LockMart And Pictometry Offer Advanced Mapping And Imagery Solutions

Lockheed Martin and Pictometry International have signed a collaboration agreement to provide next-generation geospatial technologies to federal, state and local government customers.
The two companies will work together to integrate Pictometry's unique imagery and algorithms with Lockheed Martin's geospatial-intelligence analysis systems, creating powerful solutions for a wide variety of national and local applications.
"As a systems integrator in the geospatial arena, we're committed to adapting and furthering innovative new technologies that will shape the future of our industry," said Jim Kohlhaas, Lockheed Martin's vice president of Spatial Solutions.
"Pictometry's extensive library of imagery and their advanced image processing algorithms can create highly realistic, three-dimensional models of city streets, mountainous terrain and everything in between. By combining those models with our existing visualization, analysis and collaboration tools, we're able to offer our customers exciting new capabilities ranging from mission rehearsal and intelligence analysis to urban planning."
As part of the agreement, Lockheed Martin will offer Pictometry image products for sale to its customers.
The products will be available as stand-alone imagery libraries and as a service, allowing customers to purchase the imagery they want on demand. Lockheed Martin will also look for opportunities to integrate Pictometry's imagery into existing systems to provide high-fidelity, three-dimensional models of geographic areas.
Examples include applications for geospatial visualization, virtual worlds platforms, and advanced collaboration systems.
In addition, Lockheed Martin will work with Pictometry to adapt their patented algorithms and processing technologies for use in a military environment, helping to make the resulting imagery even more applicable to customers in the defense and global security markets.
"Lockheed Martin's understanding of the military and intelligence communities will help us better tailor our product for the government's needs. Lockheed Martin's wide range of capabilities is essential when adapting our technology for military purposes," said Steve Schultz, Pictometry's Chief Technical Officer.
A leader in geospatial-intelligence systems, Lockheed Martin develops technology for collecting and disseminating imagery, fusing multi-source data into a common picture, and delivering that picture through web-based services to users in the field. The company creates immersive, layered maps that support mission planning, disaster response, and homeland security operations.

North Las Vegas Fire Department Launches Enterprise GIS Platform

For the City of North Las Vegas Fire Department, the science of firefighting has taken on a geographic approach. The agency uses geographic information system (GIS) software from ESRI to prevent emergencies from occurring, reduce their consequences, and provide first responders with the best information possible while deploying to an emergency.
"I decided to be a firefighter because I wanted to help people," says Ryan Green, firefighter, City of North Las Vegas Fire Department.
"GIS gives us an opportunity to affect numerous lives. GIS provides quantifiable benefits in terms of efficiency and those kinds of things, but most importantly, it helps save lives. In the past, we needed maps to make decisions, but we [had to] ask either other agencies to create GIS maps that showed building blueprints or hydrant locations or administrators to draw new data on paper. Now we produce the maps ourselves and do our own analysis, which saves time."
The North Las Vegas Fire Department maintains approximately 200 full-time employees including suppression, prevention, and support staff. The city and, consequently, the department have experienced rapid growth in the last eight years.
The department has doubled in size during this time and has built three new fire stations with two more planned. GIS was implemented within the department to help the agency effectively respond to the city's growth by maximizing limited resources using spatial analysis. Information gleaned from GIS software helps staff make better decisions.
GIS is used to map incidents by type, location, and response time so that historical analysis can help paint an information picture for commanders to understand what is happening on the ground and where to deploy the right kind of resources for proactive mitigation. GIS is also used to review critical staffing needs on first-alarm incidents, motor vehicle accidents, and single-unit responses.
Computer-aided dispatch data, brought into ESRI's ArcGIS software, allows users to perform post incident analysis. They can look at an incident and see if a unit was at the station, in training, clearing another incident, or involved in any other activity during a call.
Evaluating unit locations when a call comes in allows staff to verify if the closest unit, or the unit best equipped to respond to an incident, was selected to respond to an event.
In every vehicle, a mobile computer terminal receives dispatch information, unit mapping, and incident mapping. The mobile computer also allows data collection en route, on hand, and while returning from an incident.
A call comes in and a screen displays a digital map and tabular data listing the call location, incident type, other units deploying to the scene, and any other available information. Having the information sent to the vehicle while responding to an event gives firefighters precious time to fully understand the incident before they reach their location.
In addition, the department performs a number of studies using GIS to look at incidents, their locations, and other data that helps proactively address issues.
For instance, studies looking at hip fractures, assaults, and smoke inhalation incidents have all produced actionable information for special-needs organizations so they can provide appropriate service delivery.
Another recent study looked at high incidents of cyanide inhalation that had been taking place throughout the area. The study prompted the agency to supply staff working in these areas with better medical solutions to aid in treating cyanide inhalation at an incident, versus treating it at the hospital.
The department is working on several new GIS applications including an internal GIS application for fire chiefs to perform their own analysis and visualization using a secure intranet Web site.

what is GPS

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a U.S. space-based radionavigation system that provides reliable positioning, navigation, and timing services to civilian users on a continuous worldwide basis -- freely available to all. For anyone with a GPS receiver, the system will provide location and time. GPS provides accurate location and time information for an unlimited number of people in all weather, day and night, anywhere in the world.
The GPS is made up of three parts: satellites orbiting the Earth; control and monitoring stations on Earth; and the GPS receivers owned by users. GPS satellites broadcast signals from space that are picked up and identified by GPS receivers. Each GPS receiver then provides three-dimensional location (latitude, longitude, and altitude) plus the time.
Individuals may purchase GPS handsets that are readily available through commercial retailers. Equipped with these GPS receivers, users can accurately locate where they are and easily navigate to where they want to go, whether walking, driving, flying, or boating. GPS has become a mainstay of transportation systems worldwide, providing navigation for aviation, ground, and maritime operations. Disaster relief and emergency services depend upon GPS for location and timing capabilities in their life-saving missions. Everyday activities such as banking, mobile phone operations, and even the control of power grids, are facilitated by the accurate Timing provided by GPS. Farmers, surveyors, geologists and countless others perform their work more efficiently, safely, economically, and accurately using the free and open GPS signals.

3 SEGMENT SYSTEM
Basicly each satelit got 3 segments. These are the space segment ( SS ), control segment ( CS ) and a user segment ( US ).

Space Segment
A visual example of the GPS constellation in motion with the Earth rotating. Notice how the number of satellites in view from a given point on the Earth's surface, in this example at 45°N, changes with time.

The space segment (SS) comprises the orbiting GPS satellites, or Space Vehicles (SV) in GPS parlance. The GPS design originally called for 24 SVs, eight each in three circular Orbital plane (astronomy) but this was modified to six planes with four satellites each.The orbital planes are centered on the Earth, not rotating with respect to the distant stars.The six planes have approximately 55° Inclination (tilt relative to Earth's Equator and are separated by 60° Right ascension of the Orbital node (angle along the equator from a reference point to the orbit's intersection). The orbits are arranged so that at least six satellites are always within Line-of-sight propagation from almost everywhere on Earth's surface.

Orbiting at an altitude of approximately 20,200 kilometers (12,600 miles or 10,900 Nautical mile orbital radius of 26,600 km (16,500 mi or 14,400 NM)), each SV makes two complete orbits each Sidereal day. The ground track of each satellite therefore repeats each (sidereal) day. This was very helpful during development, since even with just four satellites, correct alignment means all four are visible from one spot for a few hours each day. For military operations, the ground track repeat can be used to ensure good coverage in combat zones.

Control Segment
The flight paths of the satellites are tracked by US Air Force monitoring stations in Hawaii, Kwajalein, Ascension Island,Diego Garcia, and Colorado Springs, Colorado , along with monitor stations operated by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). The tracking information is sent to the Air Force Space Command's master control station at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, which is operated by the 2nd Space Operations Squadron (2 SOPS) of the United States Air Force (USAF). Then 2 SOPS contacts each GPS satellite regularly with a navigational update (using the ground antennas at Ascension Island, Diego Garcia, Kwajalein, and Colorado Springs). These updates synchronize the Atomic clock on board the satellites to within a few Nanosecond of each other, and adjust the Ephemeris of each satellite's internal orbital model. The updates are created by a Kalman filter which uses inputs from the ground monitoring stations, Space weather information, and various other inputs.

Satellite maneuvers are not precise by GPS standards. So to change the orbit of a satellite, the satellite must be marked 'unhealthy', so receivers will not use it in their calculation. Then the maneuver can be carried out, and the resulting orbit tracked from the ground. Then the new ephemeris is uploaded and the satellite marked healthy again.

User Segment

GPS receivers come in a variety of formats, from devices integrated into cars, phones, and watches, to dedicated devices such as those shown here from manufacturers Trimble, Garmin and Leica (left to right).
The user's GPS receiver is the user segment (US) of the GPS. In general, GPS receivers are composed of an antenna, tuned to the frequencies transmitted by the satellites, receiver-processors, and a highly-stable clock (often a Crystal oscillator). They may also include a display for providing location and speed information to the user. A receiver is often described by its number of channels: this signifies how many satellites it can monitor simultaneously. Originally limited to four or five, this has progressively increased over the years so that, As of 2007, receivers typically have between 12 and 20 channels.