasons why SiRF Star III chipsets are a revolutionary (evolutionary) development compared to previous products:

1. Faster fix times

As covered in more detail in our GPS technology overview, GPS satellites emit coded GPS signals designed to enable the receivers to recover necessary positioning information. By acquiring the signal of a minimum of four satellites, and determining the difference between signal transmission and reception times a GPS receiver can triangulate and calculate its latitude, longitude and elevation.
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In many scientific endeavors the full range of beneficial outcomes are not, and often cannot, be foreseen. It is an element to consider in the current debate over the value of moon bases or manned missions to Mars. It was one such unexpected beneficial outcome which allowed the

August 2006 formation of Hurricane Ernesto in the eastern Caribbean to be predicted two days in advance when contemporary weather models failed to predict its formation at all.

When the United States launched the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites it believed it was launching infrastructure for accurate terrestrial position determination. It is now apparent that it was also launching the part of the infrastructure for a weather observation system capable of vastly improving the accuracy of weather prediction models.
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According to Qualcomm location awareness technology will be the next must-have on mobile phones Qualcomm recently announced that is has shipped worldwide 200 million mobile handsets using its gpsOne assisted-GPS technology. Gartner believe that location aware technologies including A-GPS will mature in less than two years and contribute to the emergence of a Real World Web where mobile devices will interact with their surroundings which have local processing capabilities. The Internet will become embedded in our reality. According to Gartner, “An increasing number of organizations have deployed location-aware mobile business applications, mostly based on GPS-enabled devices, to support queue business processes and activities, such as field force management, fleet management, logistics and good transportation.”
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