December 22, 2011 By

Qualcomm gives you more accurate GPS position using GPS & GLONASS

All smartphones have GPS now, but those with GPS can access up to 27 satellites when in use, but in reality no more than about 4-5 are ever used because your phone can not access all the satellites due to your location.

A minimum of 3 is needed to get a good position and accuracy but the more the better and in built up areas and where more people are using GPS more demands are being put on the system so Qualcomm, the manufacturer of processors for smartphones have come up with a chipset that allows for a more accurate position to be gained using GPS and GLONASS, a Russian designed equivalent to GPS.

The Galaxy Note is one of the first UK devices to take advantage of GLONASS.

Therefore phones with the Qualcomm chipset will use either system and work together to determine your position.  Therefore you may have access to 2 GPS and 2 GLONASS satellites to give you your position where in the past you may have had 3 or 4 GPS satellites.

The following video explains how the technology works in plain simply English.  Well worth a watch and its is fantastic to see that even a mature system like GPS is still evolving.

Source: Qualcomm Via Androidandme

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About Jon

Constantly challenging opinions and looking for new opportunities, Jon develops the product ranges and business activities and very much strives to maintaining growth and taking Clove in to the future.

Never knowing when to stop, he spends too much time in the office! He's very organised; writes lists, reports, spreadsheets, you name it, he's on to it!! When he does relax, however, he can be found driving his pride and joy (his Range Rover Sport), walking his Dog, down the pub or at a local restaurant. He does too like the finer things in life and often lives beyond his means, only the best hotels will do.

Comments

  1. Bugblatter says:
    December 22, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    “…where more people are using GPS more demands are being put on the system…”

    Are they saying that the GPS system is under more strain because more people are using it? That’d be like saying the Crystal Palace transmitter is overheating because of all the people watching TV, and the Sun is having to work harder because of all the sunbathers. It doesn’t work that way (well the Sun newspaper does, but only if it’s a celebrity sunbather).

    It’s a bit ambiguous so perhaps they’re being vague rather than numpty-ish. No doubt this came from Marketing so it’s probably both.

  2. Herb says:
    December 23, 2011 at 12:11 am

    Come on… if you’re going to sell something sell it right. talk about redundancy, talk about faster lock speeds, etc…

    It really makes the GPS system sound like it hardly works.

    no more than 4-5 satellites? i regularly get the galaxy s2 to lock on to at least 8 satellites. sometimes even 10-11 when i’m on the road.

    I doubt you’d get a lock with just 3 satellites. My guess is that this mixed system would lock on to 5-8 gps satellies and perhaps a similar number of glonass satellites. sounds great.

    2 meters accuracy? dont get me wrong, its nice to see another system being used and all but has anyone heard of EGNOS and WAAS?? Its a shame most smartphones dont use it (AFAIK) but my navman satnav uses it and it gets better than 2 meters accuracy!

    props to qualcomm for sticking their head out there and using GLONASS!

    • Chris Ward says:
      December 23, 2011 at 9:50 am

      Thanks for your comment Herb, sounds like you really know your stuff when it comes to GPS. The SGS2 may be somewhat of an exception as it is one of the best handsets out there. Other handsets may not pick up such a good signal. Then again any new handset featuring GLONASS is likely to have GPS as good or better than the SGS2.