GPS vs. Galileo; Where Are They Headed?

ben_ writes "This keynote speech from the recent European Navigation Conference talks about the history between the US military's GPS and the proposed EU Galileo system, as well as where they're both going. Interested in how you know where you are and what's going to happen to those satellites?"

Comments

Re:Maybe I missed something

[drunkahol]

Perhaps it's the bleating that the US forces did about the European system being available to "terrorists" unless the Europeans let the US forces govern the accuracy in certain areas?

It's not a military thing

[CynicalGeek]

You misunderstand the reason for Galileo. Europe is (mostly) inhabited by grownups, who do not need to prove their military superiority / penis size by arming against imaginary Belarussian invaders.

Galileo has a number of justifications:
- the GPS system is not warranted to keep working or be correct. No-one accepts responsibility if it fails (in civilian use). Mostly this doesn't matter, but for safety critical apps like aviation it matters a lot. Galileo will offer a paid-for service with a stability guarantee.

- hopefully, Galileo will offer increased performance, e.g. metre level accuracy, reduced power consumption, better urban receivability. This may be on a paid-for service - I'd pay a few dollars to get a GPS that runs for a month on a battery rather than a few hours.

- there is also scope for added value applications, e.g. traffic warnings