Sat-Nav to Receive ISO Standard

As GPS and satellite navigation systems used in cars get more and more common, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has decided to start the work on a global standard to be applied to such systems. For now, a provisional standard, ISO 17267:2009 is in place to help globalize sat-nav.

The current standard covers positioning, route planning, route guidance, map display, address location, services and point of interest (POI) information access. The tweaked one will be able to define how navigation systems interact and interpret digital data.

The new ISO will help facilitate the interoperability between navigation systems and map databases by providing an interface that will make information accessible and retrievable as well as assist developers of navigation systems. Furthermore, it specifies the criteria used to determine if a data access library is in accordance with the standard.

"Having an API that defines the methods that navigation system software developers may use to select a travel destination, request a route to a destination, display the planned path, and guide a traveler to a destination will improve the efficiency of the development of navigation systems,” Carl Stephen Smyth, Project Leader of the group in charge with the project, ISO/TC 204 said.

ISO hopes the new standard, based on the current ISO 17267:2009, although aimed at self-contained in-vehicle systems, will also become a point of reference for other applications that use map data.