TechXLR8 is a major ‘festival’ of technology that celebrates networks, technology and consumer services. As part of London Tech Week 2017 TechXLR8 brought together a portfolio of eight converging technology themes. The European GNSS Agency (GSA) was there to showcase its leading technology enabling role in two of TechXLR8’s strands: connected cars and the internet of things (IoT).

The Connected Cars and Autonomous Vehicles segment of the event was billed as Europe's leading automotive technology event and the exhibition area was filled with some fine vehicles. The GSA stand was fortunate to be adjacent to the Thales / Williams Engineering stand with a very impressive sports car and the Tesla demonstration area with the highly desirable Tesla Model X on show.

Connected cars

The related conference session on 14 June covered all aspects of connected vehicles from the pros and cons of car sharing and shared mobility services to the issues around car hacking.

How regulation and legal issues were trying to keep pace with the fast pace of technology was another aspect discussed in a dedicated session on Law and Policy. Lucy McCormick a barrister at Henderson Chambers, Lucy Yu from the UK’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles – a government funded policy unit established at Cambridge University – and David Wong from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders in the UK were confident that although legislation was a “work in progress” this would not significantly hold back deployment of the technologies.

Further optimism was displayed by Laura Merling, Vice President for Autonomous Vehicle Solutions with the Ford Motor Company, who thought that autonomous vehicles would not remove jobs, but would shift human tasks. There will still be a need for a “human touch point,” she said. The concept of a car as a “software stack” could be key to getting value out of the data flows generated by connected cars. Examples include preventing warranty issues by catching problems in performance data trends and moving from predictive to prescriptive service models.

High Quality Positioning is key

Of course all this relies on a set of fundamental enabling technologies and one of these is location services especially the use of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as Galileo. GNSS is becoming a core component of autonomous vehicles and an essential element in the mix of sensors that will drive their adoption, argued Fiammetta Diani, Deputy Head of Market Development at the GSA, who presented at the conference.

Companies are “assessing a growing need for precise and reliable positioning information at contained costs for safety-critical application,” stated Diani. “With the aim of attaining 100% positioning reliability at the decimetre level everywhere.” No single positioning technology can currently deliver this, so fusing data from multiple sensors would be required, however GNSS is the only technology providing an absolute location while the other technologies provide relative positioning.

“Many of the requirements for autonomous vehicle operation are already met by GNSS in the short term,” claimed Diani. “This includes lane level accuracy and high signal integrity. High quality GNSS can reduce the final cost of positioning solutions for autonomous vehicles.”

Diani also showcased recent research projects demonstrating the capabilities of GNSS technology. The inLane project has successfully fused computer vision with GNSS and crowd-sourced high definition mapping for lane level positioning. The TAXISAT project developed autonomous ‘wePod’ vehicles for use on public roads and the positioning engine produced during the project was now on the market. Her final example was the EscaPe project that developed a high level integrity positioning system for use in Renault’s experimental autonomous vehicles.

Understanding Galileo’s added value is important for the sector, said Diani. Compared to existing systems the European GNSS has better resistance to signal interference, multi-path issues and spoofing attacks: all trends of concern in GNSS.

The future for GNSS is multi constellation and multi frequency operation – an area where Galileo is leading the way. “Multi constellation GNSS provides improved signal availability and better accuracy and multi frequency will help eliminate errors and enable much more robust positioning solutions,” concluded Diani.

GNSS and IoT

Location data is also essential for the Internet of Things (IoT) and GNSS, including Galileo, are playing a key role here too, as Justyna Redelkiewicz, Head of Sector LBS and IoT at GSA explained to delegates at the IoT Connect session of the IoT Europe conference at TechXLR8.

Information on positioning, velocity and timing is key data for a growing portfolio of context-aware applications. “For the Internet of Things location matters” Redelkiewicz said, highlighting that the need to know where the “things” are is one of the main requirements of each IoT application.

As with the connected vehicle developments, GNSS and Galileo offer enabling solutions for IoT that are an essential element in a fusion of sensor data that can provide seamless overall positioning solutions wherever the IoT device is located.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).