We’re delighted to announce the launch of our innovative S-GNSS® Auto positioning product that provides automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), with increased reliability and accuracy of GNSS positioning.

S-GNSS® Auto effectively extends hands-free driving assistance technologies in urban environments and is a software-based GNSS enhancement to mitigate the urban multipath problem for autonomous vehicles (AVs).

As OEMs continue to look for solutions to expand their automated driving capabilities, the importance of high integrity and high accuracy absolute positioning for GNSS sensors continues to grow. Representing a unique sensor within the ADAS perception system alongside cameras, radars and lidars, GNSS provides vital high-precision positioning and situational awareness to the automotive planning and control subsystems. Standard GNSS sensors typically locate you to within 1m-2m error in rural and suburban environments with support from correction services and fusion with car sensors like wheel odometry and IMUs, however in dense urban environments this is not possible due to interference caused by signal reflections (known as multipath interference).

Powered by innovative Supercorrelation™ technology, S-GNSS® Auto provides absolute lane-level positioning in urban areas for advanced driving features, effectively expanding Level 2 ADAS capability into different and more challenging environments. This development follows a strategic investment from GM Ventures to pull the technology through into General Motors vehicles for their next-generation platforms. The details of this engineering collaboration were discussed at Reuters Automotive USA Conference.

Setting a new standard for urban performance and cyber-security, S-GNSS® Auto provides a uniquely cost-effective software solution, typically only associated previously with expensive hardware or infrastructure. The software can run either on the GNSS chip or the operating system, providing automakers with a scalable upgrade to their ADAS and hands free systems.

Urban multipath interference is a phenomenon that occurs when GNSS signals bounce off buildings, trees, or other obstacles before reaching the receiver, resulting in multiple copies of the same signal arriving at the antenna at slightly different times. This can cause errors in the GNSS position calculation, which will become particularly problematic for automated driving as these features become available in urban areas. The receiver may calculate the position based on the wrong set of signals or be unable to determine which signals to use accurately.

“S-GNSS® Auto works by recognising and discarding reflected GNSS signals, in doing so it improves the performance of GNSS by 10x or more, meeting three of the most pressing needs in the modern navigation industry: accuracy, reliability and integrity”, said Ramsey Faragher, Founder and CTO of Focal Point.

With the growing importance of cyber security, the inbuilt spoofing mitigation functionality within S-GNSS® Auto aligns with future cyber-security supply chain frameworks, adding vital spoofing mitigation to advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS).