Galileo Update

Galileo: 2 years after Initial Services, Accuracy Matters more than ever!

December 16 marked two years since the launch of Galileo Initial Services. Timed to coincide with this milestone, an ‘Accuracy Matters’ campaign aims to increase public awareness of Galileo’s successes over the past two years and highlight the added value that Galileo brings to the mass market.

The new ‘Use Galileo. Accuracy Matters’ campaign focuses on the fact that today “Accuracy Matters” more than ever before for the latest locationbased applications and services. The initiative features a series of short video clips that give an entertaining glimpse of everyday situations where ‘Accuracy Matters’ to anyone using location data on their smartphones.

Milestone after milestone

A number of milestones with major significance for the Galileo programme have been reached since the launch of Initial Services in December 2016. In September 2017, semiconductor developer Broadcom announced the launch of the world’s first massmarket, dual frequency GNSS receiver for smartphones – the BCM47755. This was followed, in June 2018, by the launch of the first dual frequency smartphone – the Xiaomi Mi 8.

According to the latest figures, over 500 million devices – most of them the latest smartphone models – are already Galileo-enabled.

This new campaign aims to make users of these devices aware of the benefits that they can enjoy thanks Europe’s investment in the Galileo programme. www.gsa.europa.eu

Gaming with Galileo: New android smartphone apps

Two new Android smartphone apps based on Galileo are now available for general download, the results of a competition by ESA trainees.

With newer Android smartphones you can access the raw signal measurements used to compute position, opening the door to the development of applications where the user can indeed select which satellites to use. So ESA ran an internal competition for its trainees to develop an app capable of making positioning fixes using only Galileo satellites.

The Callisto – Galileo’s Spaceship app uses Galileo satnav signals to run a virtual maze game based on walking through a real world location.

Looking down on Earth as if from a spaceship, players use a standard Google map display to traverse a rectangular area filled with randomly generated obstacles and collectibles. You play against the clock to grab prizes, with points deducted for running into virtual barriers. Another app developed through the competition is also available for download from Google Play. https://phys.org