CPS and Logica partner under Galileo — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^{Faster positioning for Europe} CPS and Logica partner under Galileo

16 Oct 2005 at 15:00 GMT Timo Poropudas

Cambridge Positioning Systems Ltd (CPS) and LogicaCMG have joined forces o drive mobile location technology and applications development for the multi-billion dollar Galileo satellite program. The project, dubbed Application of Galileo in the Location-Based Services Environment (AGILE), aims to promote adoption of global navigation satellite services for both enterprises and consumers. The partnership will focus first on the development of trial systems for European network operators, based on the integration of CPS’ Matrix software technology with LogicaCMG’s Location Enabled Server. The project will create a detailed development roadmap for precise positioning up to the launch of the first Galileo satellites, scheduled for 2007. LogicaCMG is already working on four Galileo-related contracts worth more than 6 million Euros. The European Union (EU) is driving Galileo to provide an alternative to the Pentagon-controlled GPS network and tap into growing demand for satellite communications services. Several countries outside of Europe, including China and India, have already signed up to work on the project and use the system once commercial. CPS announced its Enhanced Global Positioning System (E-GPS) for urban areas earlier this year. This combines satellite positioning with the company’s established Matrix technology to deliver high accuracy location technologies for both indoor and dense urban areas where satellite technologies face major performance challenges. CPS says E-GPS provides faster location fixes than standard GPS — a critical factor in the take-up of mobile data applications. The integration of CPS’s Matrix location technology enables any handset or device to be rapidly located to an accuracy of less than 100 meters in GSM — and less than 50 meters in W-CDMA networks. This data will speed up finding more accurate satellite based position.