Abstract

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) provide the basis for smart phones to guide us unquestioningly to our destinations, safe and flexible navigation for tens of thousands of airline flights per day, seamless synchronization of power grids and timing of financial transactions, AND for scientific observation of Earth’s variable gravity field, water content of soil and vegetation on its surface, and even its atmosphere and ocean surface winds.

This talk will explore what we can learn from the evolution of GNSS from simply a navigation and timing service into an unexpectedly versatile tool. I will provide an overview of the near-term evolution of GNSS we see today, and consider how technological advances in areas like optical communications, atomic clocks, and quantum sensing, might fuel new capabilities for GNSS, and create new opportunities for scientific and societal benefit.

Biography

Penina Axelrad is a University of Colorado Distinguished Professor and the Joseph T. Negler Professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder; where she has been a faculty member since 1992 and served as Department Chair from 2012-2017. Her research interests include space domain awareness, technology and algorithms for GNSS-based position, navigation, and timing in space, airborne, marine, and land environments, multipath characterization and correction, and remote sensing using GNSS-based reflectometry and radio occultation measurements. Dr. Axelrad is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of both the Institute of Navigation and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She received her BS and MS degrees from M.I.T. and Ph.D. from Stanford University in Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Hosted by College of Engineering and the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.