The US Army Will Test a New GPS That’s Resistant to Jamming This Fall

As reported by The Verge: This fall, the US Army will test a jam-resistant GPS to try and overcome the problem, Breaking Defense, following suspicions that Russia has jammed GPS signals in Europe and elsewhere.

GPS jamming can also be a major liability for US and allied forces, which depend on the system for everything from troop movement to missile and drone guidance. Last fall, the US and NATO allies launched a major joint exercise in Norway called Trident Juncture, to test the joint readiness and training of a large, multinational coalition. Over the course of the exercise, the military noticed that GPS signals were being jammed, which Finland and Norway officials attributed to Russia. In April 2018, US officials said that the Russian military had been jamming the GPS systems for is drones operating in Syria.

Members of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment located in Germany will get the devices this fall, and the Army is reportedly looking into developing a new generation of Inertial Navigational Systems that could be used as a back up.

Speaking at the C4ISERnet Conference in Arlington last week, Colonel Nickolas Kioutas, the project manager for the Army’s acquisition developer Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) said that getting the devices to units quickly was essential, and that the Army is working to roll out equipment in “smaller, iterative programs.” Breaking Defense notes that getting the systems into the hands of units like the 2nd Cavalry will allow the Army to quickly evaluate the technology and improve it if needed — rather than taking years to develop and test equipment that turns out to be flawed.

Hundreds Of U.S. Flights Canceled As GPS-Based Aircraft Navigation System Fails

As reported by Forbes: "Does anyone know what happened to GPS/ADS-B last night?" one aviation commentator asked Twitter on June 9, a Sunday. "The issue seemed to be quite wide-spread, with a lot of aircraft grounded... Had this happened on a weekday, it would have been leading headlines on national news⁠—some sort of GPS fault grounded a chunk of the U.S. commercial fleet and hardly anybody noticed."

But at the time of publishing that issue remains unresolved and the weekend is all but over.

According to the FAA, "certain aircraft equipped with the Rockwell Collins GPS 4000-100 and select ADS-B out GPS receivers are indicating 'ADS-B fail, unavailable, TCAS fail or transponder fail' messages." Aircraft without working transponders were directed to coordinate with the FAA before departure, a prior directive had instructed those planes not to fly above 28,000 feet.

Rockwell Collins, acquired by United Technologies last year, provides avionics and information technology systems and services. The issue appears to center on some of the company's ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) systems that send flight data to be picked up by ground stations. "The ADS-B system depends on GPS data to function properly," explained Hackaday, "but a problem with the quality of the GPS data has disrupted normal ADS-B features on some planes."

Whether the issue was caused by poor GPS data or a software upgrade to affected systems remains speculation, nothing has yet been confirmed. But, whatever the cause, the issue has led to a significant number of flight cancellations. According to CNBC, regional carriers in the U.S. "canceled about 400 flights scheduled for Sunday." A Delta spokeswoman said "about 80 of its regional flights were canceled," and American and United regional carriers were hit by the same issue.

Various online reports suggested impacted planes were mostly CRJ jets made by Canada’s Bombardier, but also some Boeing 737s, 717s and possibly a 767 as well. "We are working to determine the cause of the problem," the FAA said in a statement, "which may have resulted from a software update to the aircraft navigation systems."

A Collins Aerospace spokesperson told me by email that "we identified a technical issue with our recently released GPS product(s) impacting availability, and have since determined the root cause and the resolution. We are engaging with our customers to ensure continued safe operational capability."

"GPS isn’t down," Hackaday reported, as anyone with a smartphone can see easily enough. "However, it is degraded. How a plane’s GPS system reacts to that depends on the software built into the GPS receiver. If the system fails, the pilots will have to rely on older systems like VOR to navigate. But ADS-B will have even more problems. An aircraft ADS-B system needs position data to operate. If you can’t transmit your position information, air traffic controllers need to rely on old fashioned radar to determine position. All of this adds up to a flight safety problem, which means grounding the aircraft."

There has been online speculation that military testing of GPS jamming might be responsible, although that seems to have been discounted⁠—such tests are heavily publicized beforehand. There was also apparent confusion for some airline passengers, with disruption being blamed on the weather rather than on system issues. "Hey Delta," one passenger tweeted, "some updates would be nice. Y’all keep saying weather but our pilot just said the military is jamming Delta’s GPS which is why we were diverted."

What is clear, is that the issue is more widespread than its lack of publicity might suggest. This comes just as extensions have been announced to the grounding of Boeing 737 Max aircraft following accidents that killed 346 people, as well as speculation around aircraft drone safety measures. And so the quality and reliability of aircraft flight support and navigation tools have been very much headline news.

At the time of writing, the situation is evolving, and we will soon find out if this weekend issue is set to cause Monday morning travel chaos.

Is Your GPS Fleet Tracking System Still on 3G?

Is your GPS fleet tracking system still on 3G… The major wireless carriers in the U.S. have already announced the shutdown of their 3G networks. For example, Verizon is no longer activating new units on 3G, and its 3G network will be phased out by the end of 2019. If your in-vehicle tracking equipment has been installed for more than a few years, it is probably not 4G/LTE compatible, and will need to be replaced. To help ease the burden of replacement, iTRAK is pleased to offer an upgrade special. For a limited time, new customers will be offered an additional 15% discount on 4G tracking hardware, and a 15% discount off our normal monthly fees for the first year! Based on its patented GPS reporting methodology, iTRAK has been a leader in fleet tracking solutions more than 20 years. Our cloud-based iTRAK Fleet Executive is the first choice for commercial fleets of 5 to 500 vehicles. Contact us for a price proposal today. Call 719-686-0100 or email iTRAK.sales@itrak.com.   Let iTRAK® keep your business on a profitable path!

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Walmart has More Than 120 Ultra-Fast EV Charging Stations in 34 States

Electrify America promises that more are on the way.

As reported by Engadget: Walmart has come a long way since it unveiled plans to add Electrify America chargers to its stores. The big-box retailer now has over 120 of the VW-backed fast EV charging stations across its stores, giving drivers in 34 states a way to top up while they're shopping. There are plans to continue expanding, too. Neither partner said how many more stations were coming, but Reuters sources claimed that 180 more stations were coming before the end of 2019.

Most of the existing stations are placed at stores near key highways, although there are "dozens" more due near large urban areas. As before, the chargers range in power from 150kW to 350kW, offering enough speed for both the latest EVs as well as upcoming models that can take advantage of higher charging rates.

Both Electrify America and Walmart have clear incentives to bring chargers to as many stores as possible. For Electrify America, it's about laying the groundwork for a deluge of VW group EVs that will need a fast charging infrastructure. This is also one more step in mending VW's bruised image following the diesel emissions cheating scandal. Walmart, meanwhile, can use this to keep its stores relevant in the online shopping era -- you'll need somewhere to charge, and you might just wander into the shop while your car is plugged in.

SpaceX Launched a Falcon 9 Loaded with 60 Starlink Internet Satellites

As reported by Engadget: After a pair of scrubbed launch attempts last week, SpaceX's first rocket loaded with 60 Starlink satellites has successfully taken off from Cape Canaveral.

One hour and two minutes after the 10:30 PM ET launch the satellites were scheduled to begin deployment, heading toward their operational altitude of 550km above the Earth. The 227kg units will use Hall thrusters and energy pulled in from a single solar array to form a network that provides internet access around the globe.

The rocket's first stage has already landed safely on a waiting drone ship ('Of Course I still Love You') -- this was its third flight -- and having a reusable booster will be key to launching all the satellites required. 

Plans SpaceX filed with the FCC said it intends to have the Starlink units in orbit by the mid-2020s, providing internet connections capable of up to 1Gbps even in rural areas.

At just over an hour after launch, SpaceX successfully deployed the 60 flat-packed Starlink satellites.

In total, SpaceX plans to launch nearly 12,000 of these satellites, which will park themselves in low-Earth orbit and beam internet coverage to the world below. There will be two Starlink flocks: one constellation of 4,409 satellites and a second constellation of 7,518 satellites, according to an agreement with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The second, larger constellation will fly at a slightly lower altitude, but together both will provide affordable coverage to every part of the globe, SpaceX representatives have said.

One caveat: the FCC approvals require the company to launch half of the planned satellites within the next six years. SpaceX first launched Starlink craft in 2018, lofting two test satellites, dubbed TinTin A and TinTin B, in February of that year. Their mission seemingly went well, though SpaceX kept the pair in a lower orbit than first planned. Based on data obtained from that initial test mission, SpaceX requested that part of its fleet be allowed to operate at lower altitudes, and the FCC agreed. 

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Starlink satellites are equipped with one solar array instead of two, minimizing potential points of failure pic.twitter.com/bJirVr67fF

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Successful deployment of 60 Starlink satellites confirmed!

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All 60 Starlink satellites online, solar array deployment coming up soon

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Tesla Driver Discovers New ‘Autopilot isn’t on, idiot’ Safety Feature

As reported by Electrek: A Tesla driver has discovered an interesting new Autopilot safety feature that he dubbed ‘Autopilot isn’t on, idiot’ to help people who mistakenly think that they activated the driver assist feature.

In order to activate Tesla’s two main Autopilot features, Autosteer and Traffic Aware Cruise Control, the driver needs to pull down on the Autopilot lever on the right side of the steering wheel twice when the option is available.

Autosteer is not always available based on the road and driving conditions.

When it is available, a steering wheel icon appears on the instrument cluster side of the screen next to the Autopilot rendering of your vehicle:

Once Autosteer is activated, the same steering wheel icon becomes blue and now the vehicle is automatically steering:

There’s also a chime that lets you know Autopilot is active, but sometimes the activation can fail for a number of reasons.

Tesla owner and Redditor u/ENrgStar found an interesting feature to help those who don’t realize that their activation of Autopilot failed.

He described the feature which he jokingly dubbed ‘Autopilot isn’t on, idiot’:

I was driving today and tried to enable autopilot on a back road without lines and it rejected me. Right after I started to drift a little too close to the edge of the road and my Model 3 screeched at me and jerked the car back into the middle of the lane. It appears to address an edge case where a driver tried to engage autopilot, and it can’t engage, but then the driver somehow thinks it IS engaged and lets the car drive and it starts drifting. The car reacts by drastically jerking you back into line and yelling at you as if to so “NO… I said I’m NOT driving for you!”

He was able to capture the safety feature in action in this quick video:

Electrek’s Take

That’s a great safety feature. I have often attempted and failed to activate Autosteer when I see it available with the icon, but it disappears by the time I reach for the lever.

I’ve always realized due to the different sounds it makes, but I can totally see how someone could miss it.