A Look Back In Time 2023

This website has undergone an extensive overhaul in its mode of presentation. After years of being on the "back burner" the content will likewise receive modifications or deletions of outdated material, updates of existing material, plus additions absent until now because of other high-priority activities. Updating and addition has been a work in progress; this blog introduces some of the more important areas -- which I should have put somewhere on here earlier.  Several external URLs (e.g., at zine sites that hosted columns I wrote) were subsequently changed, causing broken links, requiring correction. Admittedly the repairs haven’t been made often enough.

In regard to comments, trackbacks, link swap offers, etc. — I can’t keep up with deletions of all the extraneous ones. The only way to avoid being overrun is to disallow everything from outside from this point forward, with the contact page as the only exception. Spammers have “won” too many battles of this type, I realize, but administering penalties they deserve is a responsibility beyond my reach. The goal here, as always, is to provide useful info to those with an interest in areas where I’ve been privileged to work.  An added observation: It may not be “SEO-friendly” to include, among blogs, tributes to individuals who have passed on. Nevertheless, I do that in special cases; giving credit where credit is due matters more.

A number of things I've advocated for decades are beginning to look possible. The main reasons for optimism include the following developments:  

* Morton, J., Parkinson, B. W., Spilker, J. J., and van Diggelen, F. (Eds.),   Gao, G. + Lo, S. (Assoc. Eds.), "Position Navigation & Timing technologies   in the 21st Century", Wiley-IEEE 2020 was published near the end of 2020.   After a quarter century the above second edition can replace the 1996 book -- also co-edited by father-of-GPS Brad Parkinson. Chapter 46 Part 2  contains   my formulation + program + in-flight results for GPS/inertial integration. 

* https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/epr2020010/  and  https://saemobilus.sae.org/content/EPR2020010/ are links for a 2020 report  I put together with contributions from nine top experts. With the subject of unsettled topics in air traffic management it makes a compelling case   for several fundamental changes, long overdue for Air Traffic Control.  It addresses eight facets of ATM: Flight operations; Robustness/Resilience;   Data validation; Data sharing (communications); Integration-vs-federation;   Guidance strategies; Man/machine interface; Administration/coordination.

* At three National Advisory Board for satellite navigation meetings, in   2015 https://www.gps.gov/governance/advisory/meetings/2015-06/farrell.pdf,   2018 https://www.gps.gov/governance/advisory/meetings/2018-05/farrell.pdf,  2021 https://www.gps.gov/governance/advisory/meetings/2021-12/farrell.pdf,   I discussed how those topics relate to safety.

* Safety takes center stage in my cover story for this year's first issue  of InsideGNSS (January/February 2023). Among references cited therein are   more detailed accounts of the relevant items and their history.  

* After 40 years I received a written apology with a request (that I granted)   to forgive a completely unjustified deception. Details will follow at a   later time, but the issue was related to a video Antennas in Tracking Radar   on this website (which cites another recent video, also directly relevant,   on Air-to-Air Tracking).

* To that list I'll add breakthrough work on infrastructure early warning,   based on evidence from gradual changes in shape that precede collapse.   https://www.jameslfarrell.com/videos "Morphometrics for Early Warning"   describes successful application of my 3D shape program to other operations   (medical imaging and earthquake alert). Significant opportunity awaits.