Stronger, more reliable, and loaded with commercial possibilities: That’s what’s the next generation of GPS – dubbed L2C – is all about. That was the news delivered by Deputy Director of Commerce David Sampson at the half-day conference, "Next-Generation GPS for Enhanced Business Productivity," Jan. 26 in Washington, D.C.

"In September 2005, the Air Force successfully launched the first in a series of next-generation GPS satellites," Sampson told the audience at the event sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "The satellite was declared operational in December and now broadcasts a second civilian signal that enables significant increases in accuracy and reliability when combined with the original one. The signal was specifically designed with commercial needs in mind and incorporates modern techniques that were not available when GPS was designed in the 1970s."

Thanks to the higher effective power used to transmit next-generation GPS signals, L2C transmissions are easier to receive inside buildings and on low-power devices such as mobile phones, Sampson said. "The new signal is broadcast at the same radio frequency that many high-end users already leverage to boost GPS accuracy to the centimeter level," he said. "For those users, the benefit will not be better accuracy, but enhanced reliability. If one signal experiences temporary interference, the other can back it up without interruption to the user’s operations. If both are interrupted, for example, under a bridge, the new signal enables much faster recovery, saving valuable time."

For members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – and indeed anyone interested in selling GPS technology – the best news was that the L2C GPS signal "is available free of charge to the end user, just like the original," Sampson said. In addition, "The specifications for L2C equipment design have been openly published for years, and I understand tens of thousands of units have already been sold over the past year."

The U.S. Departments of Commerce and Transportation have been researching L2C’s potential economic benefits since 2004. "Unlike other economic studies, this one focuses not on sales of GPS equipment but on the productivity gains reaped through actual use of that equipment."

The study will be released soon, Sampson said. "Without getting into the specific numbers, I can tell you that the economic value of the second civilian GPS signal throughout the next 30 years will be significant." Maybe so, but specific numbers and applications would have solidified his contention.

While Sampson left the U.S. Chamber of Commerce hanging on L2C’s commercial potential, he was candid about Washington’s plans to build up the L2C satellite fleet. At present, "there is only one next-generation satellite in orbit, so the availability of L2C will be limited until we launch more satellites," he said. To remedy this problem, "We currently plan to launch three additional next-generation satellites in 2006."

But that’s just the start of the government’s planned GPS improvements. "Starting in 2007, with the launch of an even more advanced satellite, we plan to introduce a third civilian signal," Sampson said. "The third signal has been designed to meet the stringent needs of safety-of-life transportation, including higher power, greater bandwidth, and a radio band reserved exclusively for safety-of-life transportation."

To make this happen, the 2007 version of GPS "will be integrated into the national airspace system and play a vital role in improving safety, fuel efficiency, and airspace capacity," he said. "It will be used to manage maritime traffic, railroads, and intelligent highway systems. Of course, the non-transportation community will have access to the third signal as well, and we expect them to take full advantage of it to enable triple-frequency positioning for even higher accuracy and reliability.

Work on a fourth civil signal is underway as well, Sampson said. "This will be an advanced version of the current civil signal, broadcast at the same L1 frequency," he said. "It will augment, not replace, today’s L1 signal. We are working with Europe, Japan, Russia, and other nations to make the fourth civil signal an open, international standard for seamless interoperability among multiple positioning, navigation and timing systems. If successful, this will result in dramatic improvements in the performance of GPS and GPS- like services inside cities and other areas where the sky view is partially blocked."