Future positioning technologies and their application to the automotive sector

The widespread commercial availability of location-based services depends upon every new mobile phone including positioning capability. The timescales for the introduction of these devices is far from clear, and yet the demand for high accuracy services is already increasing, particularly in the automotive and telematics sector. This paper presents a summary of the current and emerging positioning technologies, their capability, predicted timescales and their suitability for the in-car environment. Will GPS levels of accuracy be available in the mobile phone? Who are the various commercial players that may affect the ultimate choice of technology? Have new satellite services such as Galileo left it too late? The paper attempts to answer these and other questions whilst offering an insight into the convergence of satellite and cellular positioning.