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What’s New: Article/advertisement by navigation receiver manufacturer Trimble discussing their cost effective (GNSS based navigation solutions. The thesis is that for a mass market such as autonomous vehicles will be, cost is the driving (no pun intended) factor for adoption.
Why It’s Important: We agree cost is incredibly important in the adoption of technologies. When adoption has numerous societal, environmental, and economic benefits, it is in the best interests of the country. Therefore, the government should do all it can to eliminate, or at least minimize, barriers to adoption, including cost. This means:
- Sponsoring research into many forms of navigation
- Sponsoring research to reduce equipment cost, size, weight, and power (C-SWaP)
- We understand that, at the moment, the total navigation system for autonomous vehicles fills a car’s trunk and then some. Reducing size as well as cost will be important going forward.
- Providing infrastructure and signals with no direct cost to users (as is the case now with GPS).
What Else to Know: Current government policy urges users to contract on their own for non-GNSS PNT.
