NAVSOP has been developed by UK defense firm BAE SYSTEMS with a view
of complementing rather than replacing the GPS technology. But the way
it would work endorses that it will be a better piece of positioning
system that might lower the value of GPS for the western world in the
forthcoming time.
This
new positioning system would work by getting Wi-Fi, Radio and TV
broadcast signals from surroundings instead of relying upon satellite
signals only that get weaken by the time they hit on planet earth. It
has also been said that, the use of radio technology particularly medium
waves would enable NAVSOP to work at places where even GPS fails. BAE
SYSTEMS also claims that NAVSOP could also work in remote locations of
planet earth by picking up signals from satellites in earth’s lower
orbit. Hence, it would be an amalgamation of satellite signal and radio
wave concepts but it will heavily rely upon medium wave radio
frequencies to work effectively and that is what would enhance its
scope. Moreover, it is also said that no additional infrastructure is
required to use this new system because it already exists.
The
prototype of NAVSOP is a big box like piece of hardware which has been
placed at the back of BAE’s car which has a radio antenna at the roof.
The makers also said that once the system is out in the market it would
be as tiny as a GPS dongle – slight bigger than a coin – However, BAE
SYSTEM’s does not consider this new technology a rival of GPS rather
they take it as a technology which would compliment the existing system
as said by BAE’s Dr. Ramsey Faragher to BBC “Let’s be clear – for NAVSOP
to start learning, you have to have a GPS signal, to know where you are
on the face of the Earth”. Whatever they say it cannot be denied that
NAVSOP could be revolutionary, once out in the market, may be even more
than the GPS.
