Galileo: Benefits for Location-Based Services

J. Swann, E. Chatre, D. Ludwig

Abstract:	Location Based Services (LBS) will play a key role in the future development of the Galileo market, as they represent the ultimate synergy between communications and positioning technologies in order to deliver to the mass market a wide range of new services. Examples of such services range from in-car guidance through to targeted advertising. This paper analyses the various requirements and restrictions imposed by different LBS applications, with particular emphasis being placed on the benefits that Galileo can bring in order to meet such user requirements. In order to ensure that Galileo LBS is available as soon as possible, technical, standardisation and market analysis activities in this field have already been launched by the European Commission (EC), and it is upon this work that this paper is based. From a Technical perspective, the work undertaken has focused on a sub-set of typical applications for LBS services; namely "car navigation" and "emergency call" in both rural and urban environments. With respect to these applications, the paper begins by identifying and subsequently quantifying key driving elements such as availability of service and timely provision of value added data. Having captured the key requirements and associated restrictions, an optimum architecture is described. In defining such an architecture, the current situation with respect to the technologies available and the relative merits of their use in various combinations is examined. This is a necessary step to take, as the future role of Galileo in providing such services will most likely be built upon existing techniques and infrastructure. Following on from this, the benefits that Galileo will bring through improved accuracy and availability are examined. In order to validate the architecture defined, the results of the performance analysis undertaken will be presented. From an economic perspective, future market opportunities offered by LBS in terms of both terminal sales and value added service provision is also touched upon. The benefit of any technical solution involving Galileo for a great many applications only exists if relevant standards exist that allow for its inclusion. This is particularly true for LBS, as it is a technology that already exists and will develop at a rapid rate prior to the launch of Galileo. The EC has thus initiated a substantial effort to introduce Galileo positioning in location-based standards for the 3rd generation of mobile communication being developed by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). The initial purpose is to enable to use of Galileo through the assisted-GNSS techniques already standardised. In the future, new services may be offered based on the additional features offered by Galileo, such as improved signal penetration for in-door application, provision of integrity data, service guarantees...In the first stage of this standardisation exercise, the work performed consisted of analysing in details the benefits of Galileo (potentially in combination with GPS) for LBS applications, and to collect feedback obtained from this user community on system design issues, in order to optimise the integration of Galileo in future hand-held user terminals, and it is this work that will be detailed.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 16th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS/GNSS 2003) September 9 - 12, 2003 Oregon Convention Center Portland, OR
Pages:	1603 - 1612
Cite this article:	Swann, J., Chatre, E., Ludwig, D., "Galileo: Benefits for Location-Based Services," Proceedings of the 16th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS/GNSS 2003), Portland, OR, September 2003, pp. 1603-1612.
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