The European Commission for Transport has presented officially in the past few days, the EGNOS system that integrates with the ubiquitous GPS and increases accuracy. With the use of EGNOS GPS location can reach an area of uncertainty of 2 meters and the possible practical consequences of such a technology is well imaginable.
Leaving the scenarios related to security and emergency EGNOS will be useful for civil aviation and for the most recent commercial applications already developed using the GPS system. According to spread by the European Commission will also be developed through EGNOS services oriented to security of the person which is offering the precision such as to overcome current limitations.
EGNOS is a system that offers to receivers that support this technology a correction factor to be applied to the figure recorded with GPS. EGNOS is devoted to European calls for the presence of some ground stations and computer centers are able to consider the factors of error which can afflict the position carried with GPS alone. To determine the risk of error is compared with the position determined with GPS coordinates of the station was certified.
The error detected is analyzed by some computer centers in order to determine a correction factor dedicated. In the evaluation of error are considered various factors including the orbits of GPS satellites, measurement of time (the basic element for the determination of the GPS fix) and the error introduced by the ionosphere. This last element is what affects predominantly on the quality of localization is of particular complexity also varies within a few hours and also from a geographical area to another.
The parameter correction developed by the computing centers is sent to individual GPS receivers with EGNOS support technology using 3 geostationary satellites. Moreover, on most modern GPS tracking devices for outdoor reception of the EGNOS signal is confirmed by an appropriate symbol represented on the display.
