Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:02:44 -0400 From: "Jim.Ray" Subject: [IGSMAIL-5791]: Considerations for Future IGS Receivers To: IGSMail , Canadian Space Geodesy Forum Reply-to: jim.ray@noaa.gov Message-id: <4874A8E4.5080304@noaa.gov> Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (Windows/20080421) Sender: owner-igsmail Precedence: bulk ****************************************************************************** IGS Electronic Mail 09 Jul 05:02:50 PDT 2008 Message Number 5791 ****************************************************************************** Author: Jim Ray The position paper "Considerations for Future IGS Receivers" was recently posted at the IGS 2008 Workshop website, at: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/IGSWorkshop2008/docs/recDev-positionpaper.pdf This document was prepared by Todd Humphreys, Larry Young, and Thomas Pany. Anybody interested in the future of GNSS observing for high-accuracy applications should want to review this paper. The authors give a nice summary of the array of GNSS signals that will become available in the next few years, the relative performances of various signal combinations, considerations for receiver design options, and consequences for the IGS. Very importantly, this paper proposes a set of thoughtful recommendations for the IGS and other high-accuracy GNSS users with respect to upcoming receiver issues. This includes a suggested schedule for the evolution of minimum IGS receiver requirements, which might be met by either future commercial or possibly non-commercial options. This topic will profoundly affect all aspects of the IGS: field operations, given that all observing equipment will need to be replaced in the next few years; data analysis to incorporate the new signals and deal with the complexities of a much more heterogeneous ensemble of observables; and various new products. The perspectives raised in this position paper should prove invaluable in sparking urgently needed internal discussions and in guiding the IGS through this challenging period. Todd, Larry, and Thomas deserve our deepest thanks for putting together such an informative and helpful guide.