Discussion: GPS + GLONASS

Having hung out cyberly last week in Kazakhstan (Ski-WOC), I wondered what the state is of the old Soviet GLONASS (Globalnaya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema) system. It is back! Now fully populated with greatly updated satellites (24). GPS has 32 now. The inclinations of GPS and GLONASS satellites are appr. 55° and 65° making GLONASS more accurate closer to the N/S higher latitudes; and with more satellites GPS is better around the globe's middle. Oleg says it's not much used outside officialdom.

Something very interesting is that there are now chips that make use of both systems, which improves the position accuracy greatly - in general - and acquisition speed. Most later SmartPhones and tablets now use the 2-system service. I haven't found any loggers yet but e.g. Garmin has some dual devices. One is the Garmin Glo, which is a receiver with Bluetooth. Could be useful for mapping etc.

I was in Moscow last week and bought an auto GPS as a gift for the lady I was staying with. There were several models available with GLONASS capability. They were brands I hadn't heard of before; Garmin models are very expensive in Russia.

In reference to the artilcle about the Apple 4s, I was using mine and noticed very quick and precise location with it. I don't know if that was because of the GLONASS capability. Apple has certainly gotten good market penetration; I saw a lot of iPhones and iPads in use all over the place.

Yes indeed, nothing like a couple days' worth of signal unavailability (8th paragraph; factually true) to make you plunk $2.6B (note date in second paragraph) and finish up a constellation.

Apparently there are lots of dual-capable receiver modules available:

Just google glonass capable gnss module, for example.

Looks like a fully completed Galileo with 32 satellites is far off - 2019 predicted. They have four now; enabling system tests. The Chinese BeiDou (Compass) is now partly operational and to be completed shortly after Galileo. So additional possible benefits from these systems will be quite localized for a long time.