A Satellite, Some Signal Specs, and, Sorry, A Step Sideways

A Satellite, Some Signal Specs, and, Sorry, A Step Sideways
April 28, 2010
By: Alan Cameron
GNSS Design & Test Newsletter, April 2010

http://www.gpsworld.com/gnss-system/a-satellite-some-signal-specs-and-sorry-a-step-sideways-9880?print=1

Galileo has forged ahead on two fronts, satellite readiness and signal
specification. The payload for the first in-orbit validation (IOV)
Galileo satellite traveled on April 26 from its birthplace in
Portsmouth, UK, to Rome for pairing with its space-vehicle platform.
Earlier, the European Commission (EC) released the long-awaited Galileo
Signal in Space Interface Control Document (SIS ICD), containing the
official announcement that no fee will be charged to manufacturers to
develop or produce Galileo receivers. Reaction around the industrial
community has been generally positive, though muted with disappointment
that the EC, while pronouncing itself free, remains entangled in its own
web of intellectual property rights. This will continue to hamper
commercial development.

Initial response to the Galileo ICD and the abandonment of explicit
charging for commercial licenses has emerged as generally, if
cautiously, positive.

"Qualcomm is pleased to see a free and open publication of the Galileo
ICD," volunteered Doug Rowitch, senior director of technology at
Qualcomm, Inc., which supplies L1 C/A chips to wireless handset
manufacturers. "We believe this represents a positive step towards
harmonized multi-GNSS receivers, providing improved position accuracy
and availability to mobile positioning devices around the world.
Qualcomm is excited about the potential to use Galileo to help expand
and improve location-based services in Europe and the world at large."

But as one works up into the levels of companies supplying higher
precision for more demanding uses, a different picture starts to emerge.

"The Galileo ICD now seems to be equivalent to the GPS ICD. It is good
and it is a good sign that Galileo wants to be open to all from a
technical point of view," said Javad Ashjaee, president and CEO of JAVAD
GNSS. However, he added, "I don't know their decision about financial
issues. I hope they will follow the GPS line here too."

Following the GPS line seems to be precisely what Galileo is not doing
in that regard, however.

"The Galileo Open Service has the potential to expand and enhance the
benefit of GNSS to the installed user base worldwide," stated Michael
Swiek, executive director of the U.S. GPS Industry Council. "For over
two decades, the benefit of satellite navigation has been defined by
private investment flowing into user technology innovation based on the
confidence of user equipment manufacturers — and the confidence of the
installed user base — in predictable and stable GPS policy and a
predictable return on investment.

"While the release of specific commercial license terms and conditions
for Galileo represents substantial and welcome progress," Swiek
continued, "there is an emerging industry consensus that there is
sufficient ambiguity in these licenses that needs to be addressed in an
open and constructive dialogue with the EC. At this time, this ambiguity
— until resolved — will impede commercial investment.

"At the GNSS Summit in Munich (held in March), the Galileo authorities
stated their goal of Galileo being the second GNSS service after GPS.
Right now the question is, will the Galileo Open Service also be a
global GNSS information utility? The answer in great part will reside in
collaborative progress on the commercial license."

Not all spoke as diplomatically as the U.S. GPS Industry Council.

“The European Commission appears to be much more concerned with
self-protection than encouraging industry to take up the technology and
make products," added another industry source, with a bit more vigor.
"Generally the way the license is written, it has little value or
protection for the licensee, limits drastically the licensees use of the
intellectual property, and puts the licensee legally and financially at
risk for infringement of patents which are owned by the EC and developed
by someone other than the EC or the licensee.

"As Galileo gains momentum," this source concluded, "this recent update
of the Galileo SIS ICD licensing issues can only be seen as a step
backwards.”

That's hardly damning with faint praise.

Now, I attended neither law nor business school, not even a day. But I
too can hear the sound of shuffling feet in the way the Galileo ICD is
framed and phrased. The EC remains tangled in its self-spun web of
intellectual property rights. People I know within the commission — good
people, though beholden to their political masters — have told me "there
are legal aspects that have to be observed." I also know people — again,
good people, very good people — who participated actively and
influentially in the design of the Galileo signal. I will lay you
dollars to doughnuts that they are not holding out for any intellectual
property rights for themselves or for their companies or governmental
organizations. Just who it is, at the core of this, who wants to retain
some piece of the Galileo action for themselves remains a mystery to me.

If Galileo truly wants to become the second GNSS of choice, it had best
follow closely the example of the first GNSS of choice. The May issue of
GPS World carries a cover story on the origins of GPS. None of the
50-plus individuals cited there as instrumental in designing and
launching the system ever held out for intellectual property rights.
(Well, one did, but his claims are thoroughly de-substantiated by more
that a dozen of the others in this article.) The Air Force did not. The
U.S. government did not.

In effect, they said, "Go forth and multiply."

And lo, a vibrant global industry was born and has prospered.

O ye of little faith, in Brussels and around the European Union. If you
hold to this teaching, if you are really followers of the GPS, then you
will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

d
e
,

I don't understand all of the paranoia about the intellectual property
rights. The ICD has all the information to design an open signal
receiver; equations describing the signal spectrum, data fields of the
messages just and suggested algorithms as does the GPS ICD. The only
'sting' attached is the EC wants perspective developers to tell them
of an intention to design in accordance with the specification. There
is no license fee.

What else is required to get started?

So what are we dealing with here, patents for algorithms and circuits
for decoding the signals? Certainly court battles have be fought over
unique methodologies for doing such things for GPS. Still, many
'unique' chip sets have emerged implementing GPS devices. So what
else is 'between the lines' that causing so much concern for industry
insiders?

--- CHAS

On 10-04-29 11:13 , HIPAR wrote:


Europe is in a weak spot. Unlike the heady early days of "GPS" when
Trimble, Garmin, et al, were smallish and unknown and very many, now the
leadership has been set. All the basic apps have been written and the
GPS receiver itself relegated to a far back row of importance versus
applications and packaging - most so for the highest volume, least
sophisticated receivers.

So some Europeans see the EC paying for the new satellites and all the
companies making oodles of cash will be those that are already
established, that is to say US and Asian co's. European "apps" sellers
will be held down to highly specialized, high price, low volume
manufacturers. They simply will not get rich! It's not fair!

And the various governments that composed the EC get that and they're
trying to hamstring everyone rather than getting on with business. It
is EC bureaucracy in high speed (very slow motion to the rest of us).

--
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