December 9, 2008 – 1:49 am
For a few years, the United States had the market on global navigation satellite systems cornered with its Global Positioning System. But, Russia quickly caught up with their own constellation. The Russian system is known as GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System) “a satellite-based radionavigation system, which enables an unlimited number of users to make all –weather 3D positioning, velocity measuring and timing anywhere in the world or near-Earth space.â€
What is the difference between GPS and GLONASS?
GLONASS was developed by the former Soviet Union (USSR) and is quite similar to GPS; in fact, they are more similar than different. One of the major differences between the GPS and GLONASS satellite systems was the initial design life of their satellites. The original design life of a GLONASS satellite from the early 1980’s was one to two years. In contrast, the early experimental Block I GPS satellites, launched from 1978 to 1985, had a design life of seven to 7 ½ years. Some of the current GPS satellites, launched from 1989 to 1997 have been in orbit for more than 10 years. The latest GLONASS satellites have a design life of three years, but the new GLONASS-M satellites currently being launched incorporated advanced engineering and have a design life of seven years. The new GLONASS-K satellites will have a design life up 10 to 12 years. Because of the early design life of the early satellites, there were origionally 64 GLONASS satellites launched and there were six launch failures.

GLONASS Modernization
Much has happened with GLONASS since the fall of the Soviet Union. The emerging Russian Federation government had some financial obstacles to overcome, but now fully support the program with the help of other nations like China. GLONASS has been approved and funded through 2011, and, in addition to two newly designed satellites, will feature a new launch vehicle, the Soyuz-2 rocket.
The new GLONASS-M satellites have a second civil code. The new GLONASS-K satellites will add a third civil frequency. The addition of the second civil code to the GLONASS-M satellites is a plus for the Russian system. A second civil code is planned for GPS Block IIR (replenishment) GPS satellites, which will be called Block IIR-M satellites. This additional code messages has little impact on precision applications, but is important for GIS/mapping type receivers. The additional code message is thought to assist satellite tracking of low satellites on the horizon, which could benefit precision application slightly. Now that Russia has three satellites with the second civil code, they may be able to build GLONASS-only receivers that receive these signals.
GPS plus GLONASS
In the mid 1990s, Ashtech founder Dr. Javad Ashjaee took on the task of forming a research group of Russian scientists in Moscow to build a satellite receiver with the capabilities of receiving signals from both GPS and GLONASS satellites. He was successful and Ashtech introduced a single frequency receiver in the late 1990s.
With contributions from research and engineering, several manufacturers plan to include all satellite signals into the next generation of receivers. This includes the planned new GPS L5 frequency, L2C code message, third GLONASS frequency and the future Galileo satellite signals.

GLONASS Signals
Are there instruments that receive only GLONASS signals? Yes, but at this time the number of satellites in the GLONASS constellation is not enough to make GLONASS-only receivers competitive with GPS-only receivers. Most products utilize a combination of technologies providing access to additional satellite signals and increased performance over GPS or GLONASS alone. Today, surveyors can receive signals from both GPS and GLONASS with the receivers developed making it possible to have 13 or more satellites visible at one time.

we are specialized in gps tracking solution include GPS Tracking System GPS Vehicle Tracking System GPS Tracking Equipment GPS Tracking Hardware Car Electronic Equipment
Posted in GPS Tracking System | No Comments »