Two Cheap Sensors Could Transform GPS Navigation
A team of Spanish researchers has developed a way to vastly improve in-car GPS navigation—and all it requires is some cheap, extra sensors.
It's one of those why-didn't-they-think-of-that-earlier moments. By adding accelerometers and gyroscopes to a car's navigation system, the researchers from Spain claim that they can pinpoint a car's location to within 2 meters. That's far better than the current commercial GPS used in cars, which manages about 15 meters at best, or up to 50 meters in heavily built-up cities. The best bit, as the BBC reports, is that such a system could be retrofitted to any car, and it wouldn't be particularly expensive. The newly added sensors simply provide accurate speed and direction information, which combined with the GPS data provide more accurate results.
