GPS, Galileo sat-nav system back on the map, said to be 'up and running' by 2014
By Ross Miller 
posted January 10th 2010 11:03AM
posted January 10th 2010 11:03AM
Remember Galileo, Europe's proposed GPS-like satellite navigation system? It's back in the headlines, and according to the Telegraph, UK-based Surrey Satellite Technology and Germany's OHB System have jointly secured €566 million (that's $815 million in US currency) to build 14 more satellites. The funding continues until 2013, whereby 22 satellites will be order. Full satellite navigation requires 27, and ultimately the European Union wants 32 technological waypointers. Launch date? Apparently 2014 -- we're hopeful, but this road has been wrought with delays before.
Exciting stuff.
Sorry, but uh, what's wrong with GPS?
@(Unverified) Galileo is more accurate than GPS. Plus the Europeans want to be independent from the US controlled GPS system.
@(Unverified)
It's not that accurate, especially in the cities and it's also difficult and/or slow to get a "fix" sometimes. The article mentions GPS can be off by 10 meters, while this one should be accurate to within less than a meter.
GPS also eats battery a lot, but I don't know if this will get improve with Galileo.
@(Unverified) : GPS is controlled by the USA army, with all its strategic consequences, has limited precission (even less when used for non-military purposes) and, well, it is not European =). Galileo will be open, mainly.
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for explaining it. :)
@WilliamTM Owned by the American military who can close it whenever they choose.
@Endadget You're exaggerating Galileo's likely features. Galileo will have four levels of service. Of those, two will be commercial available: Open Service, and Commercial Service. Commercial Service will offer a very high degree of accuracy,
@WilliamTM
Switching to Galileo shouldn't necessarily improve battery life. The way devices get their GPS fixes is essentially one way communication. The satellites ping out a very accurate timing message and the device uses that to triangulate precisely where you are. This is why more satellites are better! The timing is so precise that it takes general relativity into account to provide accurate enough timing signals.
Your devices then spits out something called an NMEA string (or similar standardised string) which contains all the information you'd expect (lat, long, time, altitude). This string is regardless of device and so whatever system you connect to, you should get one of these out. (makes hobbyist systems a hell of a lot easier!)
Sooo, switching to Galileo shouldn't be more battery conservative because it's still essentially taking in a signal and triangulating it. If anything it'll drain more battery life because it's go to do more calculations to get the more accurate fix - bear in mind a lot of current hardware is Galileo compatible too so it's not on new gear, either.
They used to have 'selective availability', which caused deliberate errors to deny enemies access, but clinton ordered that turned off and the air force/pentagon says that future GPS doesn't even have that ability anymore, it's just too risky when so much important stuff relies on GPS to mess with it, also the pentagon developed measures to make it hard for enemies to use it in conflict areas it seems.
Point being that the pentagon doesn't have all that much choice anymore and can't just turn it off without causing major disruptions and economic impact making it next to impossible to go that road.
@WilliamTM
The Europeans want a system that isn't owned by the US military and could potentially be turned off . GPS has a feature called Selective Availability which enables us to degrade the signal or completely turn off reception to non-military receivers in certain geographic areas.
Secondly Galileo is newer and will provided higher precision which for people like me who uses for work is really important.
@WilliamTM
Also, Galileo will use 2 different freuencies that will allow the base station to calculate atmospheric distortion better. The GPS too has 2 frequencies, but only for the military.
The biggest boon from Galileo has been that it has forced US to modernice GPS to include multifrequency signals for civilians too, in near future.
@WilliamTM
Yup. Technically speaking, there is nothing wrong with GPS, but for civilians, it has some inaccuracy built in to it. But, I do not believe the regular/free service level of the Galileo system will have super accuracy.
Also, I don't think it is operated by the Army, but rather by the Air Force. But it is DoD property at any rate.
I would welcome competing systems. Nothing wrong with some competition for such a technology. It's not like the US makes any profit whether more or fewer people use GPS anyway.
@Janos89
Galileo(G) isn't more acuurate than the GPS in existence. Why not? Because Galileo isn't operational and won't be for another 5 years.
In that time there will be normal upgrades to the current GPS improving accuracy etc. Meantime the original Galileo may have been watered down somewha,t re numbers of sats etc,. to save on costs.
There have been a joint meeting between the EU and the USA regarding piggy backing both systems to give one overall better service.
The EU and the USA have an agreement that in a war situation they would contact each other b4 considering "switching off" either system and if the decision were to be made BOTH systes would be either degraded and/or swtiched off as necessary.
Also I am unsure whether the EU has finalized the allocation of all the funding necessary as private placements failed leaving only the EU budget to pick up the bill 100%.
Galileo, (Galileo), Galileo, (Galileo), Galileo Figaro
Magnificooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!
I use to do a lot of car testing in some far flung places in the UK and whenever we got pretty close to certain Ministry of Defence land and US listening stations / air bases, the satnav reception would just suddenly drop out completely. All a bit freaky and a bit annoying, especially if it was the airbase that you were trying to find!
(I'm sure this will still be the same with Galileo system too)
@Rod
Most likely, that is due to locally broadcasted signal jamming - meaning, its not from the satellite, but from a broadcast station near or on the base that will jam certain frequencies.
Success of a GPS system is measered by how effectively it can guide vehicles into river, tree and such.
@Sunil GPS only gives you a position not a map . Blame map makers and GPS receiver manufacturers and the idiots that blindly follow them. Would you follow a paper map into a river ?
My GPS works well, though it's probably helped alot by a-GPS
the article says "...whereby 22 satellites will be order."
what? is anyone proofreading?
Why not give that money to third world countries in Africa? Isn't the current technology good enough as it is?
@dedparrot You're probably right, Mugabe could use some more flowers and such for his 86th birthday celebration... It's right around the corner, you know
@dedparrot
What a nice suggestion, but wouldn't it be much better if US military made GPS an really open system and give the UN control over it?
@dedparrot Giving money to Africa = Giving money to arms dealers.
Foreign Aid keeps corrupt African governments in power.
@yakill GPS wasn't created to be a public service.
@yakill The UN? Why? So they can spend way more money and time than necessary to make it absolutely useless and ineffective?
@alex98 Agreed about foreign aid.
@alex98
"In 1983, after Soviet interceptor aircraft shot down the civilian airliner KAL 007 that strayed into prohibited airspace due to navigational errors, killing all 269 people on board, U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced that the GPS would be made available for civilian uses once it was completed."
But it was before it was even completed, so it's always been. It's just that consumer level technologies didn't catch up until the late 90's.
@dedparrot Are you European? If not, you have no say in how we use OUR money. Go spend your US tax dollars on ANOTHER war is all I can say to your suggestion on how WE use OUR money! Hahaha!
@(Unverified)
Who the hell said he was American. Aside from Hollywood, most people could care less about Africa. We have enough problems to take care of at home.
@THizzle7XU
He's american alright, censors himself like crazy.
@yakill
While they're at it they could also enable the uber-secret "Rainbow mode" which would beam rainbows to anybody worldwide who is crying.
aren't we all DONE in 2012? I hope the Mayans are wrong ;-)
@Faslane66
yes, the Mayans are wrong. They did not learn their maths properly. Some of them have become Citibankers.
@Sunil : oh thank god, errr. Rather the Mayans!! Lmao citibank.....killin me! ;-)
Don't you mean fraught with delay and not wrought? ^^
@foxdougan Way to go, Mr. Diction-Maven. We were all *thinking* it but you said it perfectly.
if Candians ask EU to accept them will Brusel say yes ?
Many of you guys have your facts about GPS wrong. The limitations on civilian GPS units were taken away a decade ago by Bill Clinton, in 2000. And if you look at the bottom of this article, you'll see that the current inaccuracy is + or - 3.5m for a high grade commercial device. And GPS III will be coming out soon which will be even more accurate.
http://www.kowoma.de/en/gps/errors.htm
And anyway, with Galileo, the high accuracy capabilities will be limited to commercial and government use only, GPS is unrestricted for everyone. So the only advantage to Galileo is that it is not controlled by the US Gov.
GPS IIF: $39M each. Galileo: $58M each. I guess the US doesn't suck at everything. It's surprising that Galileo got more funding, as their primary revenue - selling encrypted keys - was broken. http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/13/galileo-gps-system-hacked-at-cornell/