Sept/Oct 2005

As the official 2007 launch date for Europe's Galileo navigational satellite network draws closer, UK-based tracking and location specialist Cambridge Positioning Systems has been selected to contribute to the development push behind it.

The company has been appointed by LogicaCMG, a UK-based international consultancy already heavily involved in the programme, to help promote advanced location-based services using the new system.

Galileo is Europe's answer to GPS, the American satellite-based navigation network. It will use its own fleet of satellites, and will be interoperable with GPS and Russia's comparable GLONASS system.

Cambridge Positioning Systems (CPS) will now play a role in the AGILE programme (Application of Galileo in the Location-Based Services Environment). This aims to foster widespread adoption of global navigation satellite services for both enterprises and consumers.

 

CPS is already well established on the global stage as a developer and provider of tracking and location technology, and earlier this year launched an enhanced global positioning system (E-GPS) product that combines GPS location technology with its own Matrix system. CPS says it works indoors, is faster than standard GPS, and is accurate to within 100 metres or better.

Matrix is CPS's branding for a form of location system built round GSM cell-site location techniques. It uses Enhanced Observed Time Difference (E-OTD) to work out the location of a GSM phone by triangulating the timing signals from the three nearest GSM transceivers. An attraction of the CPS approach is that it is all done in software.

CPS is now to develop products using LogicaCMG's own Location Enabled Server, and will focus on the development of trial systems for European network operators. LogicaCMG is already working on four Galileo-related contracts worth more than 6 million euros.

The Galileo system is a joint project of the European Commission and the European Space Agency, and is due to have 30 satellites in orbit by 2010. It should be able to offer location accuracy to within 1 metre.