EU EGNOS, GPS Reloaded

The European Union announced it has launched a new satellite navigation network which will help motorists improve the accuracy of the global positioning system (GPS) to about 2 meters. The system, called EGNOS, will use three satellites and no less than 40 ground stations to narrow the accuracy of the horizontal positioning from the initial 7 meters margin.

EGNOS, the first pan-European satellite navigation system will provide aircraft navigation with the "Safety-of-Life" service as soon as next year. It will help an entire array of people, from airline pilots to farmers who want to be more accurate when spraying fertilizer. For motorist, the service may spawn automatic tolling and pay-per-use car insurance.

"It will make all personal navigation applications much more precise, giving birth to new possibilities like guiding aids for blind people," the European Commission said in a statement quoted by Autonews.

The EGNOS system is just the first step towards the creation of the Galileo positioning system, the European equivalent of the American GPS. Although an accord between the EU and the US for the creation of Galileo is in place since 2004, the system will not be ready sooner than 2014.

Galileo is expected to cost some 4 billion euros. Supported, as with EGNOS, by the European Commission and the European Space Agency, Galileo has so far, also hit snags and delays, most of them related surrounding the source of the funding for the project. In the end, Galileo will get its money from the European public budget.