GNSS Markets and Applications - Understanding GPS: Principles and Applications - page 660

compromise coverage and gain for small size and low cost. Reference stations utilize
antennas designed especially to mitigate multipath, while some military systems pre-
scribe an antenna with adaptive, multijammer nulling and beam steering capabili-
ties. There is quite a range of antenna sizes, shapes, and capabilities associated with
the myriad of GPS applications.

12.11 Financial Projections for the GNSS Industry

GPS and soon GNSS companies that make up the industry enjoy a growing demand
for their products and services. These companies vary from chipset providers like
SiRF to receiver suppliers like GARMIN and Trimble, to multidivisional and mili-
tary suppliers like THALES, Collins, Raytheon, and L-3 Communications. The
industry also includes the military suppliers of satellites like Boeing and Lockheed
Martin, payload suppliers like ITT, and control segment software and user equip-
ment developers. There are many opportunities for all of them, as every market seg-
ment is growing. Financial results for most of these companies are freely available,
as they are public companies with openly traded stock. Most are enjoying good
profitability from sales of GNSS receivers and other GPS products and services. In
January 2004, GPS World 's receiver survey listed 77 companies offering GPS receiv-
ers [23]. Whether or not all can develop and deliver new products successfully will
depend on various factors, including their abilities to:

• Accurately predict market requirements and evolving industry standards for
the GNSS-based applications industry they are addressing;

Anticipate changes in technology standards, such as wireless technologies;

•

Develop and introduce new products that meet market needs in a timely
manner;

•

Attract and retain engineering and marketing personnel and required capital
investment.

•

A major market determinate for all of these companies will be the deployment
schedules of modernized GPS and GALILEO. In the first instance, GPS IIR-M satel-
lites will transmit the new M code and L2C signals. Soon, the IIF satellites will add
L5. Sometime between 2007 and 2010, GALILEO signals should appear, opening
up still more possibilities for new products—but exactly when is still debatable.
These schedules are highly dependant on both continued, stable government fund-
ing and effective contractor performance to establish not only the spacecraft but also
the ground control environment that operates them. These are large, complicated
undertakings, so all projected schedules need be watched closely for signs of slip-
page. Companies jumping in too soon may find that their products cannot be sold,
as the signals they were designed to use are not yet available. In short, the next few
years are the critical ones that will determine just how accurate all the market
projections will turn out to be.
Currently, many companies are offering other GNSS products and services asso-
ciated with particular niches or application areas. A partial list includes accessories
such as car adapters, carrying cases, and earphones; antennas; antijam/interference