Professor Washington Yotto Ochieng, Chair in Positioning and Navigation Systems, Department of Civl and Environmental Engineering presents his inaugural lecture “Of the earth and the heavens: towards seamless positioning”.

In the Chair: Professor David Potts, Deputy Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London

Vote of Thanks: Professor Paul Cross, FRICS, FRAS, FRIN, FIMA, ChMath, FInstCES, Professor of Space Geodesy, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London

A pre lecture tea will be served in the Senior Common Room, Level 2, Sherfield Building from 16.45.

Attendance at this lecture is free with registration in advance: l.brown@imperial.ac.uk.

Abstract: Today, the Global Positioning System (GPS) is a universally accepted tool for positioning and timing in support of a wide range of applications including multi-modal transport navigation, engineering dimensional control, synchronisation of telecommunications networks, geodetic survey, and asset management. However, the route to getting to this stage has not been easy requiring significant investment in research and development. Furthermore, problems such as limited or no signal reception and error modelling still restrict access to full GPS performance in difficult environments. The resolution of these problems should open the way to the realisation of the dream of positioning for everyone and everything, everywhere and all the time. The lecture starts with the limitations of GPS, and takes the audience through a journey over the last 18 years to improve the performance of GPS through augmentations, integration with terrestrial systems and spatial databases, and advanced user positioning algorithms. The lecture concludes by making the case for the continued collaboration between the earth and the heavens. Specifically, the lecture looks forward to novel terrestrial radio-positioning and sensor technologies and the new signals from modernised (GPS) and new space based systems (e.g. GALILEO and Compass), and how these could contribute to the eventual realisation of high performance, affordable seamless and ubiquitous positioning.

Biography: Washington Ochieng was promoted in 2007 to a Chair in Positioning and Navigation Systems in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London. Prior to joining Imperial in 1997 as a Lecturer, he was Principal Engineer at Racal Electronics Plc having joined from the Universities of Nairobi and Nottingham where he undertook his BSc and, MSc and PhD studies respectively. He has carried out leading research on GPS measurement error modelling, design of new Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) including GALILEO and augmentations to GPS, novel terrestrial positioning systems, systems integration and user receiver/sensor algorithms. Prof. Ochieng is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and the Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors. He is also a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and the US Institute of Navigation. He was a member of the team that successfully designed the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) and previously served on the management committee of the Canadian GEOIDE research network of excellence. In May 2009, he was named by the GPS World Magazine among the global GNSS Leaders to watch.