Quite some time ago, the European Union decided that they wanted a more accurate GPS system and one that didn’t rely on US only satellites. After much discussion the Galileo project was born which would consist of European satellites orbiting the world and providing a much more accurate form of GPS of within a few feet.
Last week a precursor to the Galileo project was successfully launched, called EGNOS (The European Geostationary Navigation Overly Service). It consists of three satellites, four control centres and about 40 positioning stations which combines with data from existing US GPS satellites to provide information which is accurate to six feet. This is compared to around 60 feet for the US GPS signal alone and thus is much more accurate.
Many of the major brands already have EGNOS support and should see marked improvements in terms of accuracy and subsequent GPS systems should have support for it too.
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