A civil engineer's guide to GPS and GNSS

摘要

GPS is already prevalent in society whether consciously or not: from the obvious professional use of high-accuracy RTK systems on construction sites and consumer 'satnav' systems, to the less-obvious cash-machine transaction or mobile telephone call where GPS timing is used to synchronise networks and data packets. The acceptance and use of GPS within civil engineering, especially when combined with other measurement or sensor technology, will continue to flourish. Although only 10-20% by revenue generation of the overall applications of GPS are in civil engineering, their range is massively diverse.rnThe key to enabling the exploitation of the new GNSS to meet the drivers and new applications within the engineering community will often be in integrating components together to provide a complete solution.rnTime frames for the developments of the different GNSS may not be exactly known, but with the market doubling every 5 years, the impact is.rnEvery new satellite launched brings greater opportunities with it.