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NAVSOP Navigation System Rivals GPS

Posted by samzenpus on from the never-lost dept.

dangle writes "BAE Systems has developed a positioning solution that it claims will work even when GPS is unavailable. Its strategy is to use the collection of radio frequency signals from TV, radio and cellphone masts, even WiFi routers, to deduce a position. BAE's answer is dubbed Navigation via Signals of Opportunity (NAVSOP). It interrogates the airwaves for the ID and signal strength of local digital TV and radio signals, plus air traffic control radars, with finer grained adjustments coming from cellphone masts and WiFi routers. In any given area, the TV, radio, cellphone and radar signals tend to be at constant frequencies and power levels as they are are heavily regulated — so positions could be calculated from them. "The real beauty of NAVSOP is that the infrastructure required to make it work is already in place," says a BAE spokesman — and "software defined radio" microchips that run NAVSOP routines can easily be integrated into existing satnavs. The firm believes the technology could also work in urban concrete canyons where GPS signals cannot currently reach."

11 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Doesn't sound that accurate by rossdee · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If its just using signal streangth then there are going to spots in cities or other cluttered terrain where it could be innaccurate. It would be ok if there is no terrain to interfere.

    1. Re:Doesn't sound that accurate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      TFA isn't much help, but I imagine the interference in cities is exactly why this can be accurate: Each position's pattern of signals and signal strength is going to be unique.

    2. Re:Doesn't sound that accurate by EdIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Each position's pattern of signals and signal strength is going to be unique

      Unique at that moment in time. I change the wireless in my building and the signature changes. Wireless carrier changes something on a mast and the signature changes.

      This can only work if you have a DB of precise locations of wireless signals. Even assuming that is viable, it cannot replace GPS as is.

      Personally, I think we need less technology to pinpoint where we are. Trading convenience for security and privacy and all that.....

    3. Re:Doesn't sound that accurate by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Personally, I think we need less technology to pinpoint where we are. Trading convenience for security and privacy and all that.....

      As a privacy and security freak I disagree. The problem is not location accuracy. It is information leakage. There are all kinds of great things I can do with my own location info. The problem is all the devices that gleefully hand over my location info to 3rd parties who wish to exploit it for their own benefit.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    4. Re:Doesn't sound that accurate by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Use a real GPS unit with no broadcast capabilities and you don't have that problem.

    5. Re:Doesn't sound that accurate by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Use a real GPS unit with no broadcast capabilities and you don't have that problem.

      And you also won't have the benefit of having a computer able to access your location data either. Seriously, that's a non-answer. We easily have the ability to do the right thing. Giving up on doing anything sophisticated just because there are groups who want to abuse it too is basically the historical definition of luddism.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    6. Re:Doesn't sound that accurate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All true. Right now the only "safe" GPS devices are those which have no capability of being connected to anything. It doesn't have to be that way. In-car navigation systems could be designed to not reveal your location to anybody except you. They could have a button on the dash that says "transmit my location" if you want to use the services of a central office. The car could only transmit that data itself in case of an accident, assuming of course you gave it permission in advance to do that. You could have a phone or computer app that would tell YOU where your car is instead of some central monitoring station, and YOU alone could have the ability to disable your vehicle, which would be appropriate since you'd be the only one who knows where it is.

      Also, your smartphone could easily keep logs of "I told your location to X at these times during the day" and other such sensitive data like that. Everybody likes to use phone logs against people, why can't we use them FOR people for a change?

      All of this is possible, but nobody seems to build it. I wonder why that is?

      For now, remember that if your device can act intelligently on your location, it can and probably does do so for someone else's purposes too. If there is a microphone that you don't have a physical plug or off switch to, somebody besides you can turn it on and off. Your modern conveniences might provide some convenience for you, but they are VERY convenient for law enforcement on fishing expeditions, private investigators bribing system operators, etc.

    7. Re:Doesn't sound that accurate by Dishevel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The same kind of privacy you can expect when you yell something out in public.
      None.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
  2. Relying on third party wifi inspires confidence. by nzac · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sure in an open area the signal strength from broadcast and third-party location services is fine but so is GPS.

    But in an urban environment these are not accurate signal strength is only loosely proportional to inverse square of the distance so any accuracy will utterly break down. I can't see them having the money investing on getting a location DB for coverage outside major cities meaning you have to ship an unusable feature to most of the population.

    The firm believes the technology could also work in urban concrete canyons where GPS signals cannot currently reach.

    This will only work by regularly updating a database of local signals by driving down these roads and walking around areas. You might get the reliability for a consumer device but SDR like this can hardly be cheap, small and low power.

    Possibly they have algorithm to make this manageable but i would think installing purpose built transmitting devices at every street corner would be a better option.

  3. Re:Made in Britain, not for the rest of the world by aXis100 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wow, how short sighted.

    They're not trying to replace GPS - it's to augment it when GPS doesnt work. If you have a receiver with both systems you are far more likely to have one of them work, because most of the obstructions for GPS also go hand in hand with the availability of other networks.

    Sure it might not work in the middle of the outback, but GPS generally will so it's not the target market.

  4. Re:Made in Britain, not for the rest of the world by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So your sole criterion for something being completely useless is that it doesn't work 3 hours north of Perth? I look forward to your input when the next article on deep-sea submersibles comes along.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.