Another leap second is about to be added to official timekeeping on December 31, 2016. This occurs approximately every eighteen months, to compensate for the very gradual slowing of the Earth’s rotation - and whilst it makes everyone's day and year officially one second longer, it is a change that is hardly significant unless you are an engineer or product designer dealing with GNSS devices.

Do you know how your GPS device's firmware and algorithms will behave during the upcoming leap second correction? Are you prepared for the 2016 leap second adjustment? Many have been caught out before, but it is easy to avoid...

With LabSat you can simulate leap second corrections, including the one on 31^st December 2016 at your desk. RACELOGIC have provided the relevant scenarios to download for free.

Download the LabSat 3 leap second scenarios that simulate the last and upcoming leap second event now.

If you have purchased SatGen software, you can also simulate previous leap second events to test the robustness of your device. The latest SatGen v3 software release offers leap second events between 30th July 1981 and 31st December 2016.

For the first time ever we are exhibiting at the 7^th China Satellite Navigation Conference (CSNC) in Changsha, China on 18-20 May. Daniel Unander, LabSat Product Manager for our Asia Pacific Office is teaming up with Guangzhou Zeer Testing Technology, our appointed LabSat distributor for China for the event.

CSNC is the largest GNSS fair of its type in China attracting over 2000 experts in the field and is supported by 11 national authorities.

Come and visit us at Booth T-1 where you can see a preview of our upcoming LabSat Wideband product along with our LabSat Real-Time demonstration.

To cover for losses in satellite visibility most OEM navigation systems have a dead reckoning capability. This utilises vehicle wheel speed data and rate of turn information to provide the system with a guide to the vehicle's current location when GPS signals are not available.  

When it comes to testing these systems on the bench however, if the dead reckoning signals are not present the navigation unit will not function correctly. 

To overcome these obstructions we have developed a full navigation testing solution. Watch the video below to see how it works. 

From LabSat, the most cost effective GNSS simulator available, comes SatGen V3.

SatGen is a powerful and intuitive software package that gives you the ability to create GNSS scenarios for replay through any LabSat simulator – and now it includes BeiDou!

The software creates either user generated or imported trajectory files for use with a LabSat. The addition of the BeiDou B1 signals means that you can now test your device’s effectiveness as if it were being used within the operating area of the Chinese constellation – which at present only provides full coverage in Asia.

The BeiDou constellation is set to become globally operational by 2020. With the new SatGen you can create scenarios that include signals from satellites yet to be launched, so that you can develop new products in readiness for the full constellation.

SatGen V3 can produce scenarios with one, two, or three sets of signals being simultaneously output: GPS, GLONASS, and now BeiDou. If you have a triple constellation LabSat 3 the software now matches the record and replay abilities of your hardware.

If you’ve never used SatGen before, why not try it out? Our free to use demo version is available from here.

To purchase a full copy please contact your LabSat distributor.

RACELOGIC founder and Managing Director, Julian Thomas, was speaking at the GPS World Seminar 'Fix the Future Now with Signal Simulators' on March 19, 2015.

Fix the Future Now with Signal Simulators

Date: Thursday, March 19, 2015
Time: 1pm EST/ 10am PST/ 5pm GMT
Duration: 60 minutes with additional time for Q&A

Follow this link to watch a recording of the webinar.

Summary:
Understand the whys and hows of simulating signal problems now to avoid real-world problems later when newly released GNSS products encounter unanticipated problems in the field.

As the number of critical applications that rely on positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) increases, the list of considerations for testing also grows.

Topics addressed include leap seconds (next one coming up in June!), multipath, and interference of all sorts. The stakes for attacks on GNSS technologies are rising as incidents increase from occasional, often accidental, interference to more structured and organized approaches to jamming and spoofing.

Other speakers include Mark Wilson - Vice President of IFEN Inc., Neal Fedora - Director at Spirent Federal Systems Inc. and Darren Fisher - GNSS Market Manager at Spectracom.

The webinar will be moderated by Alan Cameron, Group Publisher, GPS World and Geospatial Solutions.

Whilst creating customer scenarios for the forthcoming leap second event this June, a rather surprising issue has come to light.

BeiDou uses a different "day number" for the date to apply the leap second, compared with GPS and Galileo. GPS and Galileo use 1-7 as week day numbers, and BeiDou uses 0-6.

We discovered that this fact has been missed during development of some BeiDou enabled receivers. The result is that the leap second may be implemented a day early on GNSS engines that are tracking the BeiDou constellation. The error presents itself when the receiver is running on the BeiDou constellation alone, and when the date is June 29 of this year.

Read the full article on the BeiDou leap second issue in GPS World.

Did you know that you can simulate leap second corrections with LabSat, including the one on 30^th June 2015?

LabSat customers who have registered their unit can now download a leap second scenario that simulates the leap second event on 30^th June 2015. Request the LabSat Leap Second Scenario for free.

If you have purchased SatGen software, you can also simulate previous leap second events (e.g. updated in Dec 2008) to test the robustness of your device. The latest SatGen v3 software release offers leap second events dating back to 1980.

A new firmware update for LabSat 3 is now available to download in the 'Customer Area'.

This release includes the addition of:

• CAN arbitration logging
• The ability to play from a point in the scenario and to record for a specified length of time, via the front panel
• Additional configuration commands over Ethernet
• Control of NMEA stream over Ethernet
• Muting of constellations during replay

CAN Arbitration

Up until now, LabSat 3 has been able to record data from two separate CAN Buses into a digitised format. Now it is possible to record CAN signals into a simple text file which is saved into the same directory as that of the GNSS data. The advantage to CAN arbitration is that when it is replayed onto a Bus it does so without ‘speaking’ over the top of all other traffic, thereby avoiding Bus errors.

Individual CAN frames can also be filtered so that only a selection of IDs are recorded.

“Play From/For” and “Record For”

Via the front panel (rather than only over Ethernet) it is now possible to start a scenario from a certain point within it rather than always from the start, and for a selected period of time rather than the whole scenario length. It is also now possible to record for a selected length of time from the moment the recording is started.

Additional Config Commands via Ethernet

The API/SDK will soon be updated so that new commands allowing for the configuration of CAN and triple constellations are possible via telnet.

NMEA Control over Ethernet

The streaming of NMEA can now be enabled or disabled via the Ethernet connection.

Mute Constellations

Previously it was only possible to mute ALL constellations during replay, but now the user can choose to mute a specific constellation whilst replaying.

The LabSat manual has been updated with all the additions to this firmware – please refer to this for further detail.