High accuracy positioning for Smartphones

The Raw GNSS measurement revolution and Geoflex correction service

With the release of the Android Raw GNSS Measurements API in 2017, Android developers have been provided access to the raw signal data received from the satellites.

For many LBS developers it has little interest, but for Geoflex it enabled the use of its correction service, hence to provide a sub-meter positioning accuracy to most of Android phones worldwide. More precisely this means down to 0.8 meters accuracy on a standard, mono-frequency GNSS-enabled smartphones held with the antenna up, which is about 5 to 10 times better than standard GNSS.

A wealth of benefits for B2C and B2B use cases on Billion phones

• Mainstream LBS apps such as navigation, maps, local search or location-based gaming can take advantage of better positioning to provide new experiences (lane-level navigation, augmented reality with sensor fusion, etc…)
• Mobile Marketing SDKs running a location stack could also benefit from improved positioning to provide a much better understanding of users movements and POI visitation data.
• Critical apps such as Emergency services or lone workers tracking applications might also significantly benefit from a better accuracy.
• Professional apps such as surveying could also take advantage of high accuracy positioning. Until now surveyors have been using expensive, high end devices running on Android but many use cases could be addressed by a much cheaper dual frequency smartphone using Geoflex correction data.

In addition to that, Geoflex not only provides high accuracy to smartphones but also can secure the quality of the positioning in detecting spoofed or jammed GNSS signals as well as eliminate fake locations simulated by Android smartphones set in developer mode (a trick commonly used by cheating players in location-based games such as Pokemon Go).

Furthermore, Geoflex experience in sensor fusion brings to its partners the capability to hybridize the solution with inertial measurements (gyro, compass, accelerometer, barometer), and communication chipsets: Wi-Fi, UWB, Bluetooth or even 5G.