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US GPS, EU Galileo to Work Together

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Jul 16, 2007 02:13 PM
from the eightsevensixfivefourthreetwooneblastoff dept.
Communications Hardware
saintory writes "The US and EU are in talks to allow their separate GPS systems to work together. The future uses would allow enhanced location information based on two readings, among other benefits. 'The market probably will drive dual-use receivers. We think probably that single (U.S.) GPS-specific, or Galileo-specific receivers — the market will phase out in time [...] It just doesn't make sense to limit yourself to just one system'."
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[+] Science: Europe's Galileo Program In Serious Trouble 403 comments
elrous0 writes "Various news outlets are reporting that Europe's Galileo program is facing a serious financial and technical crisis and may be permanently stalled. The European program, designed to be a superior answer to the US's GPS — and, more critically, not controlled by the US — has faced numerous hurdles since its inception. To date the Galileo program has succeeded in launching only one of its 30 planned satellites and has been beset by delays and cost overruns. Apparently, squabbling between the eight companies in the consortium behind the project is responsible for many of the problems. The project is now threatened with an EU takeover. But some doubt that even an infusion of EU capital can save the flagging program."
[+] "Pathfinders" Take Shape For Galileo, Europe's GPS 105 comments
oliderid sends along a BBC report on progress toward Europe's home-grown GPS system. The Galileo concept will get an initial test via four "pathfinder" satellites that will be the first in the Galileo constellation. Galileo is intended to be complementary with the US GPS system — when all 30 Galileo birds are flying, a receiver with both GS and Galileo capability should enjoy 1-meter positional accuracy, vs. the several meters available through GPS alone, according to the article. There's a video tour of the facility where the pathfinders are being built. "After all the wrangling, the delays, and the furor over cost, Europe's version of GPS is finally starting to take shape. Due for launch in pairs in late 2010 and early 2011, the 'pathfinders' will form a mini-constellation in the sky. They will transmit the navigation signals that demonstrate the European system can become a reality."
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  • RAIGPS (Score:5, Funny)

    by markov_chain (202465) on Monday July 16 2007, @02:17PM (#19879731) Homepage
    Redundant Array of Inexpensive Global Positioning Systems

    I like the way that sounds!

  • How very... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Xeth (614132) on Monday July 16 2007, @02:18PM (#19879749) Journal
    ...refreshing. Seriously, I've gotten rather sick of the acrimony that seems to be building across the Atlantic. It's nice that people see this as a chance for better technology (at least in some respect) rather than pure nationalistic chest-thumping.

    • Re:How very... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by moosesocks (264553) on Monday July 16 2007, @02:44PM (#19880017) Homepage
      This is especially promising, considering that the US used to intentionally degrade its own GPS signals available to civilians, for fear that it'd be used by "terrorists".

      The only thing this did was to piss off a lot of legitimate users, including the FAA and the Military when the available supply of Military GPS units dried up.

      Also, a very modestly inaccurate GPS signal isn't going to deter a terrorist. Rather, it's going to encourage him to build a bigger bomb, which would result in considerably more collateral damage.

      • Re:How very... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Iphtashu Fitz (263795) on Monday July 16 2007, @03:02PM (#19880219)
        The only thing this did was to piss off a lot of legitimate users, including the FAA and the Military when the available supply of Military GPS units dried up.

        Don't forget the US Coast Guard, who developed the Differential GPS system for boaters. It consists of a series of ground-based stations throughout the US that receive GPS signals then re-broadcast a "fixed" signal that DGPS receivers can then use for a more accurate fix. I always thought it was pretty ironic (and laughable) that one branch of the military would degrade GPS and then another branch of the military would remove that error specifically for civilian use.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by SnowZero (92219)
        That's a great argument for seven years ago, but selective availability is ancient history now.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by TooMuchToDo (882796)
        The signal was not degraded because of "terrorists". It was degraded to prevent the use of GPS by an enemy to guide/navigate a rocket-propelled weapon across a continent to a target with precision accuracy. This is also the reason consumer GPS devices have an upper limit on the speed and altitude information they can provide:

        http://www.gpsinformation.net/main/gpsspeed.htm [gpsinformation.net]

        Defense department regulations prohibit standard consumer GPS receivers from functioning above 60,000 feet and 999mph (simultaneously). Most GPS receivers seem to set hard limits at EITHER 999mph or 60,000 feet.

        However, this is all a moot point. The defense department has the ability to selectively degrade the civilian signal in certain geo

      • If you go digging through my post history, you can probably find out which side I'm on, but in this case I meant across in the same sense as a bridge is built across the water.
      • Yes, that's exactly what I was talking about, thank you.
      • I need to correct you on something.....the DoD and US Government think they own the world. Technically, with the military power we have, we kind of do rule the world, but most American's don't hold this attitude. It's only the attitude of our leaders and unfortunately it's almost always the lesser of two evils. No one's perfect.

        With that said, I think it's a good thing to work together on having a very good global positioning system.

      • Misguided or not, the missile shield is not intended to divide you. If you want to argue that will be an unfortunate side effect, that's one thing, but if you seriously believe that it's part of a strategy of divide-and-conquer, then I truly think you're putting motives in there that don't exist.

        Now, assuming that you merely meant that it would be an unfortunate side effect, you also should realize that Poland and the Czech Republic dearly want us to put the missile shield in their countries (or at least their governments do). I'm not arguing that's a sufficient reason to do so - I'm just pointing out that we're not imposing this on them. They want it. This came out quite strongly after Putin suggested that it be put in Azerbaijan instead, if the goal was truly to protect Europe from a Middle East attack.

          • I'm just reporting what's been in the news. I definitely wasn't say it was a good idea - I was just trying to clarify the context around it.

            OTOH, playing devil's advocate, a missile shield would (theoretically) stop missiles coming from a terrorist group were they to acquire one. It would presumably not be meant to stand alone but rather be part of an entire well thought out system (stop giggling). You could scan for dirty bombs at the border, have great devices for detecting pathogens, make your airline passengers fly naked, but none of that will stop a missile coming towards your country any more than a missile shield would prevent the discreet release of poisons into the drinking water.

      • You are incredibly ignorant of history if you think Russia was ever going to be Europe's friend. I trust that you are not representative of the citizens of the EU in your intense lack of knowledge of the historical forces that have pushed Russia to clash with the West. Whatever you think of the States, any person with any sense would be damned glad to have some defensive and offensive measures in place against a Russia reborn. The Bear is not your friend, not your ally, and since the EU seems remarkably

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by megaditto (982598)
              You make some interesting points, though I am not sure how they support your claim that Russia is not a European country.

              For example, you call Russia expansionist (presumably because of the Crimea & Siberia invasions) yet you do not consider the massive Brittish, French, Spanish, and the Dutch colonies all over the World; hell, the US of A used to be a British colony, does that make the UK non-European?)

              You mention some wars that evidently make Russia an outsider, yet when I look at how many conflicts t
      • The U.S. is not a trustworthy ally?! Western Europe would have fallen under communism after WWII if it weren't for the U.S. Perhaps you might have been ok with that outcome.

        When the U.S. was a fledgling power in the world, it tried to isolate itself from the dominate European powers at the time. The isolationist strategy ultimately failed. I suggest you re-consider history.

        • The U.S. is not a trustworthy ally?! Western Europe would have fallen under communism after WWII if it weren't for the U.S.

          Nah, Western Eurpoe would have lost entirely, and fallen under NAZIism instead.

  • I hope these two combined work better than GPS alone, because I've used GPS quite a bit and have resorted back to map and compass more than once. Between poor reception in mountainous terrain or during bad weather or while in the woods and bad information from the satellites I've pretty much given up. Heck I've seen readings that were more than 100 miles off! And this was not a single device. We had a Magellan with WAAS and a Garmin with a powered external antenna and both gave absurd readings while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail even when they had access to 5 or more satellites.
    • Yeah, sure. But once in a while you get this nice warm glow when the GPS unit tells you that you have hiked 123.45 miles in the last six minutes.
      • I've used a Timex GPS device during my runs for several years now, and I've never had it be that far off, but there have been occasions where I've managed to pull a 2-minute mile. I've just assumed that the GPS training has been very effective. ;)

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Typoboy (61087)
      I've used my Garmin GPSes (several models over the years) in various places around the world. I know some GPS boards I have used will give spurious results on a cold or warm start, but once they have stabillized, I haven't seen it "100 miles off". Sure, better reception would help, but I don't think it is quite so broken.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gsfprez (27403)
      poor recievers and position on your part does not constitute a problem with GPS on the operator's part.

      and besides - how does adding additional signals to your already shitty location change anything? If you've got bad multipath problems or narrow FOV problems, more satellites isn't going to change anything.
    • How old are your GPS receivers? I use headless (no display) SiRF III-based receivers that sell for under $70 and they work indoors where my older, expensive Garmin units don't, and rarely give a fix less accurate than 30 feet. And that's with the built-in patch antennas.

      I think Garmin's new handheld units (the GPSmap 60CSx I'm sure of) use the SiRF III chipset. If you're going to carry a GPS receiver for backpacking, get one of those, carry a couple extra sets of lithium batteries, and you're set. I still recommend carrying topo quads and a compass, just in case. Also, bring a ruler along and make sure you understand how to plot GPS readings on the map by hand. It's really not that hard, and a 7.5" quad beats a tiny GPS display any day.
      • Yes, civilians get a downgraded signal. That still doesn't explain why he was getting a reading 100 miles off course from where he actually was. Especially when he's picking up 5 different satellites. You probably shouldn't get an error over 100 metres let alone 100 miles.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by SnowZero (92219)

        And commenting on the article, if Galileo and GPS don't sync up thier clocks directly, I don't see how it will work.

        Of course you can combine them; It's just a question of how much additional information you can get. Worst case is that you have to treat them separately until the position is calculated, and you then combine the two independent readings, which should about halve the variance. That's nothing to sneeze at, and wouldn't require any information at all about relative clock skew. In the best case however, a device could track the long-term clock skew between the two systems (which should stay nearly fixed) b

  • I'm sort of underwhelmed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Control Group (105494) * on Monday July 16 2007, @02:34PM (#19879909) Homepage
    International cooperation is a good thing. And it's nice to share a standard frequency.

    But I also think this is nothing more than a recognition of reality. Unless they deliberately enforced licensing restrictions preventing it, I'm quite sure the market would have provided a dual-system device very shortly after Galileo was operative.

  • US ability to jam .... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gstoddart (321705) on Monday July 16 2007, @02:36PM (#19879923) Homepage
    Where does this leave the US ability to jam the GPS signal whenever they wanted?

    I thought the reason that Europe wanted their own satellites is that the US basically reserved the right to scramble the signal whenever they wanted, and the EU didn't want to be beholden to US technology. If they broadcast on the same frequency, does this make it easier or harder for the US military to degrade the signal when they wish?

    Is this a good thing in terms of assuring access? Or is this a backdoor for the US to exert more control over it? TFA is vague on that point. It would kinda suck if all they've done is water down the reasons they had for wanting to do it in the first place

    Cheers
    • The scrambling affects only the US satellites, and I'm pretty sure that the signal itself also says from which satellite it is from. So you could conceivably ignore the data from the NAVSTAR-GPS satellites, and use just those from the GALILEO satellites.

      • The scrambling affects only the US satellites, and I'm pretty sure that the signal itself also says from which satellite it is from.

        But, if they broadcast on the same frequency, couldn't they set theirs to just transmit crap on all channels and muddy the signal or lie about which satellite is actually transmitting? [ I'm not asserting this is true, I know very little about the mechanics of satellite transmissions ]

        Cheers

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Rich0 (548339)
        Basically the GPS unit transmits what it thinks the time is, and where it is (this is somewhat simplified - I'm sure there is more to it in reality).

        When you get signals from 3 satellites you look at the differences in times between them. There is only one point on the earth that has the precise time differences corresponding to the data available. Due to error there is some error in the calculated position, which decreases as you get more satellite data.

        Now, the GPS transmits the time in the clear, and i

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by russotto (537200)

          When you get signals from 3 satellites you look at the differences in times between them.

          Four, actually. You have four unknowns (x,y,z,t). You can do it with 3, normally by assuming an altitude of 0.

          Now, the GPS transmits the time in the clear, and it also transmits it encrypted. Currently both streams transmit the same data, so military and civilian units are equally accurate.

          However, in time of war intentional error can be introduced into the cleartext time data - making civilian GPS receivers inac

  • I thought the whole point.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by saibot834 (1061528) on Monday July 16 2007, @02:39PM (#19879959) Homepage
    And I thought the whole point in Galileo was to be independent of USA's mercy. The US can turn off GPS at any time they want. The EU don't want to be dependent on the USA and so they build their own system.

    Now perhaps this story refers to times when both Galileo _and_ GPS are working. Would that increase the accuracy so that both systems together are more effective? I don't really think so. I don't think that Galileo (which has an accuracy of 0.1 meters afaik) can be enhanced by some GPS satellites (which has an accuracy of 15 meters). They are way too old, the GPS satellites (at least, most of them).
    • The article is referring to 1) times when both systems were working, and 2) to the next-generation version of GPS (the planned-for-2013 Block III satellites).

  • GPS/GLONASS combo receivers available now. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Animats (122034) on Monday July 16 2007, @02:42PM (#19879983) Homepage

    Receivers that use both GPS and GLONASS satellite signals have been available for years. Maxim just announced a new receiver chip [gpsworld.com] which receives both and only costs $2.95 in quantity, so that capability is likely to become more available.

    GLONASS was in bad shape after the USSR tanked, but new GLONASS satellites are being launched again, and the constellation is currently about half populated. As of today, 11 GLONASS satellites are functioning, 5 are down, and one new one is being brought into position. 24 operational satellites are a full set.

    The earlier GLONASS sats only had a two year design life, but the latest models have a 7 year design life, and they're going for a 10-year model. They launch a new batch every December, so they're starting to catch up.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by TooMuchToDo (882796)
      Hopefully, GLONASS will come back into full service one day (it's always good to have options, right?):

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLONASS#Current_statu s [wikipedia.org]

      As of May 2007, the system is not fully available, however it is maintained and remains partially operational. There were 11 operational satellites in the GLONASS system and one new satellite in its commissioning phase

      In recent years, Russia has kept the satellite orbits optimized for navigating in Chechnya, increasing signal coverage there at the cost of degrading coverage in the rest of the world. As of May 2007, GLONASS availability in Russia was 45.3% and average availability for the whole Earth was down to 30.5%, with significant areas of less than 25% availability. Meaning that, at any given time of the day in Russia, there is a 45.3% likelihood that a position fix can be calculated.

      In short, that's not exactly what I would call a "global positioning system"

  • One reason for this sudden cooperation is that the US might want to be in on the party when it comes to the EU plans to implement a tracking system for every vehicle on its roads. This intention is revealed in UK Department for Transport documents that show that a high priority for our GPS-based "road pricing" system plans is compatibility with European systems.

    Or it could be because Galileo is designed to be more effective in urban areas, which the US have taken to occupying recently.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Kadin2048 (468275) *
          I would tend to think that a GPS tracking system for cars would be land based like what ships and boats use out at sea. Doesn't require the same level of transmission gear and is pretty damned reliable. You could certainly track cars as I believe that is what onStar does here in the U.S. already. Of course I suppose nothing stops car manufacturers from putting the required gear to transmit to a satellite or five.

          What are you talking about, in terms of "like what ships and boats use out at sea"?

          A GPS receive
  • "..It just doesn't make sense to limit yourself to just one system.."

    No, what we need is like 500 different systems. Just like in the world of memory cards.

  • Launches? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rlp (11898) on Monday July 16 2007, @03:16PM (#19880395)
    Has ESA actually launched any of the Galileo satellites yet? Last I heard the program was having management and budget problems.

  • It's a military decision... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Etherwalk (681268) on Monday July 16 2007, @03:50PM (#19880773) Homepage
    Think about it. It's better to have both than one in case a GPS scrambler won't knock out the Galileo signal (once it exists.) It's probably worth spending a few thousand dollars more per tank for that kind of redundancy--accurate positioning information has made a huge difference in how well modern armies fight. Ipsa scientia potest est--Knowledge itself is power.

  • Military use (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Laxator2 (973549) on Monday July 16 2007, @04:20PM (#19881105)
    The GPS system is capable of being re-programmed such that it will give the wrong coordinates to all but the US military. If GALILEO stays independent and keeps giving the correct coordinates a significant advantage is lost. I don't think the US military will accept that, so the getting the systems to work together may very well mean they will give the same wrong coordinates should the US military want that. I don't see the Europeans oposing such a demand.

  • Cool (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jay L (74152) <jay+slashNO@SPAMjay.fm> on Monday July 16 2007, @04:53PM (#19881453) Homepage
    Now I won't have to switch from one system to the other on long drives.

  • power (Score:3, Insightful)

    by agurkan (523320) on Tuesday July 17 2007, @05:15AM (#19885623) Homepage
    Actually it makes a lot of sense to limit yourself to a single system when you realize reading more channels with multiple protocols require a lot more power. It even makes sense to limit yourself to 12 channels rather than 20 available, if you are really concerned about power. There are GPS devices out there that use previous generation chipsets because of power constraints.

    If they could somehow make the two systems act as one, and you could read a channel from one system with no extra power cost, then I agree that getting a fix from best available satellites and mixing-an-matching during the process is superior to limiting yourself to one system.

    • Stopped supporting Airbus? What are you talking about?
    • # 3 doesn't make much sense. If Europe actually puts together a working system, there will be, as you pointed out a large amount of red tape and argument about the running of it. Shutting it down, would take everyone involved cooperating together, which as you pointed out is unlikely and time consuming.
    • I was going to post something along the same lines. In typical EU fashion, the Galileo project has crashed before it even really started. What's new is that now the various companies involved cannot get agreements over who does what. Unfortunately I can't find websites that tell the story. Many big EU projects fail because everybody and his dog has to have a fair share of the work/profits/whatever. So first they spend forever bickering about how things shall be done, and then they come up with the most impr

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by 2Y9D57 (988210)
      This reply is so ill-informed, it's incredible. (That's it's, not its - illiterate as well.)

      1. GIOVE-A, the first Galileo test satellite, was launched on 28 December 2005 from Baikonur Cosmodrome. It transmitted its (not it's) first navigation signal on 12 January 2006 and began transmitting complete navigation messages (i.e. with ephemeris and clock performance data) on 2nd May this year. No Frigidaire (just a commercially available satellite bus), no amateur radio (although SSTL, who built GIOVE-A, got

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