2023年6月21日

澳大利亞的衛星定位係統變得更加準確。SouthPAN增一個鮮為人知的全球導航衛星係統,首次在南半球。盡管它實際上不是一個類型的GPS或全球導航衛星係統(GNSS),仍然值得理解它是如何工作的。SouthPAN是什麼?網絡群塔,衛星接收器,電腦可以使GPS和其他類型的全球導航係統(是的,不僅僅是GPS)更準確。團隊認為,這可能會增加精度從大約5或10米到10厘米。“有幾個錯誤的來源,”弗林德斯大學的教授塞繆爾·德雷克說。“首先,你不知道衛星的位置。第二個是信號穿過大氣層會扭曲一點。“塔SouthPAN確切地知道他們的角度測量,所以當他們收到一個GPS或其他衛星信號,他們可以計算出衛星和正確的距離有多遠。 This new correction can be issued either via the internet or satellite to tractors, marine systems, planes, or cars – allowing basically anything that uses GPS to also have access to this more accurate positioning data. Get an update of science stories delivered straight to your inbox. Get a daily dose of science Get a weekly Cosmos Catch-up SouthPAN Infographic. Credit: Australian Government This is called a Satellite-Based Augmentation System, and there’s plenty across the Northern Hemisphere, but until SouthPAN, there was none based directly in Australia. Why is this needed? Although a small amount of error in Google Maps or your favourite running app isn’t too big of a deal, some systems need to be much more precise. This is particularly important where the internet isn’t available to give back up location positioning. Aviation and marine systems will both be important users of systems like SouthPAN once it becomes ‘safety-of-life certified’ (expected in 2028) but one of the most surprising users of the technology is farmers. “When farmers want to do crop spraying, they really want centimetre accuracy because spray is extremely expensive,” says Drake. “Now they’re going to fully automated tractors, or even if the driver’s there, they’re not relying on the driver to steer, they’re relying on the satellites.” British company Inmarsat sends these correction signals to farmers already, allowing them this precision accuracy. However, in April one of the satellites went offline for 12 hours, which severely disrupted farmers using these high-tech tractors. Although farmers might hope that the introduction and further establishment of SouthPAN might fix some of these problems, this might not be the case. A month after the outage, Inmarsat and the Australian and New Zealand government came to a US$122 million deal to use future Inmarsat satellites to transmit the SouthPAN correction signal.