Slashdot Mirror
New GPS Standard Published
jeffy124 writes: "The Dept of Defense has released a new standard for GPS. The new standard will go into become available for use starting in 2003 when the first satellites are launched. Full completion is estimated to 2014. The new standard allows for greater horizontal accuracy of 36 meters instead of 100 meters, and also sets a new baseline for transmission protocols that circumvent ionic interference."
NOW, obviously for military usages. "The new standard allows for greater horizontal accuracy of 36 meters instead of 100 meters, and also sets a new baseline for transmission protocols that circumvent ionic interference" -- now this all wrong, SlashDot editors READ YOUR STORY, it clearly says - "DoD, as operator of the GPS, now provides civil users a horizontal positioning accuracy of 36 meters, compared to 100-meter accuracy in the previous edition of the standard, which was published in 1995. ". NOW, not in the NEW standard.
A civilian differential GPS reciever always was able to do better than what selective availabilty should have allowed. These units gave (and still give) accuracies within 15 meters or so. Given a Loran compensation reciever (used to pick up posititioning signals meant for boats), one can improve on this accuracy by using additional known transmitters located at ground-based reference points.
If you want "new" GPS units that were recently releaesd in the past year or so, look for units with the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). Implemented alongside with the FAA, these units rely on two additional satilite signals for an average accuracy of three meters.
Obligatory manufactuers links: Garmin's GPS description page and Magellan, another GPS supplier.
I read over a few of the links but not the full spec. Will this be backwards compatiable or will the current generation of GPS devices just use the old satellite constellation until it dies?
I can just see it now...All the new GPS applications being developed needing to be tossed.
Anyone have some details on this?
Also, as GPS becomes more and more important to the world in general, who is paying the bill? And what price do other countries "pay" if they rely heavily on GPS that is US controlled?
I don't mind the US being "humanitarian" but it's troubling to think that we will basically be custodians of what could eventually be the primary method of navigation for lots of things.
Suddenly sanctions against country X means that planes there can't fly, lost puppies can't be found, and GPS tied 911 type services fail.
On this side of the ocean, we are working on our very own satellite positioning system, Galileo, which will be accurate down to 3 meters (last time I looked). It will be all civilian, with several QoS levels - so hikers can get one level of reliability and airplanes another. Unlike GPS, the Galileo consortium will guarantee a certain level of accuracy, which should help in critical areas of operation such as airplane navigation. If there is an accident due to Galileo malfunction, the consortium will accept liability.
Also, since it's civilian, the military will not have a "Selective Availability" feature.
Score:-1, Wrong