NaviGadget

u-blox Announces Assisted GPS Services for Faster Signal Acquisition

Feb 3, 2006 gps navigation, misc news

u-blox AG, the leading Swiss provider of innovative GPS receiver technology, today announced the provision of Assisted GPS (”A-GPS”) services that supply instant location information, reducing GPS receivers’ Time To First Fix (”TTFF”) to just a few seconds.

A-GPS uses mobile phone networks to access satellite location data transmitted to and collected by a global monitoring network of u-blox GPS receivers. The collected data is stored at a u-blox aiding server which, in turn, makes the data available to users with mobile phone connectivity. The A-GPS system supplies the satellite location data stored at the server to the GPS receivers contained in users’ mobile phones. The benefit of A-GPS is that users receive this location information instantly rather than having to wait for the GPS receiver to acquire Ephemeris data for visible satellites, which can take from 30 seconds up to several minutes depending on conditions.