Today, the key automotive applications for satellite connectivity include: tracking, location, emergency response, content delivery (entertainment), and over-the-air software updates…

Location and Tracking

Tracking and location are essential low-bandwidth applications for satellite technology in moving vehicles. While cellular-based telematics systems got their start with OnStar’s automatic crash notification, cellular coverage is notoriously incomplete and unreliable for locating vehicles in all circumstances — particularly in an emergency response scenario.

Only satellite technology is capable of reliably delivering vehicle location information in any circumstance with the possible exception of some urban canyons or inside tunnels. GPS, GNSS, Glonass, Galileo and BeiDou 2 are increasingly required equipment in motor vehicles, both for navigation and location.

These technologies are essential in aiding the development of autonomous vehicles, but the meters-level accuracy of these systems is insufficient to enable automated driving alone. Ligado (the former LightSquared) has proposed a “High-Precision Location (HPL) augmentation system for GPS” intended to deliver centimeter-level accuracy using terrestrial receivers.

Read the full story at Via Satellite Magazine.