GPS World, December 2014
LEADERSHIP AWARDS 2014 SHERMAN LO SIGNALS UAVs Revolutionizing Aviation Exciting Challenges for the PNT Community I m not very good at predicting the future but I know what is exciting to an aviation nerd like me UAVs I believe that unmanned autonomous vehicles will revolutionize aviations role in society UAVs have expanded the community of participants in aircraft development from solely the realm of large defense firms to individuals The makers amongst us can fabricate custom parts for custom designs and order electric engines from across the sea Our students have a class where they design and build sub 100 gram autonomous UAVs They allow for rapid development and prototyping of technologies All sorts of new crazy business models will be developed for their use This is significant for the PNT world because the proliferation of UAVs and what we are able to do with them is enabled by GNSS That being said for the good of the community we also need to take steps to allow UAVs to fully realize their benefit to society UAV navigation is a rich field Navigation improvements can significantly benefit UAV operations For example A robust alternative navigation capability would continue to fly in case of GNSS loss An ability to authenticate the UAVs location would be useful for delivery confirmation and other services The ability to range sense share information is needed for UAVs to collaboratively and safely use the airspace Sherman Lo Senior Research Engineer and Associate Investigator APNT Stanford University One of the architects of eLoran and a worldwide thought leader on alternative PNT accepting Leadership Award from Mark Stewart Lockheed Martin VP Navigation Systems GPS World December 2014 www gpsworld com 34
You must have JavaScript enabled to view digital editions.
