----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gizmodo: New Technique Makes GPS Accurate to an Inch
http://gizmodo.com/a-new-technique-makes-gps-accurate-to-an-inch-1758457807
------------ QUOTE ----------
GPS is an utterly pervasive and wonderful technology, but its
increasingly not accurate enough for modern demands. Now a team of
researchers can make it accurate right down to an inch.
Regular GPS registers your location and velocity by measuring the time
it takes to receive signals from four or more satellites, that were sent
into space by the military. Alone, it can tell you where you are to
within 30 feet. More recently a technique called Differential GPS (DGPS)
improved on that resolution by adding ground-based reference
stationsincreasing accuracy to within 3 feet.
Now, a team from the University of California, Riverside, has developed
a technique that augments the regular GPS data with on-board inertial
measurements from a sensor. Actually, thats been tried before, but in
the past its required large computers to combine the two data streams,
rendering it ineffective for use in cars or mobile devices. Instead what
the University of California team has done is create a set of new
algorithms which, it claims, reduce the complexity of the calculation by
several order of magnitude.
In turn, that allows GPS systems in a mobile device to calculate
position with an accuracy of just an inch. The research is published in
IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.
The team hopes that the new GPS units could be used where accuracy is
far more important that it was in the past. Autonomous vehicles is an
obvious application, where knowing exactly where the vehicle is on the
road is absolutely crucialbut it could be included in your phone, too.
-----------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Glenn
