SiRF's Chadha on GPS constellation reliability: "no panic"

Time to Address the Longer Term Issues Now
GPS has been one of the most successful “Dual Usage” infrastructure programs funded and managed by the DoD. Today, it has become an integral part of life for hundreds of millions of consumers worldwide and is being used in applications that, in many cases, it was never even designed for, such as attaining location fixes in highly obstructed environments and even indoors. From auto navigation and E911 emergency response to wireless network synchronization, it is deployed in a broad range of consumer and enterprise applications, and impacts our daily lives in ways we may not fully realize until it has a glitch. Consumer expectation is that GPS works every where: all over the world, indoor or outdoor, and in every weather condition.

The challenge for the GPS program is not only to maintain and improve the reliability of this exemplary system, but also to enhance its capabilities to meet both the defense needs as well as the increasing consumer expectations. We have to keep in mind that while GPS is the primary system used for location awareness worldwide today, one cannot ignore the impact from other satellite systems such as Glonass (Russia), Galileo (Europe) and Compass (China) that are promising enhanced capabilities. Making timely investments into such a critical infrastructure, to address emerging needs, is very important to avoid panic later! In addition, as suggested by GAO, maintaining the leadership of GPS as the primary component of the future GNSS capability requires focus on streamlining the GPS infrastructure development and management at the highest level of the U.S. Government.

Being part of the GPS community for a long time and as member of a consumer family that is now too dependent on our GPS navigation systems, I hope that we all support its modernization.

About the Author
As one of the founder of SiRF Technologies and its vice president of marketing, Kanwar Chadha has been working in the GPS market for more than 13 years. He is a respected figure well known for both its deep understanding of the GPS technology and its consumer market vision.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are the personal opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of GPS Business News.