More Accurate GPS System Paves the Way to Commercial Driverless Cars

A new car navigation system developed by researchers at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in Spain may soon pave the way to driverless cars with GPS that’s up to 90 percent more accurate than systems used today. Additionally, it would make navigating in urban areas with tall buildings and trees more easy as GPS signals from satellites will not get obstructed by urban structures.

CNET reported that the way the system works is that it will use GPS signals–like conventional in-car navigation systems today–and couple that with sensors that are embedded inside cars, such as accelerometers and gyroscopes. This will help the navigation system reduce the margin of error from 50 feet to 6 feet as well as improve location delivery when there is a loss of signal, such as going under a tunnel or in urban settings.

Theoretically, many high-end modern smartphones today already have the GPS radio, along with the accelerometer and gyroscope sensors embedded, so the improved navigation system can also be brought over to connected tablets and smartphones as well. Along with the correct software algorithm that can predict where the user will be if there is a loss of signal based on acceleration and gyroscope movement, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid’s research can also make it easier for anyone who owns a smartphone to navigate.

“Future applications that will benefit from the technology that we are currently working on will include cooperative driving, automatic maneuvers for the safety of pedestrians, autonomous vehicles or cooperative collision warning systems,” the team said.

As more apps on phones become dependent on location–from Facebook check-ins to navigation and mapping to looking up local POIs and potentially location-based advertising–