Global Positioning System Reference
In-Depth Information
1.2 Applications and services
The potential applications and services likely to use such ubiquitous positioning systems
are numerous. Of course, the first kind is clearly related to guidance and navigation, as
currently for outdoors and GNSS related services, which is the natural extension of the
most popular applications. But now that the citizen is considered, through his/her mobile
phone, the new services are not only individual (same as the car navigation system,
designed for a single user), but also for the community with, for example, the “group”
approaches developed by so-called social networks. There is probably a historical parallel
that can be drawn between the introduction of the portable clock, about two hundred and
fifty years ago, and the development of the navigation capabilities: from individual to
collective and from collective to individual. Maybe the advent of these ubiquitous
positioning devices will lead to social transformations similar to those induced by the
portable clock … but this is another story. Note also that for these collective approaches,
telecommunications systems are required (and in that way, this is now probably the “right
time”): this is evidence that the two domains, telecommunication and positioning, are so
closely linked. Another very important point to consider, when addressing the mobile
phone of a user, is that there are then no constraints on the displacements of the citizen (as
was the case for a car for instance) and that current positioning devices, namely mainly
GNSS ones, are placed in far more difficult environments and uses (this latter point is the
most important for the discussion): thus, new techniques, new devices and new services
must be imagined and designed.
It is also possible to cite the classical asset management and various surveillance
applications, but which must now work in many different environmental conditions. Once
again, the individual and collective approaches are one of the important new features.
Multimodal transportation, a desire not yet realised, of a world that would like to be able
to reduce its energy consumption, clearly needs the ability to position in real-time all the
actors and the various components: pedestrians are indoors more than seventy percent of a
typical day and are in constant mobility (and in addition have a potential problem of
energy), when vehicles will have to be precisely monitored in order to manage not only
their locations, but also their energy, their availability, their reservation, to check the
payments, etc. Self-service car locations or co-driving applications fit naturally in this same
category.
In a totally different domain, certification and security applications can be envisaged on a
geographical basis but ubiquity must be reached (current performance of GNSS are not
enough). Following the privacy issues, the conditional liberty of prisoners could be largely
extended: currently, due to the limitations of positioning systems (coverage indoors), the
prisoners are not allowed to take the underground for example (at least in France). The large
scale deployment of ubiquitous systems could allow substantial improvements of the
capabilities.
The next generation of applications could be in the domain of social networks. The
developments of these networks have been huge and the permanent exchanges between
people and connected groups are enhanced when geographical data are associated. Note
that our imagination could easily apply this approach to objects, of course.
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