UK-based defense firm BAE Systems has developed a new positioning system named Navigation via Signals of Opportunity (NAVSOP) that could complement — or even replace — current technologies including GPS, global positioning system.
The firm believes the new device that picks up the available signals locally while relying on medium wave radio frequencies could work in places where GPS signals cannot currently reach.
Navsop relies on similar signals used by cellphones, radios, Wi-Fi routers and TVs instead of navigation satellites to deduce positioning.
The technology then grills the airwave for the ID and the signal strength of local radio signals and digital TV as well as air traffic control radars using finer grained adjustments that originate from cellphone masts and Wi-Fi routers.
According to BAE Systems, this is because in any given location, the radio, TV cellphone and radar signals tend to be at constant frequencies and power levels as they are intensely regulated making it easy to “deduce positioning.”
Navsop could be used in situations where the sat-nav system were turned off, or help find victims trapped inside debris of collapsed building or during fire. The technology can also help locate stolen vehicles hidden in underground car parks, BAE Systems says.
At present, BAE Systems’s prototype is a big box-like hardware installed in the back of one of the developer firm’s cars. The car sports a radio antenna on its roof. The firm however says, once out on the market, Navsop will be as tiny as “a GPS dongle – a bit smaller than a coin.”
Experts say GPs signals that come from satellites spinning around the Earth, some 12,400 miles (20,000km) away, have been heavily used by aviation, telecommunication, agriculture and shipping industry hence calling for a backup system in case the GPS fails.
According to BAE, since radios, TVs and mobile phones use more powerful signals than navigation satellites — as they are broadcast from fewer kilometers away and hence cannot be jammed – Nasvop uses them instead.
BAE Systems has however been reluctant to disclose the exact date the device would launched in the market. “But in principle, it could be used by countries developing other sat-nav technologies,” it says.
Presently, countries, including Russia with its Glonass, China with its Beidou or Compass, are developing systems that could complement the GPS. European Space Agency and the European Union are currently developing Galileo.
