Why are scientists/people surprised when they find new exo-planets? Let's see, there are at least 200 billion stars in our own galaxy (possibly up to 400 billion), and it is 100,000 light years in diameter. The Milky Way has 5 spiral arms, our solar system is located in the shortest arm, and our capability to locate exo-planets barely extends outside our own spiral arm. The record find right now is 17,000 light years away. So we can only see planets in a very small percentage of our own galaxy, let alone the estimated "hundreds of billions" of other galaxies! The one star we know the best (our sun) has 8-9 planets circling it. I'd be more surprised if they didn't find planets around almost every star they look at!
There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the entire earth...
Lane level accuracy will have to come from embedded circuits in the roadway. Companies are already working on having an embedded IC's in the roadway reflectors that will tell your car which lane it's in with much greater accuracy and integrity than GPS with any space based augmentation system can. As the prices drop on the integrated circuits to pennies per, this technology becomes more viable. Of course your car's computer system will use both GPS/SBAS and the roadway sensors in tandem to achieve greater accuracy/reliability.
I wanted to point you to our FAA website showing the near-realtime performance of the WAAS/GPS system. WAAS already provides error corrections for ionospheric interference as well as satellite clock and ephemeris corrections to any user tracking the WAAS geosynchronous satellite. GPS III and the corresponding L5 civil frequency will remedy this issue for users with capable receivers, but a GPS III constellation is decades away. Almost all of today's commercial receivers are WAAS capable.
We have been studying GPS and WAAS performance including ionospheric activity effects for over 14 years in this office, through a solar cycle maximum and minimum. Our quarterly reports have entire sections dedicated to ionospheric study. I look forward to the increased accuracy, etc GPS III will provide 20 years form now, but I feel you neglected to mention that WAAS (and other SBAS) provides a lot of this functionality in the present to the majority of users in the world.
http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov/
Space
Based
Augmentation
System
(Include WAAS, GAGAN, EGNOS, MSAS)
A WAAS capable receiver will work with any of the SBAS's and vice versa.
Slashdot Mirror
Why are scientists/people surprised when they find new exo-planets? Let's see, there are at least 200 billion stars in our own galaxy (possibly up to 400 billion), and it is 100,000 light years in diameter. The Milky Way has 5 spiral arms, our solar system is located in the shortest arm, and our capability to locate exo-planets barely extends outside our own spiral arm. The record find right now is 17,000 light years away. So we can only see planets in a very small percentage of our own galaxy, let alone the estimated "hundreds of billions" of other galaxies! The one star we know the best (our sun) has 8-9 planets circling it. I'd be more surprised if they didn't find planets around almost every star they look at! There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the entire earth...
I know I'm splitting hairs here, but FYI, any GPS position is calculated using trilateration, not triangulation.
Lane level accuracy will have to come from embedded circuits in the roadway. Companies are already working on having an embedded IC's in the roadway reflectors that will tell your car which lane it's in with much greater accuracy and integrity than GPS with any space based augmentation system can. As the prices drop on the integrated circuits to pennies per, this technology becomes more viable. Of course your car's computer system will use both GPS/SBAS and the roadway sensors in tandem to achieve greater accuracy/reliability.
I wanted to point you to our FAA website showing the near-realtime performance of the WAAS/GPS system. WAAS already provides error corrections for ionospheric interference as well as satellite clock and ephemeris corrections to any user tracking the WAAS geosynchronous satellite. GPS III and the corresponding L5 civil frequency will remedy this issue for users with capable receivers, but a GPS III constellation is decades away. Almost all of today's commercial receivers are WAAS capable. We have been studying GPS and WAAS performance including ionospheric activity effects for over 14 years in this office, through a solar cycle maximum and minimum. Our quarterly reports have entire sections dedicated to ionospheric study. I look forward to the increased accuracy, etc GPS III will provide 20 years form now, but I feel you neglected to mention that WAAS (and other SBAS) provides a lot of this functionality in the present to the majority of users in the world. http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov/ Space Based Augmentation System (Include WAAS, GAGAN, EGNOS, MSAS) A WAAS capable receiver will work with any of the SBAS's and vice versa.