NovAtel's Waypoint Products Group™ is pleased to announce the release of Inertial Explorer Version 8.10 software. Inertial Explorer software is NovAtel's industry-leading GNSS/INS post-processor.

Major new features in the 8.10 release include:

Support for NovAtel's proprietary on-the-fly (OTF) AdVance™ RTK (ARTK) engine.
ARTK has the ability to fix carrier phase integer ambiguities at longer baseline lengths with improved reliability, and shorter time to fix than Inertial Explorer software's existing KAR algorithm.
Precise Point Positioning (PPP) Filter improvements
Accuracies have been improved by up to 40% by providing an additional processing pass and higher-order corrections. Accuracy improvements are especially noticeable on shorter duration projects.
Tropospheric bias correction
For high altitude or long distance data sets, much of the tropospheric error can be removed by the addition of a Kalman filter bias state. Inertial Explorer’s PPP processor can now compute the tropospheric bias for each base station and verify the base station coordinates.
Automatic Zero Velocity Update (ZUPT) Detection
Multiple user-interface improvements to ease data processing and results analysis.
HTML report output and improved Google Earth™ export.

Inertial Explorer software is a high-precision GNSS / INS post-processing package that supports raw data from most available GNSS receivers and IMU data from NovAtel’s SPAN systems or from nearly any generic IMU data format. By tightly integrating GNSS data from both a roving station and as many as eight base stations along with raw data from an IMU, accurate position, velocity, and attitude can be computed. Loose coupling of the GNSS and IMU data is also available for applications that do not require tight coupling. A smoother is available for combining the forward and reverse trajectories to give an optimal solution in even the worst GNSS conditions. For applications where base station setup is difficult or not desired, Precise Point Positioning (PPP) is offered, which uses downloadable GPS clock and orbital corrections to compute solutions accurate to between 5 and 40cm.

Inertial Explorer software is extensively used in airborne mapping applications and trajectory reconstruction as well as ground mapping and measurement. The product provides statistical and graphical solution analysis and easy export of solution data into multiple formats.

For further information on the NovAtel Waypoint Products Group products, please visit our web site at http://www.novatel.com/products/waypoint_pps.htm.

NovAtel announces release of GrafNav 8.10

NovAtel’s Waypoint Products Group is pleased to announce the release of GrafNav/GrafNet™ Version 8.10 software. GrafNav/GrafNet™ software is NovAtel’s industry-leading GNSS post-processor.

Major new features in the 8.10 release include:

Support for NovAtel’s proprietary on-the-fly (OTF) AdVance™ RTK (ARTK) engine.
ARTK has the ability to fix carrier phase integer ambiguities at longer baseline lengths with improved reliability, and shorter time to fix than GrafNav™ software’s existing KAR algorithm.
Precise Point Positioning (PPP) Filter improvements
Accuracies have been improved by up to 40% by providing an additional processing pass and higher-order corrections. Accuracy improvements are especially noticeable on shorter duration projects.
Tropospheric bias correction
For high altitude or long distance data sets, much of the tropospheric error can be removed by the addition of a Kalman filter bias state. GrafNav™ software’s PPP processor can now compute the tropospheric bias for each base station and verify the base station coordinates.
GrafNav™ software now has an API/DLL interface that has many of the same capabilities as the command line interface including complete feedback during processing and exporting.
Multiple user-interface improvements to ease data processing and results analysis.
HTML report output and improved Google Earth™ export.

GrafNav™ software is a high-precision GNSS post-processing package that supports raw data from most available GNSS receivers. Using data from both a roving station and as many as eight base stations, centimeter-level positions can be computed. For applications where base station setup is difficult or not desired, Precise Point Positioning (PPP) is offered, which uses downloadable GPS clock and orbital corrections to compute solutions accurate to between 5 and 40cm. GrafNet™ software is a baseline network adjustment package for processing of multiple static GNSS observation files.

GrafNav™ software is extensively used in airborne mapping applications and trajectory re-construction as well as surveying. Both products provide statistical and graphical solution analysis and easy export of solution data into multiple formats.

For further information on the NovAtel® Waypoint Product Group™ products, please visit our web site at http://www.novatel.com/products/waypoint_pps.htm.

With the addition of the features listed the performance of certain Waypoint products is significantly improved and as such there are price changes forthcoming. Please check with your Sales rep or NovAtel® dealer regarding these changes. Software updates are available at no additional charge to customers within their support period. Please contact our customer service department at or your NovAtel® dealer for further information. A complete listing of NovAtel® dealers can be found at http://www.novatel.com/products/dealers.htm.

NovAtel announces release of Inertial Explorer 8.00

NovAtel's Waypoint Products Group is pleased to announce the release of Inertial Explorer version 8.00. Inertial Explorer is a powerful GNSS/IMU data processing package that provides an accurate position, velocity and attitude solution by combining raw GNSS observations with data from an inertial measurement unit (IMU). The program is receiver and manufacturer independent, so that data from virtually any GNSS receiver and IMU can be combined to generate an accurate solution. Inertial Explorer also easily integrates with NovAtel's real-time GNSS/INS product, SPAN, to provide a fully integrated GNSS-Inertial suite.

New features in the 8.00 release include:

Tightly coupled integration of the IMU and GNSS data for improved performance in challenging GNSS conditions such as urban canyons.
Improved API functionality for automated data processing
Improved processing and back smoothing of low or variable data rate inertial data
Support of ½ hour time zones for data export
Support of dual event inputs from the SPAN system
Better IMU data time gap analysis
Ability to utilize the OmniSTAR position from the SPAN BESTGPSPOS log in post-processing.

Software updates are available at no additional charge to customers within their support period. Please contact our customer service department with your four digit hardlock number(s) at or your Waypoint dealer for further information.

Customers wishing to upgrade from Waypoint's GNSS-only processing package, GrafNav, should contact their NovAtel dealer for pricing information. A complete listing of NovAtel dealers can be found at www.novatel.com/products/dealers.htm.

NovAtel Waypoint Product Hardware Key Policy Update

NovAtel Waypoint software packages including GrafNav/GrafNet, RTKNav and Inertial Explorer are securely controlled by hardware keys. The keys are either parallel port or USB type and control the features available in the software packages.

Keys that are damaged will continue to be replaced at no charge when the damaged key is returned to NovAtel. However, effective immediately, NovAtel will not provide discounts for replacement of keys that are lost. Purchase of replacement keys will be subject to regular pricing. Customers should ensure that their hardware keys are kept safe and are insured against loss in the same manner as any/all of their electronic components.

Now Available - GrafNav/Net™ 7.80

Release Date: March 2007
See a complete list of improvements for GrafNav/GrafNet v7.80.

Now Available - RTKNav Version 3.151

Release Date: June 2005

Changes for Version 3.151 Include:

Fixed problem in handling more than 12 GPS satellites
Added support for u-blox GPS receivers
Added improved support for reading and processing Waypoint GPB measurement files for "post-mission" processing
Features new Sentinel drivers for improved copy protection - note that KEYUTIL Version 7.50.0902 or later must be used when upgrading to version 3.151
RtkNav interface can be used to add customized commands to GPS receiver which accept ASCII command strings ie. NovAtel, Ashtech etc
MultiEngine Version 2.32 (included) incorporates the above features
WLOG version 3.21 logging software supports u-blox and Javad Glonass measurements
Added distinction between Ashtech G12 MACM and Ashtech DG16 MACM receivers during setup

New Geoid Files

March 2006
Geoid models in WPG format are now available for USGG2003, G99SSS and G99BM.
Please see http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/GEOID/ for information regarding these geoids.

An updated GEOID03 model for the continental USA that includes recent changes to the coastal Louisiana region can be found here. Note the original Geoid03 model is still supported. Geoid03 models for Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have also recently become available.

New Technical Reports

Note: See the following link for a full listing of Waypoint's technical reports. These reports present applications of Waypoint software packages. Click here to learn about GPS and for reports that do not directly involve the use of Waypoint software.

Static Precise Point Positioning Accuracy in GrafNav 8.10

Four days of data from five permanent GPS stations are used in this report to evaluate static Precise Point Positioning (PPP) performance in GrafNav 8.10. Results show that horizontal accuracies of 1 cm and vertical accuracies of 2.5 cm are achievable provided 24 hours of open sky, low multipath dual frequency GPS data. RMS and 95% results are summarized for 1, 2, 3, 6, 12 and 24 hours of data collection in order to give an overall impression of static PPP performance as a function of observation length.

Airborne Multi-Pass Precise Point Positioning in GrafNav 8.10

New to GrafNav 8.10 (scheduled for release January 2008) is an improved Precise Point Positioning (PPP) method referred to as Multi-Pass. Multi-Pass PPP improves kinematic PPP results by up to 40% as compared with results from the original PPP processor introduced in GrafNav 7.80. This report presents results from five aerial surveys processed in GrafNav 7.80 and GrafNav 8.10. For each flight the PPP solutions are compared with a high quality differential solution.