Applications

Satellite-based navigation now finds application in wide variety of areas, ranging from Location Based Services in smartphones to energy grids and financial transaction systems. New developments such as smart cities, precision agriculture and autonomous vehicles will also use satellite-based navigation as fundamental components of their systems.

The importance of GNSS-enabled applications is reflected in the growth in the number of GNSS devices in use. As indicated by the European GNSS Agency (GSA), the number of devices is expected to double from 4 billion in 2015 to 8 billion by 2020:

The importance of GNSS in a modern economy should not be understated. A UK-government study in 2017 estimated a 5-day disruption to GNSS availability to lead to a loss of approximately € 5.6 billion for the UK alone. Similar impacts could be expected across the rest of the Europe.

The major developments in mass market usage of GNSS devices are currently driven by Location Based Services, particularly through the use of smartphones. As stated in the GNSS Market Report 2017 from the GSA, over 90% of context-aware apps in smartphones use GNSS data.n However, developments towards smart cities, Internet-of-Things and autonomous vehicles, among others, could drive even higher uptake in the coming years.

At usegalileo.eu, you can discover which devices already include Galileo.