Back in dot com boom times, it was regularly claimed that intelligent, location-based services would help individuals navigate the modern cityscape.

Such expectations foundered, as 3G technology spluttered into life more slowly than might have been expected.

But now navigation is back on the business agenda, thanks to the European space programme.

The project involves an ambitious attempt by European space scientists and politicians to deploy a global positioning system (GPS) satellite network, and is a rival to the original GPS system built by the US military in the 1970s.

The programme – budgeted so far at Euros 3.4bn (£2.3bn) – launched its first test satellite from Russia last December, a prototype developed by researchers associated with University of Surrey.

It will not be until 2010 or 2012 that the projected network of 30 satellites will be in geostationary Earth orbit, 23,000km above the surface.

Many observers are convinced that the system, Galileo, will not just offer severe competition to existing US services, but will also offer the ideal platform for location-based technologies.

But why do we need better satellite-based location systems?

Sean Phelan, founder and chairman of online location-finding service Multimap.com, says people might not realise that the UK is both relatively small and already fairly well-mapped; satellite systems could provide the basis for global provision.

‘Postcodes will get you to pretty much a few doors from where you want to go,’ he says.

‘But it is only the UK, Netherlands and Canada that are at this level. Try Spain or the Republic of Ireland; they have nothing like the coverage. A more accurate GPS system could really help a lot of geographies out.’

Another aspect of Galileo, according to Phelan, is the potential arrival of long-promised, location-based services.

‘The reason you cannot do that now is inaccuracy,’ he says.

‘The margin of error is too great to get the right information to your mobile phone. Something like Galileo could solve that kind of problem, especially if devices came equipped with built-in GPS detectors.’

Future services likely to benefit from the technology will include satellite-based road-charging schemes.

But better air traffic control, natural disaster monitoring and other public and private sector uses are also being touted.

It is predicted that some organisations will take advantage of the accuracy of Galileo, which is 10 times better than its US GPS counterpart.

However, some companies will have to use charged-for access to the Galileo system, an aspect some commentators think will be less attractive.

One such sceptic is Multimap’s Phelan, who believes the service could become a version of Eurotunnel in space.

‘It’s already been delayed and who knows if it will work and pay for itself – it’s all very much in the future,’ he says. ‘It would be good to have and could help our business, but I’ll believe we have a European satellite navigation system when it works.’

European politics has already played a part: there was a year’s delay as Germany and Italy argued over who should take the bigger final role.

To potentially make matters worse, Galileo is being developed by two separate parts of the Brussels community.

The European Space Agency is building and launching the first set of prototype and main satellites, as well as some ground infrastructure.

The operational system will then be delivered by the European Commission, which will put the rest of the satellites in orbit and appoint a contractor to run the finished system – constellation’ in satellite speak.

The UK, at least, has benefited from the EU project, with about 30 per cent of contracts managed by British industry.

And it is not just European organisations that are showing interest in the initiative.

South Korea has signed up to a Galileo co-operation programme, along with China, Israel and Ukraine.

It may seem surprising that countries are rushing to give their backing to Galileo.

But Pat Norris, business development manager of LogicaCMG’s space and defence division, says that because the alternative US GPS system is run by the military, it is outside enterprise control and can be run down – or even switched off – without consent.

‘This is not a sound basis for making a business case around GPS,’ says Norris.

Such a global politics angle might yet become academic, because Europe and the US have signed agreements to make the systems interoperate as effectively as possible. Indeed, it is the combination of the two systems that is seen as the real plus point for GPS users.

David Park, a senior research fellow at the University of Nottingham’s Institute of Engineering Surveying and Space Geodesy, says the benefits that the technologies provide will become clear.

‘There are going to be some very expensive new atomic clocks on board that will be of great use in very accurate location,’ he says.

‘To the ordinary person, there may not seem that much of an improvement, but the fact that there are so many more satellites up there, GPS and Galileo, increases the chances of getting a really good signal – visibility of three to four satellites is the standard. And it makes this much more attractive to people such as mobile operators as a platform for new services.’

Part of the attraction is that Galileo is second-generation GPS. A typical commercial telecommunications satellite weighs about four to five tons, and has built in redundancy to ensure a 15-year lifespan.

The Galileo satellites are much simpler. They weigh about a ton, mainly comprising the atomic clock and signal generator.

The emphasis is on placing less hardware in the sky, when compared with commercial services such as Inmarsat. More stress is, instead, given to strong, ground-based infrastructure.

Galileo is also cheaper. The prototype partly developed by the University of Surrey cost just £18m, compared with £100m for a commercial satellite.

It is still possible the Galileo project could go horribly wrong, of course. And Park says that as taxpayers we have the right to question the initiative.

‘There are question marks,’ he says. ‘But the cost of even a failed Galileo is about the same as 100km of high-cost roads across Europe. And if it works, it will represent not only a major space achievement but also a real business tool.’

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Case study: eCourier

Jay Bregman, chief technical officer of delivery specialist eCourier, says Galileo could be extremely useful for his organisation – a company that aims to intelligently route nationwide traffic using a neural network.

eCourier uses a routing system that maps available couriers against their location and the constraint of its client’s time limitations, namely what would be viewed as an acceptable delivery window.

‘Other courier companies rely solely on human control and reporting, which we don’t think is enough,’ says Bregman.

‘That’s why you get responses such as: “He’s five minutes away”, to questions about where your incredibly valuable document is.’

Bregman says eCourier’s drivers have been issued with palmtop computers that use the global positioning system (GPS) to record delivery locations and delivery status every 10 seconds.

Information is also piped to the central system, which has been developed in partnership with logistics experts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and two Italian universities.

The system uses the data to calculate which courier can be next dispatched, as well as proving an online route marker for clients. Customers include Paul Smith, Harrods and The Carlyle Group, and Bregman is pleased with how the GPS-based system is operating.

‘This is all very hard to do,’ he says. ‘It’s very complex to factor in all the variables to get to any level of automated scheduling.’

And, of course, Bregman says a more accurate positioning system would be of great interest.

‘GPS is great and we are heavy users of it – but there are limitations,’ he says.

‘In London, it is extremely rare to get a signal from seven or eight satellites, which is the benchmark for a really good signal.

‘You also get interference from tall buildings, and the signal isn’t powerful enough to be used indoors or under cover.’

Bregman says accuracy is also a problem, even though eCourier uses hardware based around the latest GPS device standard, SURF3.

‘There can be as much as a five minute delay getting onto the network,’ he says.

‘In London, you can travel quite far on two wheels in five minutes – and 50 metres’ difference can be a big problem in the City.”

Bregman says Galileo could solve a lot of eCourier’s problems.

‘Even a free, open system version of Galileo could be tremendously useful for much more accurate and timely courier location,’ he says.

‘In five years, I’d expect dual-band – GPS and Galileo – receivers giving us stronger, more accurate signals that can be accessed easier indoors. I also see the US starting to upgrade its system in the face of this competition. So far, it hasn’t bothered – as it’s been the only game in town.’

Case study: Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey is the national mapping agency for the UK. But in the words of Chris Phillips, a research scientist at the organisation: ‘The maps you buy in WHSmith are just a tiny fraction of all we do.’

The vast bulk of Ordnance Survey’s work is concentrated on digital mapping information, so-called GIS (geographical information systems).

A team of surveyors pounds the nation’s pavements, providing up to 5,000 daily updates to a massive central database, available digitally as the OS MasterMap.

Phillips says the database is constantly accessed by a range of bodies, from councils to utilities and other private sector organisations.

Ordnance Survey, which originated in 1791, maintains that about 10 per cent of UK businesses rely in some way on the work carried out by the organisation.

And Phillips says services provided through the global positioning system (GPS), that offer accuracy to within a centimetre, have led to a revolution in surveying.

‘The ability to be able to pinpoint where you are on the globe is incredible for users of spatial information sources,’ he says.

‘A team of our surveyors uses GPS constantly, probably 30 per cent of the time, with a variety of other tools such as reflectionless lasers, aerial photography and other technologies.’

Phillips is now investigating Galileo as a useful future technology for Ordnance Survey, along with a number of other emerging technologies and mobile applications.
‘We are scouts for the organisation, looking at things that might be useful to us in three to five years,’ he says.

And Phillips says Galileo fits that bill – almost.

‘It actually isn’t Galileo that is the breakthrough,’ he says. ‘On its own, it will be a little bit better than GPS – a bit of a clearer signal. But it is the combination of this and the existing GPS coverage, the so-called super-constellation, that is the real value-add.’

Phillips is also happy about the timeline. ‘If the first real coverage starts soon, we could see that super-constellation really taking off in 2010 or so,’ he says.

‘That’s enough time for us all to adapt, including the GPS device suppliers, who need to produce a new generation of technologies – as well as perhaps mobiles.

‘So it’s about evolution, as users of GPS such as ourselves, and users of the sort of data we provide, need to start adapting and getting ready – the projected timeline is absolutely fine with us.’

What the experts say

‘The ability to pinpoint the location of people and objects provides huge opportunities – from personal navigation to safety on the railways. But it is u p to UK industry to make Galileo work for us, and this requires a joint effort from academia, industry and government. If we can create real applications that use the strength of the Galileo signal, we could be looking at the creation of a whole new industry.’

Francis Tuffy, director, The Location and Timing Knowledge Transfer Network, a DTI body fostering UK industrial take up of Galileo services

‘Mass-market, location-based service is the integration of satellite navigation in mobile phones and personal handheld devices with the aim to provide value-added services based on the knowledge of the user’s position, such as emergency calls.’

Stuart Martin, satellite navigation business manager, LogicaCMG

The European technology market created by Galileo could create 100,000 jobs and produce $300bn (£172bn) revenues by 2020.

Prediction by the European Commission

‘What has been holding location-based services back has been the fact that to find out where your nearest ATM is means your phone calling a third party to find out where it is, before it tells the network that then tells you. That is slow and inefficient. By 2010, all phones will have built-in satellite navigation and that will mean the phone will always know where it is. So the future is going to be about location being taken as a given. That will be something devices and applications can use for a whole variety of purposes.’

Jay Bregman, chief technology officer, eCourier

‘You could use satellite navigation to drive to Heathrow and find the best individual parking space, but when you enter the terminal, make use of local WiFi to direct you to the right check-in desk. The hard part will be to make that handover work seamlessly, of course.’

Chris Phillips, research scientist, Ordnance Survey

Five Galileo services are to be offered, four around navigation and one for search and rescue purposes. The navigation services go from open access (to one metre accuracy), to encrypted government use only, via a commercial centimetr e-level guaranteed service that users will have to pay for, and a ‘safety of life’ emergency version.

The Galileo Joint Undertaking official web site at www.galileoju.com