Heading for the future positioning service

Hypos is working for a national hybrid positioning service for the future digital and autonomous society. The project is a public-private cooperation between The Norwegian Mapping Authority, SINTEF, Telia and Ericsson – and is partially funded The Research Council of Norway.

The research project has an ambition to scale up precise positioning services with GNSS satellites to an unlimited number of users, develop 5G to determine a real time position and investigate how these technologies can complement each other to serve a better end user positioning service.

User surveys are carried out to relate the technology to real societal needs and develop business models for the new services.

Can reach larger groups of users

The Norwegian Mapping Authority provides a positioning service, CPOS, that have many use cases. Some examples where GNSS signals and a correction signal that results in a position with cm accuracy are:

• Agriculture machines that navigate the fields and vary the amount of fertilizer depending on where they are
• Automated vehicles, for example the busses that drives autonomously in the largest cities
• Automated processes like setting out plowshares along the road
• Smaller automated robots like robotic lawnmower

An important part of the development is that hardware that can utilize the correction signal get cheaper and cheaper and precise positioning are used in more use cases due to a better perspective on cost-benefit.

Looking at different user needs

Different user groups that have a demand for accurate and precise position are emergency services and agriculture. In addition to a demand for better accuracy, safety-critical applications like aviation must comply with standards for operation where demands for positioning are defined.

There are varying needs for accuracy. Some already use cm accuracy while others cope with an accuracy of a few meters. User groups compare Hypos with current methods and have difficulties to envision future solutions, but they are clear on that new technology and services must be better than todays’ services and add something new. Read more in SINTEF's report "Knownledge status and user demands for Hypos" (only in norwegian).

The project has also received feedback that the massive upscale of GNSS corrections will be very important.

A user need that has come to light with that perspective is automated vehicles and scooters that are subject to a requirement as to where they are parked.

Creates new possibilities for automation

Positioning with satellites and GNSS performs very well in open areas like country roads, highways and sub-urban where the line of sight to the satellites are good. Unfortunately, the technology has shortcomings for those who need high accuracy in urban areas with tall buildings, like downtown Oslo.

This is how interaction between GNSS and 5G, a hybrid positioning service, gets relevant. The upsides for both technologies are utilized to create a better end user service.

5G technology will be explored as an independent source for positioning in real time to find out what it offers in terms of accuracy, and what infrastructure is needed.

Business models for distribution of GNSS corrections and the HyPos service are an important part of the project so that the results are taken out as services in society.

The Hypos project gives new opportunities for increased automation and efficiency.

What could be better with a hybrid positioning service?

The Norwegian Mapping Authority operates a positioning service named CPOS. CPOS create correction signal for GNSS satellites by collection signals from 300 GNSS reference stations in Norway.

CPOS users connect their GNSS receiver to the Norwegian Mapping Authority's server and send their position. Then an overall correction for all error sources in the GNSS system are computed, valid only for that single user’s position.

Accurate position at cm level is computed by GNSS receiver. This method is called OSR, Observation Space Representation. Due to the to-way data traffic it is not possible to scale up this method to an unlimited number of users.

The Hypos project will explore a new method for calculating GNSS error sources where corrections are sent for each individual error source in the GNSS system. Then the user's GNSS receiver calculates its correction based on its position. This method is called SSR, State Space Representation, and we can scale up to an infinite number of users since data from the Norwegian Mapping Authority's server is only sent one way.

Part of the upscaling of GNSS is the distribution of the correction data. That is, how the data is sent from the Mapping Authority's server and out to the users. The project wants to shed light on the alternatives and possibilities within standards for IoT (Internet of Things) and telecoms 3GPP.

Considering a scalable service for positioning

The telecoms industry is working on positioning within their standardization body 3GPP. In the past, it has only been possible to calculate where mobile devices have been afterwards, and with a limited position accuracy.

The Hypos project will explore positioning techniques. What infrastructure is needed to achieve a position in real time, and with an accuracy that meets the requirements set by the users?

This technology has several possible measurement techniques and is in an early phase of development.

Hypos will develop an accurate, scalable service for real-time positioning with a greater area of influence and higher redundancy than before:

• develop a scalable method for distributing GNSS correction data
• use the telecommunications network's 5G as an independent source for positioning
• develop a hybrid service where GNSS and the mobile network are used to create better services for end users