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Location based service accuracy improved by Galileo

Rebecca | June 3, 2014

Tests performed by Rx Networks Inc. and the European GNSS Agency (GSA) have confirmed it.

In a joint effort, a mobile location based service and technology company, Rx Networks Inc. and the GSA have tested the performance of Galileo with respect to its use when combined with GLONASS and GPS and have now released a report that reveals the outcomes of those tests and their measurements.

The tests conducted by the organizations were conducted within real world environments.

These included in indoor environments as well as in urban canyons. These types of environment traditionally pose considerable challenges to location based service accuracy as a result of the obstructions that they present to satellites, as well as because of multipath views. Each of the tests that were conducted were made up of a data capture of GNSS signals that ran for three hours. This was replayed later on in order to generate hundreds of fixes through the use of a STMicroelectronics multi-constellation GNSS receiver.

What it found was that location based service fixes were notably better with Galileo.

Location based service test When Galileo was used in combination with one or more additional GNSS constellations, then there is a considerable improvement to the accuracy of location fixes when compared to the results obtained through the use of GPS on its own. This was particularly true in urban canyons and indoors.

At the same time, combining GPS and Galileo did not provide better results than combining GPS and GLONASS, but this was expected as there were only four Galileo satellites available to the testers at that time. The prediction of the researchers is that as the number of Galileo satellite launches increases, the combinations between GPS and Galileo will be able to offer a greater improvement in performance.

The GSA head of market development, Gian-Gherado Calini discussed this location based service accuracy performance test and said that “Dual-constellation GNSS designs are the standard for many smartphones and other devices. The combination of GPS and Galileo provides a robust solution and is expected to offer performance that will meet or exceed end-user expectations.” The Rx Networks senior vice president of sales and marketing, Adrian Stimpson, added that GNSS chipset manufacturers should feel that the results are “encouraging”.

Geolocation indoors is the next big game for Google, Apple, and eBay

Denny | October 24, 2013

New data is showing that many of the industry giants are making location based progress.

According to some of the latest information that has been released by ABI Research, a number of industry giants – including Google, Apple, and eBay – are placing their focus on making considerable moves into the realm of geolocation and its many possibilities.

Though this is not necessarily anything new, it is the fact that they are taking it indoors that is drawing attention.

To start, the estimates by ABI Research have suggested that the geolocation indoor market will be worth more than $4 billion by 2018. This was revealed in the quarterly Location Technologies Market Data which is issued by that agency. It provides a measure of the adoption of indoor geolocation technologies, mapping, as well as businesses that are making their way into this particular space.

By the end of next year, the overall market of geolocation technology installations will be greater than 25,000.

Geolocation - Google, eBay and Apple This, according to the ABI Research data that was released in the report. It also pointed out that smartphones that are capable of supporting indoor geolocation technology will have reached the hundreds of millions over the span of the next two years. The result is that virtually every major company will have begun to take considerable steps into this sphere.

Patrick Connolly, an ABI Research senior analyst, stated that “Apple’s new A7 co-processor coupled with the acquisition of WifiSLAM highlights indoor as a priority.” He went on to say that “Both Apple and eBay have announced support for dedicated BLE beacons, a technology that is set for a huge 2014 as major IC and device OEMs make it widely available.”

Connolly also explained that Google is maintaining an expansion of geolocation based indoor mapping and that it has been discussing some of its intentions for this technology quite openly at I/O. He also added that it isn’t just the smartphone manufacturers that are involved in this technology, as there have been four large AP providers (Motorola, Cisco, Ruckus, and Aruba) that have acquired business within this space. He noted that it was interesting to find that Nokia had held its own indoor and mapping capabilities, showing that this was being viewed as a region in which considerable future growth was possible.