Block III GPS can even find small change
By Lee Rickwood, Whatsyourtech.ca January 24, 2012
You can find a quarter, or track the person holding it.
That's how precise new global positioning satellites will be. More accurate than ever, they'll be able to track people's positions within a metre or less. Current consumer-use satellites manage about three or so metres.
The new GPS system will also be able to get a better fix on people who are indoors, in urban canyons or under forest canopies (places that can impact current tracking capabilities).
It's all part of what's called Block III (more formally, as the GPS III NonFlight Satellite Testbed), and a three year roll-out by Lockheed-Martin and the U.S. Air Force of some 32 new and improved satellites.
Block III GPS satellites will begin replacing older orbiting GPS satellites in 2014, part of a $5.5 billion upgrade, which will improve the accuracy of both civilian and military GPS worldwide.
More accurately called the PPS, or Precise Positioning Service, the military system is reserved for the U.S. Department of Defense and its authorized partners; the civilian system is called Standard Positioning Service, or SPS.
The accuracy of the SPS or civilian GPS system used to be intentionally degraded, for security purposes.
That's apparently not the case anymore, as accurate geo-location ability can bring economic and social benefit.
Calgary-based Hemisphere GPS (www. hemispheregps.com), for example, uses accurate GPS in agriculture, marine, construction and other applications.
Existing GPS devices will work with the new Block III satellites, so there seems to be no need to buy new devices.
The new system is designed to improve interoperability between consumer and military GPS, as well as among the systems used by different countries.
It may be called global, but Russia has its own (called GLONASS, or global orbiting navigation satellite system); China is building up its own system, too, called Beidou.
Beidou also has a civilian and military mode; the civilian transport is accurate within 10 metres, and it can record speed with a 0.2 metres-per-second error margin.
Then, there's a Japanese system which is said to boost GPS accuracy to less than two centimetres, even when travelling in a car at some 80 km/h.
So more accurate directions, for motorists and pedestrians, will be available from the new GPS. Tracking and wayfinding will be more accurate both indoors and out.
Users can enjoy and benefit from the added accuracy - as long as they know about it.
One company called Mobile Spy is making use of precise GPS tracking capabilities (www.mobile-spy. com) in its mobile phone product line. It promotes that it "runs in total stealth mode and no mentions of the program are shown inside the phone." As well, "it silently records logs of SMS text messages, call information, GPS locations, photos and other activities" and then the data is "silently uploaded to the user's private online account."
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