U-blox has announced the upgrade of its latest GPS receiver platform u-blox 6. The upgrade provides features and benefits such as sensitivity, power consumption, anti-jamming performance, jamming detection and TIFF (time to first fix). The firmware delivers a tracking sensitivity down to -162dBm with enhanced acquisition and re-acquisition sensitivity, claims the company.
The GPS also features AssistNow Autonomous, a free feature similar to Assisted-GPS without the need for a host or external network connection, says the company. The concept is claimed to minimise TIFF by capitalising on the periodic nature of the GPS satellites, and allows the GPS receiver to autonomously predict satellite positions based on previously captured ephemeris. An intelligent power management technique has also been implemented to power-down the unnecessary circuitry when not needed while maintaining GPS performance levels.
The company has also introduced the Jamming Detection feature, which detects the possible presence of GPS jammers. Security systems can use this feature to activate an alarm or alert signal, or initiates a backup positioning system such as one based on GSM cellular positioning.
Another feature is the support of the RTCM protocol (radio technical commission for maritime services).
