Report on the UN/USA International Meeting on the Use and
Applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)
Hosted by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs
Vienna, Austria, 13 to 17 December 2004
1 Introduction
This report covers the latest in a series of meetings on the use and
applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) hosted by the
United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UN OOSA) and also supported
by the State Department of the USA. The meetings arise from recommendations
of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Use of Outer Space (COPUOS), as ratified
by the General Assembly of the UN. The author attended the 2004 meeting
representing the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG).
The meetings involved the key players delivering GNSS components
including:
- The USA’s Global Positioning System (GPS), represented by the State
Department, Department of Transport and Interagency GPS Executive Board.
- Russia’s GLONASS, represented by Satellite Navigation Department of
the Federal Space Agency and
- Europe’s planned Galileo system, represented by the European
Commission (EC) and European Space Agency (ESA)
A feature of the series of meetings has been a strong focus on improving
infrastructure and capacity building for GNSS use in developing countries
and countries in transition. There were delegates from many countries
including: Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Czech Republic, Egypt,
Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Peru, Poland,
Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, South Africa, Syrian Arab Republic,
Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America and Zambia.
The global user community was also represented with major players in the
many application areas, including key organisations for the surveying and
mapping community:
- The International Association of Geodesy (IAG) represented by the
President (Gerhard Beutler) and Chair of Commission 1 on Reference
Frame (Herman Drewes)
- The IAG’s International GPS Service (IGS), represented by the
President of the Board (John Dow) and the Director of IGS Central
Bureau (Ruth Neilan) based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
- The International Cartographic Association (ICA) represented by the
President (Milan Konecny)
- The International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) represented by the
Chair of Commission 5 (the author, Matt Higgins)
Highlights for the interests of FIG and the surveying and mapping
community generally, can be broken into three main areas:
- The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by Sergio
Camacho, the Director of UN OOSA and Holger Magel, the
President of FIG. That was followed by a meeting at working level to
explore concrete areas of cooperation between UN OOSA and FIG.
- The presentations, workshops and working groups on issues related to
GNSS applications, infrastructure and capacity building globally and also
with a focus on the needs of developing countries and countries in
transition.
- The establishment of an International Committee on GNSS (ICG) under
the auspices of the UN, of which FIG will be a member.
These points are detailed below.
The Memorandum of Understanding between FIG and UN OOSA
There was a brief ceremony during the first day for the signing of a
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by Sergio Camacho, the Director of UN OOSA
and Holger Magel, the President of FIG. For more details, including the
speech drafted by me and presented by Professor Magel, see:
http://www.fig.net/news/news_2004/vienna_dec_2004.htm
The actual MoU is available at:
http://www.fig.net/news/news_2004/vienna_dec_2004/un_oosa_mou.pdf
Later in the week there was a follow up meeting at working officer level
to explore concrete areas of cooperation between UN OOSA and FIG. In line
with the MoU the three main topics discussed were:
- Space Science and Technology education generally;
- GNSS education specifically and;
- Space Technology for Disaster Management
There is an existing set of curricula for the Regional Centres for Space
Science and Technology Education in 4 topics (I have a CD – they are in
English, French and Spanish).
- Satellite communications
- Satellite meteorology and global climate
- Space and atmospheric science
- Remote sensing and the geographic information systems
It was decided to form a sub-group to investigate the development of a
new curriculum on GNSS. It was also decided that the sub-group will review
the GNSS content in the existing 4 curricula. The group will be co-chaired
by Naser El-Sheimy (for FIG) and Prof Lo-Presti from Italy.
This topic area is quite specific to Commission 5 content so we are happy to
pursue this but there is also a need to discuss this with Chair of FIG
Commission 2 on Education. The co-chairs of the sub-group are confident that
they can fund most of their involvement out of their Universities. However,
this work was put up as a project during the Workshop processes and UN OOSA
is confident that it can find funds to assist with this process.
We also discussed Space Technology for Disaster Management.
David
Stevens from OOSA oversees this topic and will contact Theo Kötter
to explore potential synergy between his work and the work of Theo’s FIG WG
on Disaster Management. A specific action for Commission 5 is to investigate
development of a simple guideline on the use of GNSS by people responding to
natural disaster situations (eg for people from UN agencies using handheld
GPS Receivers, maps etc when responding to an earth quake or tsunami).
The Presentations, Workshops and Working Group Meetings
The objectives of this part of the Meeting were:
- Review progress made in implementing the recommendations of the
International Workshop, held in Vienna in December 2003;
- Review status of follow-up projects and potential ways and means to
carry them forward in 2005 and beyond;
- Review any follow-up initiatives and actions resulting from the series
of UN/USA Regional Workshops on GNSS;
- Review specific recommendations of the Action Team on GNSS and
possible ways and means to implement them in 2005 and beyond.
There were many presentations on the latest status of GPS Modernization,
GLONASS revitalisation and development of Galileo, the various augmentation
systems around the world and key user organisations, including President of
IAG and my presentation on behalf of FIG. There were also many presentations
on GNSS applications issues in developing countries. I will not go into the
details of these presentations here but readers are pointed to the UN OOSA
web site, where these presentations are freely available, see:
http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/SAP/act2004/vienna/presentations/
For FIG, a major issue from the Workshops and Working Group is to support
development of geodetic reference frames (especially in Developing
Countries) that are compatible with GNSS. The major priority here is for the
African content through the existing IAG project known as AFREF. Through
discussions I offered for FIG to host a meeting in Cairo of the AFREF
Steering Committee and to also convene related technical sessions and
perhaps a panel discussion. The FIG Working Week in Cairo is joint with
GSDI8 so it is especially attractive for the AFREF project to get exposure
to decision makers from GSDI. This has become an example of good cooperation
between FIG, IAG and a regional project.
The International Committee on GNSS (ICG)
The third major development during the week was to work towards the final
terms of reference for the establishment of an International Committee on
GNSS (ICG) under the auspices of the UN. I have a seat on the ICG for FIG.
With GPS Modernization, GLONASS revitalisation and Galileo all happening
in the next 5 years it is very important that FIG has strong involvement in
the decision making processes about these systems and the ICG is becoming
the forum for such discussions. This meeting saw the key players from the
Workshop (eg USA, Russia and EU), giving strong support for the formation of
the ICG and importantly there was also representation from the Space
Agencies of China, India, Japan and Canada.
The forming members of the ICG are invited to another meeting in Vienna
in March 2005 to finalize the Terms of Reference. A detailed proposal on the
official formation of the ICG can then go to the UN Committee on the
Peaceful Use of Outer Space (COPUOS).
Matt Higgins
Chair of Commission 5 of the International Federation of Surveyors and
Senior Surveyor Department of Natural Resources and Mines,
Queensland Government, Australia
|
