Better than GPS?

[theoleman]

The next-generation of deep-space GPS satellites has just reached a milestone -- but an even better, unjammable system is already available here on earth

Read more: Better than GPS? BAE navigator uses Wi-Fi, radio signals | Fox News

[jackj]

That was interesting. A whole article of "Works fine, lasts a long time" and not one word about how it works.

[msradell]

Originally Posted by jackj

That was interesting. A whole article of "Works fine, lasts a long time" and not one word about how it works.

Read the article! It basically just does the same thing as GPS just using a different signal source than satellites to triangulate off of. That's a basic description of how it operates. Anything else would be too technical for most people.

[eorange]

Originally Posted by jackj

That was interesting. A whole article of "Works fine, lasts a long time" and not one word about how it works.

Agreed. Doesn't sound like the system has a lot of road time, either.

[jim202]

One thing that wasn't said in the article is that in order to use these other signals, you need to know exactly where they are located. Sure you can put together a receiver to use these existing signals, but they are useless for triangulation unless their location is known to use for the location calculation of where you are.

Big problem I see is trying to identify the exact location of all these signals that they say can be used. That's the advantage of the GPS now. The exact location of each of the satellites is a known and from that you can calculate where you are.

Jim

[DickH]

Originally Posted by jim202

... they are useless for triangulation unless their location is known to use for the location calculation of where you are. ...

Not only that, but there are millions of signals out there using hundreds of different freqs. How many radios can receive all that?

[mm]

GPS uses Trilateration not Triangulation and what the article fails to mention is that anything can be jammed with the correct spoofing algorithms.

[gtaman]

I still like my GLONASS.

[jackj]

Originally Posted by jim202

One thing that wasn't said in the article is that in order to use these other signals, you need to know exactly where they are located. Sure you can put together a receiver to use these existing signals, but they are useless for triangulation unless their location is known to use for the location calculation of where you are.

Big problem I see is trying to identify the exact location of all these signals that they say can be used. That's the advantage of the GPS now. The exact location of each of the satellites is a known and from that you can calculate where you are.

Jim

If I'm reading the article right, the system doesn't need to know the location of the transmitter(s) it is using. I don't know how this system could possible figure out it's location without either timing pulses (as with GPS) or Tx location (for triangulation). There is a system, similar to radar, that uses unknown transmitters to plot the location of signal disturbances caused by the target aircraft but that wouldn't work for figuring out the location of the receiver.