The GPS universe in a box, a visit to ACR

I’m still on the road, friends, now in Ft. Lauderdale, and this afternoon I got an eye-opening tour of ACR’s production and R&D facility. I saw a lot of impressive stuff in terms of engineering, testing, production techniques, and new products (that I can’t write about just yet), and was particularly intrigued with that somewhat odd looking box above. It is a Spirent GNSS simulator, able to mimic the entire constellation of GPS satellites. The Windows control application below lets the tester see exactly what the GPS receiver in the “oven” should be receiving, then stress it by degrading the simulated system, even introducing extreme meteorological conditions. Given that ACR is challenged to build GPS units that start cold in very unfriendly environments, this has got to be great tool toward improved performance.