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Phone signals can help you find your way in cities even without GPS

Existing telecommunications infrastructure could operate as a miniaturized global positioning system, offering submetre resolution in urban areas and indoors, where location information from satellites is often inaccurate.
  1. Hui Chen

    1. Hui Chen is in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.

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  2. Henk Wymeersch

    1. Henk Wymeersch is in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.

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It’s hard to imagine ever consulting a paper map again. The information provided by global navigation satellite systems, such as the United States’ GPS or China’s BeiDou, has changed how we find our way in the world. But the little blue dot that represents this information on our smartphone screens often shows up far away from our actual location, especially in urban areas, tunnels or indoors. This is largely because satellite signals are weak and easily blocked by obstacles, or are sometimes even jammed intentionally. Writing in Nature, Koelemeij et al.1 show that telecommunications networks can overcome this problem by providing a terrestrial positioning system that does not rely on satellites.

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Nature 611, 454-455 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03696-3

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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