Analysis of the Advantage of Using the Sirfstariii Architecture for Navigational Purposes in Urban Areas
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Analysis of the advantage of using the SiRFStarIII architecture for navigational purposes in urban areas Filip Biljecki* i Marko Pavasović** UDK 629.783.05:681.5:711.4(497.5) Abstract. In the last few years the market of navigational devices experienced it’s biggest boom – their every- day presense was never bigger. Meanwhile, because of a higher degree of use of navigational devices in urban ares as the engineering offensive on them some standard GPS problems are present – weak signal from satellites which leads to smaller accuracy and long Time To First Fix (TTFF). For a better situation, the company SiRF Te- chnology Holdings, Inc. made a new chipset SiRFStarIII which accent is on higher sensitivity, short TTFF and re- presents the newest achievement in satellite navigation. This paper shows the analysis of the advantage of using the chipset SiRFStarIII in urban areas through few practical tests on the area of The City of Zagreb, Croatia Keywords: GNSS, GPS, navigation, microcontroler, SiRFStarIII. 1. Introduction fundamental philosophy isn’t much di- purpose is to provide the geograp- fferent from it’s beginning, the novelty hic position on a global basis. In the From the beginning of the civili- represents the huge number of users time of this paper’s writing the only sation and life in general, the task of because of a big rate of small costs for fully functional GNSS is Navigation transport represented a very important navigational systems and user-frien- Satellite Timing And Ranging Global component of every individual and dly approach which must be thanked Positioning System (NAVSTAR GPS) service. This important life segment to the market and the ability of their developed by the U.S. Department of couldn’t be imagined without the use appliance on everyday’s life and a big Defense1 which presents almost a glo- of an old skill and activity – navigati- number of activities. bal property. In the phase for the fully on which from its beginning represen- Today, the navigation of 21th cen- operation is the system Global’naya ted a brand and an activity reserved tury can’t be imagined without the Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Siste- for contemporary scholastic individu- usage of the components of the set ma (GLONASS) which is currently als. Exactly the navigation on the sea called Global Navigation Satellite Sy- under the duty of the Russian Space provided the finding of America and stem (GNSS). GNSS is a term used for Forces2, and the Global navigational new routes. Today’s navigation on its satellite navigational systems which system Galileo which is under the [*] Filip Biljecki, Undergraduate study of Geodesy and Geoinformatics, Faculty of Geodesy – University of Zagreb, Croatia, e-mail: [email protected] [**] Marko Pavasović, Graduate study of Satellite and Physical Geodesy, Faculty of Geodesy – University of Zagreb, Croatia, e-mail: [email protected] [1] United States Department of Defense; (http://www.defenselink.mil/) [2] Russian Space Force (http://www.mil.ru/eng/1862/12068/12088/12224/index.shtml) development of the European Space sitioning delivers more accurate coor- Agency3 (ESA) and the European Uni- dinates, but the process is longer than 4. Microcontroler SiRFStarIII on (EU). GNSS presents a real revolu- that of navigational purposes where and its advantages tion in all parts of navigation becau- an accurate position is not essential. se of its fast and accurate positioning With these purposes the GNSS unit The central part of every GNSS rece- service which must be thanked to the development was divided through two iver is the microcontroler. Microcon- U.S. goverment which opened its use markets: troler is, shortly, a computer-on-chip to all, not just U.S. citizens, but to • units for the purpose of positioning (microcontroller is not a microproce- the whole world, and the removal of (mostly in geomatics) and ssor which is its part). In GPS recei- the Selective Availability (SA) system • units for navigational purposes vers, microcontroler is the unit respon- which deliberately added an error on The first mentioned market is sible for the GPS signal interpretation the final result because of military in- smaller than the navigation market, and processing so a special care must terests. The revolution reflected on a but the average price of the equipment be directed into the production of the rapid development of new navigatio- is few dozen times higher than the GPS receiver’s microcontroler. Micro- nal devices for civil purposes. Thanks average price of the navigational equ- controlers are producted by just few to the above mentioned factors and ipment. Maybe proportionally to the manufacturers in the world which are increased number of manufacturers, price, the standard deviation of the selling them to the manufacturers of the number of users of navigational position derived from the positioning the navigational equipment. Accordin- systems today is bigger than ever and units is many times less than the po- gly, today two GPS receivers with the in developed countries it represents a sition derived from navigational units. same microcontroller can be found. component of everyday life. The Figu- In this paper, as the introduction and SiRFstarIII is the newest GPS micro- re 1 shows a today’s representative na- title partialy showed, the emphasis is controller which was manufactured by vigational device for civil purposes. on the navigational purposes. the very popular company SiRF Tech- The majority of users from the nology Holdings, Inc.4 from California, mentioned group is of civil character USA. This chip represents the biggest and is mostly consisted of users of achievement in this area yet. SiRF- transport vehicles, sailors, users for StarIII is special for its high sensitivity personal navigation (orientation in ci- (-159dBm), lower Time To First Fix ties, nature – trekking, etc.). when the receiver is turned on (or lost the fix) and a higher number of corre- 3. Problems in urban areas lators (200k) of its concurents. This solution was quickly adopted by the In the time of writing this article lead manufacturers in the navigational almost all users are using the ameri- equipment (e.g. Lowrance, TomTom, Figure 1. can GPS and its compactible devices. Garmin and Magellan) and started to Navigational device A very large number of navigational implement it in their products which RoadMate 2200T from the manufacturer ‘’Magellan’’; units is used in urban areas where the led to today’s situation where SiRFSta- (URL-2) device-satellite Line of Sight (LoS) as rIII is almost a standard for that very the fundamental requirement for qua- important part of a GPS receiver. lity transmission and accurate positi- 2. Navigational devices and oning is interrupted because of urban 5. Analysis of the users clasification barriers – high constructions, vegeta- microcontroler SiRFStarIII tion and a high concentration of EM The determination of position co- traffic and noise. Of course, in the case To prove these facts an analysis ordinates is one of the fundamental of transport users the vehicle barrier of the potential advantage of using the tasks of Geodesy. There are two pur- (e.g. window with anti-UV protection) SiRFStarIII chipset has been made in F. Biljecki, M. Pavasović: Analysis of the advantage using SiRFStarIII architecture for navigational purposes in urban areas - Ekscentar 2007, No.9 poses of the position determination in must also be considered. the parts where most of the navigatio- Geodesy: the purpose of positioning With the reduced number of ava- nal equipment is used and where most and the purpose of navigation. The ilable GPS satellites and weak signal problems are present – in urban are- term navigation means to mantain a from them the final product – the geo- as. The definitive product of all GNSS constant heading over a instantaneo- graphic position of the user, with con- receivers – geographic position has usly object position determination, i.e. sidering the device capabilities, is rela- been analysed. determination of route of an object tively innacurate and the continuity of motion. Positioning is used for deter- fix isn’t long and confident. Multi-pat- 5.1 Anylised receivers mination of an object coordinates. It is hing, as a unwished efect, must also important to mention that navigation be considered, but for the goal of this The advantage of using the SiRF- is just a special case of positioning and article it will not be mentioned in the StarIII chipset was determinated from their distinction is hard to define. Po- following text. the results of the relative comparing [3] European Space Agency (http://www.esa.int/) [4] http://www.sirf.com with an old chipset. So, it was essen- tial to find two very similar GPS recei- vers so the analysis could concentrate on microcontrollers. The best choice F. Biljecki, M. Pavasović: Analysis of the advantage using SiRFStarIII architecture for navigational purposes in urban areas - Ekscentar 2007, No.9 were the Garmin devices GPSMap 60CS and GPSMap 60CSx (lend from the company Navigo Sistem d.o.o.) because 60CSx is just a continuation of the very successful receiver 60CS. The units are physically equal, but the microcontroller is different: 60CS uses the Garmin’s old generation 12-cha- nnel chipset and 60CSx the new SiR- FStarIII which makes these devices an optimal choice for this analysis. Figure 4-1. SiRFStarIII architecture; (URL-2) 5.2 Analysis description The analysis of above mentioned GPS receivers consists of two parts: • analysis of GPS units for navigatio- nal purposes • analysis of GPS units for positio- ning purposes Although the units are manufactu- red for the primary purpose of navi- gation, the positioning analysis is also Figure 5-1 i 5-1a. City walk in mentioned routes with receivers in the backpack made because of navigation’s special case of positioning.