Posted by Sky Hi
Heard of GLONASS? It's a Russian radio-based satellite navigation system that both complements and provides an alternative to GPS. GLONASS is fully supported in Xperia S and Xperia ion, and any Xperia device with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 or S3 processor and the latest software is capable of supporting GLONASS!
Have you ever noticed how your navigation application suddenly slows and starts lagging when driving in downtown cities, just when you need precise instructions the most? This is mostly likely caused by the surrounding buildings blocking the view towards the GPS satellites. In order for a phone to calculate a good position, a clear line of access to four or more satellites is needed. If the signals have bounced off a wall before reaching the receiver, it will reduce the accuracy of the position. This is where GLONASS, another version of satellite based positioning system, can help.
GLONASS stands for Globalnaya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema and is also a satellite based positioning system but is owned and maintained by the Russian Space Forces. GLONASS development started in 1976 but it was not until October 2011 that full global coverage with modern satellites was achieved with 24 active satellites. Hence the number of GLONASS-only devices is very limited.
GLONASS improves positioning by supporting both systems in a receiver. The number of available global satellites increases from 31 to 55. Therefore, more geographic locations are able to receive four or more signals from satellites, which in turn means more successful position calculations and also better accuracy of the calculated positions in challenging environments.
The Xperia arc, Xperia arc S, Xperia ray, Xperia neo, Xperia neo v, Xperia pro, Xperia PLAY, Xperia active, Live with Walkman, Xperia mini and Xperia mini pro [list updated JAN 24]* (along with the latest Xperia software) are all capable of supporting GLONASS!
To save power, the GLONASS receiver is only activated in problematic locations, such as in an urban environment with high rise buildings. Therefore, if you are in an open sky environment where there are enough GPS satellites available to calculate a good accuracy position, GLONASS will automatically be switched off temporarily to enhance the battery lifetime.
The GLONASS enhancement is transparent and backwards compatible with the existing applications but there are ways to see the benefit of the GLONASS satellites. One way is to download and install the free "GPS Test" application by Chartcross Ltd. from Android Market. The satellites numbered 65 to 88 are GLONASS satellites that are being tracked.
Tested on my Xperia Mini with the latest 4.0.2.A.0.62 firmware, and it works perfectly! Locks almost the double number of sats than before! Half of them GLONASS ones (65-88)!
http://developer.sonyericsson.com/wp/2012/01/19/glonass-support-in-our-latest-xperia-phones/
[ This Message was edited by: Sky Hi on 2012-01-26 22:51 ]
[ This Message was edited by: laffen on 2012-12-15 21:49 ]
Posted by masseur
thats good news.
one of the lessor know enhancements in the iPhone 4S, along with BT version 4, is that it also supports GLONASS
...and I still remember when we had to deal with SA (selective availability) where the US government could change the accuracy of the GPS system by significant amounts, but now we can probably get a position down to a metre or less
Posted by djin
US has set restrictions for commercial use of gps, for road navigation(I dont remember exact figure) it was around 15m of accuracy and for aviation with WAAS capability less than 3m .
Posted by tranced
Things like this will make me move forward to the lates Mini Pro.