Recent rendering of one of LightSquared's satellites Related Links: GPS Industry Groups Reject LightSquared's Network Fix FCC Announces Comment Period for TWG GPS Industry Groups Reject LightSquared's Network Fix The gloves are off in a standoff between the U.S. Global Positioning System industry and a satellite communications vendor seeking to light up a broadband satellite and terrestrial network to blanket the country.GPS interests say plans for the satellite and terrestrial voice and data network with 40,000 base stations will operate too close to GPS on the spectrum and cause damaging interference to the entire system. They accuse the vendor of
Construction industry players and other major users of precision Global Position Systems (GPS) say a new report released by an industry working group today confirms that a wireless broadband network proposed by LightSquared would cause major harm to most GPS equipment in use around the globe. Rendering of LightSquared's latest satellite. Related Links: FCC Announces Comment Period for TWG Report Save Our GPS Coalition Press Releases LightSquared's Press Release Efforts 'To Save Our GPS' Heat up in Congress The group also rejected a three-pronged proposal put forth by Reston, Va-based LightSquared, which it says would mitigate any interference the company's
Construction industry players and other major users of precision Global Position Systems (GPS) say a new report released by an industry working group today confirms that a wireless broadband network proposed by LightSquared would cause major harm to most GPS equipment in use around the globe.
A fight over a 4G network and competitor to the Global Positioning System is heating up in Washington, as a coalition that includes major construction industry groups and heavy-equipment manufacturers is trying to block a move by LightSquared, Reston, Va., to launch a wireless broadband network. An industry group called the Coalition to Save Our GPS contends that the LightSquared plan would involve building some 40,000 ground stations and create interference with the existing GPS signals, which would disrupt systems such as high-precision GPS used in dredging operations in U.S. ports, as well as GPS that is used to guide
Georgia Institute of Technology professor Charles M. Eastman, long considered a research guru for computer-based building design and construction, displays parental pride in his latest brainchild: Georgia Tech's Digital Building Laboratory. Unlike Eastman's past efforts, starting some 40 years ago, the fledgling DBL, created in 2009 to help improve building design and construction through the aid of digital tools, is a collaboration among academics and players in the buildings-sector food chain. “This is industry and academia together,” says Eastman, DBL's director and a professor of both architecture and computing at Georgia Tech, Atlanta. “To me, it is so obvious that
Everyone in the A/E/C industry uses email to manage the multifaceted communications that zip back and forth among key players on design and construction projects. But tracking emails and searching for key discussion threads amid complex, far-flung projects has become even more difficult in an era of overloaded in-boxes. Mail Manager, an email plug-in that works with Microsoft Outlook, claims to offer unique features to ease the process of tracking, filing, searching and organizing project communications for A/E/C firms. Built by Arup’s Oasys Software division, Mail Manager has been on the market for more than six years. But recent improvements
An infrastructure construction software vendor, who specializes in design and analysis applications, is working to have it both ways. As a privately held company, Bentley Systems Inc., Exton, Pa., is not required to file statements with securities regulators, as publicly traded companies must do. But not filing means Bentley misses the PR bang that comes when annual statements are released by its publicly traded competition. So on March 2, Bentley held its first “annual report” conference call with analysts and investors, as well as trade journalists, to proclaim successes, announce new business moves and reiterate some announcements of the preceding
The Portland, Ore., Bureau of Environmental Services and Salem, Ore.-based contractor Emery & Sons Construction Inc. on a recent project needed precision to bore a new sewer line beneath two trolley tracks near an existing steam vent in downtown Portland. They turned to an up-and-coming technology: laser-guided boring. Photo Courtesy Of Emery & Sons The laser-guided boring system allows crews to precisely place materials and work in tight spaces. Using a Pella, Iowa-based Vermeer AXIS tool, the laser system provides near-exact placement of a bored tunnel and then pulls the pipe back through when complete—“a marvelous machine,” says Bill Theiss,
Researchers are developing a nano-material they hope will pinpoint exact locations of structural strain; the nanomaterial will self-diagnose dynamically and measure the strain. Image: Courtesy Nanosi Advanced Technology Inc. Top sample contains imbedded fluorescent silicon nanoparticles; the bottom sample doesn’t. The material is fluorescent silicon nanoparticles (Si-NP), and the research seeks to validate relationships between the Si-NP fluorescence peak and the macro-level state of strain. The success of the research revolves around a phenomenon known as the Stokes shift, which refers to the longer wavelength of electromagnetic energy emitted as a result of losing some absorbed energy, says Charles Marsh,
To expedite removal of a key radioactive threat close to the Columbia River, the U.S. Energy Dept. hopes to dismantle a long-dormant nuclear reactor at the Hanford nuclear-waste site in Washington state with robotic technology instead of “cocooning” the structure for long-term storage, as has been done with five similar structures at the site. The multistory, 50,000-sq-ft K-East Reactor, which houses 240,000 graphite blocks that make up the reactor core, is a special case because of soil contamination around and under the structure, says Tom Teynor, DOE project director for the reactor. The agency and its contractors are testing new
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