Version 3 of Australia’s free Ginan service, an open-source toolkit for determining precise point positioning with centimetre-level accuracy based on GNSS observations, has been released.
Version 3 enables users to use Ginan to determine precise orbits for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, knowledge which in turn is used to boost the accuracy of positioning measurements on the ground, in the air and on the water.
“The benefits of the version 3 release will see simplified software configuration, improved positioning performance, the ability to estimate LEO orbital trajectories as well as a range of bug fixes and performance improvements,” said Anna Riddell, Geoscience Australia’s (GA) Director GNSS Analysis.
Riddell hailed the achievement for GA and its collaborators, including Curtin University, the University of Newcastle, RMIT University, FrontierSI and the Industrial Science Group.
“Through this collaboration, we have already seen the impacts through research opportunities, such as RMIT University’s study on the Ionospheric effects of the 2022 Hunga Tonga Volcano Eruption and the Geoscience Australia, FrontierSI and the Australian Institute of Marine Science’s (AIMS) marine case study demonstrator,” said Riddell.
The marine case study involved working with AIMS and FrontierSI to trial Ginan at Reefworks, a tropical marine technology test range where equipment can be trialled in a real-world environment.
“In this environment, Ginan positioned a ‘surf-bee’ aquatic drone and an aerial drone with centimetre accurate real-time positioning, which is now supporting AIMS’s work on the Great Barrier Reef,” said Riddell.
“I invite the global position, navigation and timing (PNT) community to join us to be part of the Ginan story through on-going open-source collaboration and the development of the toolkit.”
