The European Space Agency (ESA) explained a few days ago that Galileo’s capabilities had increased with the incorporation of a new High Precision Service, freely available throughout the world to anyone with a properly equipped receiver (smartphone).
The High Precision Service, which offers a horizontal accuracy of up to 20 cm and a vertical accuracy of 40 cmis made possible by an additional level of real-time positioning corrections, performed via a new data stream within the signal Galileo this has made it ahead of GPS on its own ground.
Galileo satellites, for those who cannot locate them, are located in medium orbits, at an altitude of 23,222 km along three orbital planes, so that a minimum of four satellites are always visible to user receivers at any point of the earth.
for decades GPS has managed to be the world’s most accurate global navigation satellite system. And, although it is as accurate as Galileo is now, we cannot forget that the United States has disabled its use for the civil service, having the “improved version” exclusively for its armed forces.
Galileo is already the most accurate geolocation service in the world
The European Galileo system, which to date has a constellation of 28 satellites and a global terrestrial segment, is already the most precise satellite navigation service in the world, with an open service that offers precision on a scale of one meter, they say in their website.
The European Union and ESA partnered to develop Galileo, with ESA as technical authority, in 1993. So this year the Agency is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its first satellite navigation research.
How to know if your mobile is compatible and if you are using it
There is a lot of confusion here and it is really easy to solve the doubt: if your mobile is compatible with the GPS satellite system, at 99% it is also compatible with Galileo. And luckily, your phone uses all the services that are available and compatible.
For this reason, when your mobile, tablet or car is connecting to GPS to locate itself on the map, they are not just using GPS. If not, it uses all the systems. And this is done automatically by our phone’s geolocation system.
With the European Galileo system we will be reducing the positioning error margin, which should be just one meter instead of several of them as is usually the case with GPS in civil use.
