In a letter to Gen. William L. Shelton, commander of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, the GPS Innovation Alliance expressed support for planned enhancements to the GPS constellation. Specifically, the Alliance supports activating the Civilian Navigation (CNAV) message on two additional GPS signals to ensure a more robust GPS system and infrastructure.
Calling GPS “one of our most critical and valuable national assets,” the Alliance explained that the planned development will serve the public interest by increasing accuracy and reliability of civilian GPS applications by providing more receivers with dual frequencies. “We believe that GPS users will experience benefits from activation of the full CNAV message on the GPS L2C and L5 signals,” the Alliance wrote. “A fully redundant signal capability greatly improves GPS robustness by providing frequency diversity and mitigates deliberate and accidental interference [jamming].”
The Alliance said activation of the full CNAV message on the two signals will “reinforce the nation’s pre-eminent technological position” in Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and will be an important milestone that will enhance U.S. leadership in GPS technology.
The letter, sent early April, is signed by F. Michael Swiek, executive director of the GPS Innovation Alliance; Steven K. Wilson, manager for advanced engineering, Intelligent Solutions Group, Deere & Company; Andrew Etkind, vice president and general counsel of Garmin, James A. Kirkland, vice president and general counsel of Trimble; and Joseph Brabec, chief technology officer at Topcon Positioning Systems.
