The NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) is a US Department of Defense system that allows users to determine their precise location (within 10-100 meters) at any point on the surface of the earth. It was designed in the late 1970s/early 1980s; after a prolonged period of deployment and testing, NAVSTAR achieved full operational capability in 1995.
Since NAVSTAR was designed, computer technology -- both hardware and software -- has improved dramatically. Processing power available is literally orders of magnitude greater now than in the early 1980s; telecommunications speed and reliability has improved dramatically; and object-oriented approaches dominate the software development process rather than the procedural orientation of the early 1980s.
The objective of this report is to consider a notional redisign of NAVSTAR using late 1990s Open Systems Environment (OSE) technology. The Opens Software Foundation's Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) methodology will be the design paradigm used. This report will focus on three views of the DCE methodology: computing, communications, and security.