GPS World, November 2018

MOBILEUPDATE ESA Launches New Galileo App Competition E uropean students and researchers are invited to compete Photo LynQ in a new Galileo smartphone app competition sponsored by the European Space Agency ESA The goal is to develop an app capable of performing fixes using raw Galileo satnav measurements An earlier Galileo smartphone app competition has already resulted in the winning app becoming publicly available This years event challenges teams to make use of the dualfrequency capability of the latest Android 80 smartphones to compute dual frequency positioning solutions from raw satnav signals to compare them with their single frequency equivalents The competition is run by ESA in collaboration with the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency GSA plus the European Commission with the support of Google The Galileo app competition is open to all students from European universities and trainees in posts at European research and development organizations The set objective is to reach sub meter accuracy worldwide in unobscured sky conditions The app should allow the user to select Galileo only positioning GPS only positioning and the combination of both on a simultaneous basis with the potential to include other satnav constellations in turn Teams are invited to submit their proposals to Galileo Services@ esa int by Nov 12 and will be informed of the jurys response to their proposal by Nov 26 The competition final is scheduled for April 18 2019 at ESAs ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk the Netherlands Photo ESA NETWORK FREE LYNQ TRACKER USES U BLOX GNSS RECEIVER U blox is collaborating with LynQ which developed a location tracker that doesnt use cellphones networks apps or monthly fees By syncing up the devices before heading out group members can find each other within a five mile radius and link up again The device uses the u blox CAM M8Q GNSS receiver a GPS GLONASS BeiDou positioning module with an embedded antenna With its slim size of 96 x 14 x 195 millimeters it is easy to integrate it into handheld devices u blox said The first generation of the weather proof tracker uses long range low power radio frequencies to connect devices Up to 12 people can join a group split up and use the only button on the clip on device to toggle through the group members and find out in which direction and how far away each one is NOVEMBER 2018 WWW GPSWORLD COM GPS WORLD 41