Superaccurate GPS Chips Coming to Smartphones in 2018

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
Broadcom announced that it is sampling the first mass-market chip that can take advantage of a new breed of global navigation satellite signals, giving the next generation of smartphones 30-centimeter accuracy instead of today’s 5 meters. Even better, the chip works in a city’s concrete canyons, and it consumes half the power of today’s generation of chips.

The chip, the BCM47755, has been included in the design of some smartphones slated for release in 2018, but Broadcom would not reveal which. All GNSS satellites—even the oldest generation still in use—broadcast a message called the L1 signal, which includes the satellite’s location, the time, and an identifying signature pattern. A newer generation broadcasts a more complex signal called L5 at a different frequency in addition to the legacy L1 signal. The receiver essentially uses these signals to fix its distance from each satellite based on how long it takes the signal to go from satellite to receiver.
 
This is not a good thing.

I'm not particularly happy that the telcos, Google, Apple, any government or black hat that wants to can find me with an accuracy of 15 feet. Giving them the ability to determine whether I'm on the john or in bed, which seat I'm in at a restaurant, and so on sounds like a bad thing, and I have no need for the extra accuracy. Most people don't. It's just something our minders want.

I won't buy a cellphone with the enhanced accuracy, as long as that's possible.
 
pcgeekesq said:
This is not a good thing.

I'm not particularly happy that the telcos, Google, Apple, any government or black hat that wants to can find me with an accuracy of 15 feet. Giving them the ability to determine whether I'm on the john or in bed, which seat I'm in at a restaurant, and so on sounds like a bad thing, and I have no need for the extra accuracy. Most people don't. It's just something our minders want.

I won't buy a cellphone with the enhanced accuracy, as long as that's possible.
Click to expand...
While I understand the reluctance to give up even more personal information, unless they go the Apple route and "off" doesn't actually mean "off," you could just turn off location services and be done with it, right?
 
Krenum said:
Great.....bad enough I get alerts on my phone asking me if I'm here or there whenever I pass by the place while driving.
Click to expand...

No kidding. I turned this off in Android Oreo and it never stopped. The setting is set to not ask for reviews, etc, but unless I turn off Location services it won't stop. Unfortunately I need Location on for my Fitbit to sync.
 
Echoes is not the biggest problem of GPS signal in urban canyons. It's the fact that you simply cannot see a big enough part of the sky to track enough satellites. On a typical day there are about 7-11 satellites visible all the time, but that's for the entire sky. So in an urban canyon you're down to 4-5 at best.
Your echo elimination process is only useful if you have a direct signal, if not how does the system decide that even the first signal is not an echo? Well you cany using DGNSS, but that's survey grade. So in an urban canyon you'd be lucky to get a fix even with survey grade equipment, of which the cheapest starts at about $5000.

So I'm confident pinpoint accuracy from GPS in an urban area (or a building) will still be the stuff of movies.
 
M76 said:
Echoes is not the biggest problem of GPS signal in urban canyons. It's the fact that you simply cannot see a big enough part of the sky to track enough satellites. On a typical day there are about 7-11 satellites visible all the time, but that's for the entire sky. So in an urban canyon you're down to 4-5 at best.
Your echo elimination process is only useful if you have a direct signal, if not how does the system decide that even the first signal is not an echo? Well you cany using DGNSS, but that's survey grade. So in an urban canyon you'd be lucky to get a fix even with survey grade equipment, of which the cheapest starts at about $5000.

So I'm confident pinpoint accuracy from GPS in an urban area (or a building) will still be the stuff of movies.
Click to expand...

I think having the secondary signal on each visible sat makes it possible to get acceptable accuracy in a city even with only 3-5 in LOS. It's on two different freqs, both still coded for ID/pos/timestamp of the sat, so no risk of mistaking the first signal for the second per sat (or from other sats), and corroborating the signals per sat lets the receiver more easily determine echos on a particular freq. Get three or four sets of these signals, you can start to tell the user where they're at with some confidence.

TL;DR: It has the same effect as doubling the amount of visible satellites. Maybe not pinpoint millicunthair accuracy for urban use, but still more than good enough for street navigation in that environment.
 
Would like to see the L5 signal eventually make its way to Garmin running watches. Needed there more than smartphones IMHO.
 
auntjemima said:
No kidding. I turned this off in Android Oreo and it never stopped. The setting is set to not ask for reviews, etc, but unless I turn off Location services it won't stop. Unfortunately I need Location on for my Fitbit to sync.
Click to expand...

I temporarily switched to Android from iOS and I quit syncing via phone and switched to using Fitbit on my iPad. On iOS it doesn't need access to location so why the fuck does Android dictate the need for location....

Not a fan of this within centimeters stuff.
 
I think the adde accuracy is nice. its not like cell phones manufactors does not allow you to disable GPS and wifi.... oh wait....
 
Mohonri said:
While I understand the reluctance to give up even more personal information, unless they go the Apple route and "off" doesn't actually mean "off," you could just turn off location services and be done with it, right?
Click to expand...
LOL. You think you control your cellphone? You think the telcos, and through them governments and hackers, can't activate any feature on your phone they want, whenever you want, without your knowledge or consent?
 
This is great news for our mobile application. Now we can place objects a lot more accurately on the map. It's going to be a huge help for marking cable trenches etc. where earlier you needed a special GPS device.
 
pcgeekesq said:
This is not a good thing.

I'm not particularly happy that the telcos, Google, Apple, any government or black hat that wants to can find me with an accuracy of 15 feet. Giving them the ability to determine whether I'm on the john or in bed, which seat I'm in at a restaurant, and so on sounds like a bad thing, and I have no need for the extra accuracy. Most people don't. It's just something our minders want.

I won't buy a cellphone with the enhanced accuracy, as long as that's possible.
Click to expand...


You read the Unabomber Manifesto didn't ya? It's OK to come out.

Speaking of Manhunt, yes, we say wooder. Though as a Philly area local, I can still pickup on Sam Worthington non-Philly accent.
 
Last edited:
Croak said:
I think having the secondary signal on each visible sat makes it possible to get acceptable accuracy in a city even with only 3-5 in LOS. It's on two different freqs, both still coded for ID/pos/timestamp of the sat, so no risk of mistaking the first signal for the second per sat (or from other sats), and corroborating the signals per sat lets the receiver more easily determine echos on a particular freq. Get three or four sets of these signals, you can start to tell the user where they're at with some confidence.

TL;DR: It has the same effect as doubling the amount of visible satellites. Maybe not pinpoint millicunthair accuracy for urban use, but still more than good enough for street navigation in that environment.
Click to expand...

The Survey grade equipment I'm using uses L1, L2, and L5 signal as well as RTK correction, with additional inertial aiding and still can have 50cm inaccuracy in canyons. So no, I don't buy 30cm in urban canyons with L1 and L5 alone.
 
LOL at the peeps that don't think their telco can't override anything at anytime. If I really don't want anyone tracking me I just don't take my phone. You can live without your phone, right?
 
Parents might find extra comfort in knowing where their kids are with more accuracy.
 
hell wheres my 5 meters of accuracy.. my gps on my phone is a friggin joke.. shows me 3 streets over from where i actually am and then randomly starts running off to no where at twice the speed i'm going as i'm driving down a street..
 
Krenum said:
Great.....bad enough I get alerts on my phone asking me if I'm here or there whenever I pass by the place while driving.
Click to expand...

the other weekend me and the wife were out and about exploring new places. we stopped at this nice hotel on a lake to check it out, get prices.. etc. i get home and pull up google maps and goto the place.. google maps tells me my last visit to the place was today

i was like WTF?? i hadnt even used my phone while there, it was simply on and in my pocket. so now location services are turned off on my samsung. doing that also got rid of all those damn prompts to take a pic when at certain places.. that was annoying.

Now when i really need maps on the phone, just enable location services, then when done disable. thankfully its right on my phones "home" screen

another annoying thing was i booked a room and got the confirmation notice in my gmail account. since then.. when i bring up chrome i get ads for that EXACT hotel when ads pop up on certain sites

how.."helpful" of them

seriously .. its down right creepy and scary just how much they track on people nowadays
 
I don't mind.
It's really simple. If you want to visit your pot plantation or the secret bunker you're digging in the middle of the woods, just place your phone in a baggie and leave it behind until later.
In all other scenarios we're all sitting duck anyhow. CCTV, stalkers (not the cheeky breeky ones), aliens - it's already happening whether the accuracy is 20 feet or 20 inches. Y'all have guns for a reason.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rahh
like this
Remember when the US government was worried about PS2's being sold, because they had the computational power to guide missiles? Well, this tech in theory could be used to do the same... but way more accurately. How odd that perceptions change so drastically.
 
BloodyIron said:
Remember when the US government was worried about PS2's being sold, because they had the computational power to guide missiles? Well, this tech in theory could be used to do the same... but way more accurately. How odd that perceptions change so drastically.
Click to expand...
All the GPS chips out there (or at least the US ones) aren't allowed to operate above a certain speed or altitude, to address this specific issue.
 
thebufenator said:
Who forgot their tinfoil today?
Click to expand...
heh, it must be nice to still think that the feds can't remote access phones and track your every move and every piece of metadata that comes out of your digital fingerprint.
 
bucket said:
What happened to keeping near-military grade accuracy out of the hands of civilians?
Click to expand...
They added requirements that consumer GPS doesn't work over 60,000ft and 1,200mph effectively making it useless for targeting missiles, which is what the gov was afraid of in the first place.
 
extide said:
They added requirements that consumer GPS doesn't work over 60,000ft and 1,200mph effectively making it useless for targeting missiles, which is what the gov was afraid of in the first place.
Click to expand...
Is that an absolute boolean function?

It would be more effective if it's was an or statement rather than an and statement.

A - 1200MPH & 60k FT ASL (Both has to be true in order for GPS function to cease)
B - 1200MPH or 60k FT ASL (Only one has to be true in order for GPS function to cease)

Do you know whether if it's A or B? I certainly hope B. Clearly this only applies to Civilian Grade GPS. Military Grade GPS is an entire different matter.
 
Consumer grade GPS has too large of an error radii due to the slow response intervals, so it wouldn't be fast enough for a missile system anyhow. You need extremely high speed accuracy for integration into a RTOS for it to work, and even then it is quite a challenge. This is most likely why North Korea just fires missiles at random, crashing them all over the place.
 
Jon855 said:
Is that an absolute boolean function?

It would be more effective if it's was an or statement rather than an and statement.

A - 1200MPH & 60k FT ASL (Both has to be true in order for GPS function to cease)
B - 1200MPH or 60k FT ASL (Only one has to be true in order for GPS function to cease)

Do you know whether if it's A or B? I certainly hope B. Clearly this only applies to Civilian Grade GPS. Military Grade GPS is an entire different matter.
Click to expand...
It's B. If either condition is met, the GPS module won't work. So the people who like to do high-altitude weather balloons and such have to go through special channels to get devices that will work that high, even though they're not moving very fast at all.
 
pcgeekesq said:
LOL. You think you control your cellphone? You think the telcos, and through them governments and hackers, can't activate any feature on your phone they want, whenever you want, without your knowledge or consent?
Click to expand...

michalrz said:
I don't mind.
It's really simple. If you want to visit your pot plantation or the secret bunker you're digging in the middle of the woods, just place your phone in a baggie and leave it behind until later.
In all other scenarios we're all sitting duck anyhow. CCTV, stalkers (not the cheeky breeky ones), aliens - it's already happening whether the accuracy is 20 feet or 20 inches. Y'all have guns for a reason.
Click to expand...

Exactly this. Not sure why people are so worried about tracking. You're being tracked anyways without your damn phone in the cities regardless. What do you care if Google or Apple knows where you are? The Government already does without your phone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top