We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Chris Rizos has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the “Navigation and Positioning” Section of Sensors (ISSN: 1424-8220).

Prof. Dr. Chris Rizos is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a co-director of the Satellite Navigation and Positioning (SNAP) Lab at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). Professor Rizos’s expertise and research interests include:

• Modern geodesy technologies and applications as well as geospatial technologies in general;
• Technologies and applications of satellite-, wireless- and inertia-based sensors for navigation and positioning;
• GNSS for all classes of uses from geodesy to navigation;
• GNSS positioning infrastructure as well as geodetic and height datums in general.

Prof. Dr. Chris Rizos has been researching the technology and applications of GPS (and later GNSS) since the mid-1980s and has authored or co-authored over 650 journal and conference papers across the technological and scientific fields of geodesy, GPS/GNSS and precise navigation (a full list can be viewed at http://research.unsw.edu.au/people/professor-chris-rizos/publications).

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Chris Rizos, who shared his vision for the journal with us as well as his views of the research area and open access publishing:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?
The high quality of author contributions across a broad spectrum of topics that include electronics, signal processing, measurement modeling and processing, and applications associated with all types of navigation and positioning sensors and technologies. We are in an era where positioning information is increasingly used to support a wide range of navigation applications. Many critical defense, civil, professional and mass-market applications demand ubiquitous positioning. GNSS cannot, on its own, satisfy many of these requirements. This will spur the increased research and development of sensor technologies, which augurs well for the future of the journal as a place where researchers will be able to report on their work.

2. What is your vision for the Section?
That the “Navigation and Positioning” Section of the journal is the preferred option for publishing exciting work on new navigation and positioning sensor technologies as well as new developments in GNSS.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?
Extracting the maximum accuracy, availability and integrity from GNSS technology has been the primary driver for navigation and positioning research in universities and industry over the last several decades. Other sensor research has often been justified as addressing the need to “augment” GNSS when it cannot deliver the performance demanded by specific applications. In the future, we are likely to see accelerated navigation and positioning sensor development in non-GNSS technologies, including using signals from LEO satellite constellations, advances in inertial technologies, and new concepts for terrestrial range-based systems. These will complement GNSS in environments where GNSS cannot be considered the primary technological option, such as indoors, underground, underwater and in chaotic urban environments.

4. What do you think of the development of open access in the publishing field?
I am in favor of any innovations in publishing that provide universal and timely access to advances in engineering research.

We wish Prof. Dr. Chris Rizos every success in his new position, and we look forward to his contributions to the journal.