Re-calibrating... - Europe's Galileo GPS system is down

[rcmaehl]

Source:
BBC
ZDNet

 

Summary:
Europe's Galileo GPS system has been down since Friday due to a "technical incident"
 

Quotes/Excerpts:

Quote

Europe's satellite-navigation system, Galileo, has suffered a major outage. The network has been offline since Friday due to what has been described as a "technical incident related to its ground infrastructure". All receivers, such as the latest smartphone models, will not be picking up any useable timing or positional information. These devices will be relying instead on...the American Global Positioning System (GPS). Cell phones and other devices might also be making connections with the Russian (Glonass) and Chinese (Beidou) networks. The European GNSS Agency (GSA) issued a notification on Thursday warning users that Galileo's signals might become unreliable. An update was then sent out at 01:50 Central European Time on Friday to say that the service was out of use until further notice. "Experts are working to restore the situation as soon as possible. An Anomaly Review Board has been immediately set up to analyse the exact root cause and to implement recovery actions." The function on Galileo satellites that picks up distress beacon messages for search and rescue is said to be unaffected by the outage. There are currently 22 operational satellites in orbit (another two are in space but in testing), with a further 12 under construction with industry. In addition to the spacecraft, Galileo relies on a complex ground infrastructure to control the network and monitor its performance. The European Commission promotes Galileo as more than just a back-up service; it is touted also as being more accurate and more robust. An outage across the entire network is therefore a matter of significant concern and no little embarrassment.

My Thoughts:
OOF. Definitely not a good start for the Galileo system. Thankfully multiple GPS systems exist and most phones can contact at least 2, with some international phones connecting to all four. Regardless, I hope they're able to get this fixed without any major spending.

[Jurrunio]

Galileo: There's no such thing back in my days, shouldn't have put my name on it (in Italian of course)

[RejZoR]

Is this even noticeable to end users of consumer devices? My iPhone runs on GPS, Glonass and Galileo. In the end, it'll pick location from some system.

[Teddy07]

It is a waste of resources anyway because it doesn´t even beat GPS accuracy. Who even uses it?

[TVwazhere]

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

Galileo: There's no such thing back in my days, shouldn't have put my name on it (in Italian of course)

Spoiler

For funsies

 

[KnoT]

46 minutes ago, Teddy07 said:

It is a waste of resources anyway because it doesn´t even beat GPS accuracy. Who even uses it?

???

 

It is supposed to be better(have better accuracy) than Navstar and Glonass ( they are all part of public GPS system ).

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, KnoT said:

???

 

It is supposed to be better(have better accuracy) than Navstar and Glonass ( they are all part of public GPS system ).

After a certain point there is little utility in it being more accurate. I guess you just want to be tracked that much more precisely by third parties. 

[RejZoR]

2 hours ago, Teddy07 said:

It is a waste of resources anyway because it doesn´t even beat GPS accuracy. Who even uses it?

It's not useless. Emergency services across EU use Galileo for location detection along with use of cell towers (E112 system). Which is the part they are saying is not being affected.

 

Waste of resources or not, it provides extra redundancy. Chances of GPS, Galileo and GLONASS all dropping down is extremely unlikely. Most modern devices support all 3 systems along with Chinese one that I forgot the name...

[suicidalfranco]

3 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

  Reveal hidden contents

For funsies

 

let's clean it up a little bit:

Ai miei tempi non esisteva nulla simile, non avrebbero dovuto dargli il mio nome.

[LAwLz]

6 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

OOF. Definitely not a good start for the Galileo system.

Well it's been online since 2016 and this is from what I know the first incident, albeit a big one. I wouldn't call that a "bad start". But remember, Galileo is not planned to be fully operational until 2020.

 

 

5 hours ago, Teddy07 said:

It is a waste of resources anyway because it doesn´t even beat GPS accuracy. Who even uses it?

The main reason for it even existing is so that the EU has a navigation system independent of the US.

You might not have noticed it, but the US government is not exactly very reliable. Just look at Huawei for an example of how bad it is to be reliant on the US.

 

And for the accuracy claim, Galileo has (or will have) better accuracy than GPS, not worse. The clocks on Galileo satellites are more precise than those on most GPS satellites, which shouldn't come as a surprise since it's like a 20 year difference between them.

For the unencrypted, free to use signal Galileo's accuracy is 1 meter. GPS is 3 meters.

[sazrocks]

6 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

GPS is 3 meters.

Where are you finding that? That's what the specification is, but actual performance seems to be <1 meter in most places that I'm looking (for decent receivers of course).

[Mihle]

8 minutes ago, sazrocks said:

Where are you finding that? That's what the specification is, but actual performance seems to be <1 meter in most places that I'm looking (for decent receivers of course).

Multiple places I have seen in Norwegian says that GPS is 3-5m, but Galileo will be 1-3m.

 

If recoving device supports it, Galileo and GPS can work together to get better accuracy, matter the most if you are a place with worse than average accuracy on one of them. For example in a place with mountains all around you, or you are fishing very far north on planet earth or whatever.

[sazrocks]

44 minutes ago, Mihle said:

Multiple places I have seen in Norwegian says that GPS is 3-5m, but Galileo will be 1-3m.

Well that was the spec until recently in 2018 when gps receivers using the L5 band were released, bringing accuracy down to just under one foot.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/design/superaccurate-gps-chips-coming-to-smartphones-in-2018

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/9/25/16362296/gps-accuracy-improving-one-foot-broadcom

 

And gps.gov says that average 95% accuracy in 2016 was < 1m

https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/#commitment

 

Compare that to the unencrypted galileo performance of 1m, and it looks like GPS is 1.4-3x as accurate

 

(for some reason, I'm having trouble finding a proper source for the 1m figure, as the official documentation seems to say 4m. However, given how widespread the 1m figure is, lets just go with that; maybe the documentation is out of date. https://gssc.esa.int/navipedia/index.php/Galileo_Open_Service_(OS)#Performance_and_features)

 

[Loote]

That accuracy is cool and all, but in a city with not so many skyscrapers I can tell my OP6 is nowhere near 1m accuracy, what's more, the better it works, the better my 'trainings' look. So, more satellites mean more stable signal, because apart from optimal conditions, satellite navigation is not perfect yet.

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, sazrocks said:

Where are you finding that? That's what the specification is, but actual performance seems to be <1 meter in most places that I'm looking (for decent receivers of course). 

What receivers are you talking about specifically?

Are you sure it's not using a combination of other positioning techniques too? For example your phone uses GNSS, but also things like WiFi and Bluetooth triangulation.

I was actually being generous when I said 3 meters, because the average for smartphones is around 5 meters.

 

 

1 hour ago, sazrocks said:

Well that was the spec until recently in 2018 when gps receivers using the L5 band were released, bringing accuracy down to just under one foot. 

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/design/superaccurate-gps-chips-coming-to-smartphones-in-2018

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/9/25/16362296/gps-accuracy-improving-one-foot-broadcom

If you think Galileo is barely used, wait until you find out how few devices actually supports GPS L5.

It's very few.

 

 

1 hour ago, sazrocks said:

And gps.gov says that average 95% accuracy in 2016 was < 1m

https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/#commitment

You might want to read that again.

Specifically about how URE is NOT user accuracy, and also the section where it says:

Quote

GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to within a 4.9 m (16 ft.) radius under open sky (view source at ION.org). However, their accuracy worsens near buildings, bridges, and trees.

That is to say, the typical accuracy of GPS in a smartphone is around 5 meters. Not <1 meter.

 

The URE which was <1 meter is calculated distance between an individual satellite and the GPS device. As you might know, you need information from at least 3 satellites to get your location. That means each reading from each of the three satellites is less than 1 meter off, but combined when trying to calculate your position in 3d space becomes around 5 meters off.

 

 

1 hour ago, sazrocks said:

Compare that to the unencrypted galileo performance of 1m, and it looks like GPS is 1.4-3x as accurate 

You can't compare user range error to user accuracy.

 

There are really four relevant signals we have to look at when comparing accuracy.

Galileo unencrypted - Accuracy of 1 meter. Broadcasted by 22 satellites (currently).

Galileo encrypted - Accuracy of 1 centimeter. Broadcasted by 22 satellites (currently).

GPS L1 - Accuracy of 3-5 meter. Broadcasted by 31 satellites (currently).

GPS L5 - Accuracy of 30 centimeters. Broadcasted by 12 satellites (currently).

 

As you can probably tell, Galileo is more advanced. Once GPS L5 becomes widely available with good coverage, it will be fair to say that it is superior to the free version of Galileo, but Galileo's satellites are still more advanced and at the highest accuracy (encrypted) it's still superior.

Basically, GPS will in the future have a better free version than Galileo, but Galileo will have the best absolute performance (for a price).

[Mihle]

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

*snip*

Also, don't know if it's yet, but Galileo is supposed to be/become spoof proof. Sure, you can jam it, but not spoofed because an auth method. GPS does not have that.

[ARikozuM]

Galileo:

 

 

[Chunchunmaru_]

14 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

  Reveal hidden contents

For funsies

 

Oh god that translation doesn't look correct at all

*reads hidden contents*

Yes.

[ianspy1]

19 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

Source:
BBC
ZDNet

 

Summary:
Europe's Galileo GPS system has been down since Friday due to a "technical incident"
 

Quotes/Excerpts:

My Thoughts:
OOF. Definitely not a good start for the Galileo system. Thankfully multiple GPS systems exist and most phones can contact at least 2, with some international phones connecting to all four. Regardless, I hope they're able to get this fixed without any major spending.

Probably 5g tests ..... (this is sarcasm)

[williamcll]

8 hours ago, ianspy1 said:

Probably 5g tests ..... (this is sarcasm)

You might be right there, Some GPS bands do overlap with 5G bands such as 3.5Ghz

[grayperview]

Damn how am i going now measure how many yards i am in the woods on the golf course?

 

To be serious didn't effect my Golf GPS last few days, i am sure we will be fine

[AnonymousGuy]

On 7/15/2019 at 2:26 PM, sazrocks said:

Well that was the spec until recently in 2018 when gps receivers using the L5 band were released, bringing accuracy down to just under one foot.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/design/superaccurate-gps-chips-coming-to-smartphones-in-2018

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/9/25/16362296/gps-accuracy-improving-one-foot-broadcom

 

And gps.gov says that average 95% accuracy in 2016 was < 1m

https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/#commitment

 

Compare that to the unencrypted galileo performance of 1m, and it looks like GPS is 1.4-3x as accurate

 

(for some reason, I'm having trouble finding a proper source for the 1m figure, as the official documentation seems to say 4m. However, given how widespread the 1m figure is, lets just go with that; maybe the documentation is out of date. https://gssc.esa.int/navipedia/index.php/Galileo_Open_Service_(OS)#Performance_and_features)

 

Related addition:

 

As you can see above, the phones on top - OnePlus 7 Pro, P30 Pro, Oppo Reno 10x Zoom, and Honor 20 Pro, have dual-frequency enabled, while the ones below - Galaxy S10+, LG G8, and the Pixel 3, do not.

 

Currently it looks like no iPhone supports it due to release timing of the gps chipset vs. phone release dates.  Probably the iPhone 11.