This book constitutes an excellent source for understanding the basic operation of the Global Positioning Systems (GPS). It also allows the reader to take the first steps towards understanding how the Kalman Filter is implemented in the estimation of drifting parameters of the GPS. The "Kalman Filter Basics" chapter is preceded by a description of the different errors that affect the GPS signals. Furthermore, this book includes sections on the Wide-Area Augmentation System, Inertial Navigation, and Differential GPS, which enables the understanding of these concepts and thus, provides the reader an overall perspective of the Global Positioning System.
The book also includes a detailed explanation of the characteristics of the GPS signal, as well as the design of the receiver and antennas.
Finally, details on the mathematical operations included throughout the chapters, are explained in three (3) Appendixes. Overall, this is a great book for understanding the overall performance of the Global Positioning System, and the relevant aspects which it entails.
This is an application-oriented book, which as such, does not include detailed mathematical derivations. It does provide Kalman filter algorithms (on floppy and in text), but if one needs the theory of Kalman filtering behind these, one needs to use a Kalman filtering text, such as Kalman Filtering Theory & Practice Using MATLAB (Second Edition), Wiley 2001, by Grewal and Andrews. The latter book gives all of the methods in square root filtering algorithms and derivations and more. If the "Asian Reviewer" is most interested in Kalman filtering, he/she would be better advised to buy a book on Kalman filtering.
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