Advances in GPS
Hopefully, what happened with the Internet will happen with the latest collaboration between Iridium Satellite LLC and Boeing. These two companies have developed improvements to the United States Naval Research Laboratory High Integrity Global Positioning System (GPS) program.
The Enhanced Narrowband (ENB) software has been released to modify Iridium satellites’ computers. This software allows for better and faster GPS positioning throughout the collection of Iridium satellites and is intended to improve satellite technology far beyond current abilities.
But, why is this technology being developed? Most of it has to do with military warfare. Soldiers will be able to obtain better GPS signals in mountainous regions, forested areas, canyons, or even where the enemy is blocking their signal or there are battlefield interferences.
Accurate GPS in the Toughest Positions
If you’ve ever used a GPS system, you know that certain areas can block signals or cause directions to be inaccurate. This improved system means that if one were lost in a canyon region, he would be able to immediately and accurately get updated position information. Imagine what this could do for the average consumer. For the moment, this is only available to the military. But, we can hope that it will be released to the American public in a few years.
The team of Boeing and Iridium has also released an improvement to moving vehicles. Basically, when a vehicle is moving and the GPS is being jammed, this new software release allows the vehicle to within a few minutes obtain a fixed position of where they are at. Made for the United States Air Force, this will improve navigation, provide better signals to the vehicles, allow for better accuracy of that position, and improve the vehicles ability to locate their position even if their signal is being blocked. The idea is to use Iridium's lower Earth orbit satellites to rebroadcast the GPS signals so that it reaches the ground level equipment.
This new GPS system is not likely to be implemented before the major upgrade of the constellation in 2014. Right now, this is just a patent, and the hardware has not been released.
Boeing and Iridium
Boeing is very familiar to many people, but Iridium is less known despite the fact that they provide global mobile satellite services, including voice and data service, to companies such as the Department of Defense and United States and other international government agencies. They are releasing new technologies all the time for their high-profile GPS customers.
Iridium/Boeing Partnership Bring Advances in GPS
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