Locata - An Alternative For GPS Accurate To A Few Centimeters

An Australian firm Locata has developed an alternative technology that will further enhance the tracking ability of the smartphones and other devices making them predict their location accurate up to a few centimeters. This novel technique is supposedly better than the conventional GPS which can help one pinpoint a device’s location with a marginal error of a few meters. Plus, this thing can work alongside GPS as well as in areas where GPS is either blocked or unavailable.

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A ground based LocataLite transmitter module

For getting super accurate and precise location results using this technology, one has to first install a network of “LocataLites”. This refers to the special hardback novel sized devices that communicate with each other and cover the entire area in which the desired object is to be tracked. These are more or less like grounded GPS satellites and the LocataLites send outgoing signals that are captured by the receivers to derive their location. The LocataLites form a constellation like network on the ground and transmit with the help of signals having frequency used also by Wi-Fi. This network is highly precise and each sender module can transmit over a range of several km. The inventors of the system also claim that it’s much cheaper and easier to maintain.

Though the technology is yet to get mass approval, field tests have already started for tracking sophisticated weapons and armaments on the U.S. Air Force's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, and within a matter of few months, an upgraded system will be installed to cover an area of 6,474 square kilometers. Locata co founder Nunzio Gambale, believes that this awesome technology has got a lot of applications in diverse fields ranging from aviation to mining to traffic management. Construction sites, warehouses, and factories will definitely be the beneficiaries. Tracking goods and machines with high accuracy can facilitate wide spread implementation of robotics and automation, says Gambale. For example, the Locata tech is being used currently in Boddington gold mine in Western Australia to position digging and drilling equipment with high accuracy. It is a really better option than to actually go and survey the insides of this deep opencast mine. The main advantage is that the walls of which block GPS signals can’t block the signals generated by the LocataLites. The same effect often weakens or blocks GPS signals in urban environments.

To commercialize this technology and to give it a global boost, Locata is planning to release information that will help other firms to manufacture LocataLites and receivers. In the future, smartphones enabled with this feature can accurately get their location which will in turn lead to development of better augmented reality apps, etc. As far as the design and working principle of the GPS satellites is considered, every satellite has a highly accurate atomic clock that’s used for time stamping the instant at which the signal is sent to Earth. Using this info, the receiver can calculate its distance from the satellite based on time required for the signal to reach it. When the receiver does the same for every satellite in the network, it gets an accurate bearing of its co ordinates. Locata's satellite mimics are built with timing chips much less accurate than an atomic clock.. The main difference here is that the different LocataLites have to synchronize not with any external standard but amongst them in a relative manner. This makes them cheaper and accurate. Each LocataLite adjusts the timing of its outgoing signal based on the timing of the signals it picks up from other LocataLites, creating a feedback loop that ensures all the signals are in sync. It not easy as it sounds, and it required years of painstaking research by the R&D team which synchronized all signals to within 2 nanoseconds! Let’s hope that this technology is soon available for evryone.

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