Satellite radiolocalization from GPS to GNSS and beyond: novel technologies and applications for civil massmarket

It is known that satellite radiolocalization was born in the military environment and was originally conceived for defense purposes. Nevertheless, the commercial explosion (dated to 20 years ago) of global positioning system (GPS) in the civil market (automotive, tourism, etc.) significantly changed the original perspectives of this technology. Another big change is expected when other global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) such as the European Galileo or the Chinese COMPASS become operational and commercial. In fact, modern GNSSs are conceived principally for the civil market (at the opposite of GPS, whose civil employment is given as a sort of “kind gift,” with lower performance than that one granted to military users). The scope of this paper is to provide readers with a clear focus about the potentialities of current and forthcoming GNSSs and associated technologies in a renewed mass-market perspective. The paper also opens a window to the future of radiolocalization technology beyond GPS and GNSS, dealing with the role of digital signal processing and software-defined radio (SDR) in next-generation navigation systems and with the seamless integration of satellite-based navigation with other technologies in order to provide reliable position information also in hostile environments.