History of the Symposium

The Position Location and Navigation Symposium (PLANS) was established in 1976 by the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society, with the support of its Board of Governors. It has been the premier IEEE conference in the field of navigation and positioning systems. The first PLANS was held in 1976 in San Diego, California. Since that time PLANS has been held bi-annually in a variety of locations. In addition to San Diego in 1978, 1984, and 2000, these locations included Atlantic City, NJ (1980 and 1994); Las Vegas, NV (1986 and 1982); Orlando, FL (1990); Monterey, CA (1992 and 2004); Atlanta, GA (1996); Palm Springs, CA (1998 and 2002); and Coronado/San Diego, CA (2006).

PLANS 2006 was jointly sponsored and organized by the IEEE and Institute of Navigation (ION). IEEE and ION will again jointly sponsor PLANS 2008, and both organizations are optimistic that the partnership will continue to provide superb quality and increased networking benefits to conference attendees. The PLANS 2008 conference will replace the ION’s 2008 Annual Meeting.

The technical program of each of the PLANS conference covers the full spectrum of navigation techniques, such as radio systems, satellite systems, inertial systems, multisensor systems, tracking systems, and integrated communication and navigation systems. The application areas have included navigation and positioning systems for both civil and military aviation, marine, land and space vehicles. PLANS has consistently attracted the technical leaders in industry, government and the user community.

In recent years, PLANS has further increased its emphasis on civil and commercial applications. Examples of these have included Air Traffic Management, GPS Wide Area and Local Area Augmentation Systems for civil aviation (WAAS and LAAS), the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) positioning requirements for land vehicles, Kinematic Surveying techniques and Precision Agriculture and Construction.

A unique feature of the IEEE/ION PLANS meeting is the availability of technical papers to attendees via the conference website at the beginning of the meeting. The papers presented at PLANS technical sessions have been recognized for their high quality, have represented the most recent innovations, and have served as major references in the field.

Each PLANS Conference has sponsored a number of excellent tutorial seminars prior to the conference. Tutorial topics reflect recent advances in the technologies and systems of interest to engineers working in the field of navigation and positioning.

A highlight of past PLANS conferences has been the presentation of the prestigious Kershner award to outstanding contributors to the field of navigation sensors and systems. These have included the true pioneers whose innovations have found long-time and world-wide use. The ION’s Annual Awards and Fellow awards will also be presented at PLANS 2008.