US President Bill Clinton announced steps Monday to boost access to the Global Positioning System that will give drivers, boaters, hikers and emergency teams ten times more precision in navigation.
“This increase in accuracy will allow new GPS applications to emerge and continue to enhance the lives of people around the world,” Clinton said in announcing the move.
As of midnight (0500 GMT) Monday, the US government will stop its intentional degradation of the civilian GPS signal, called Selective Availability (SA), which was used to protect military operations.
Clinton said his decision was based on scientific advances that allowed greater civilian access while preserving national security.
The goal is to discontinue SA completely by 2006 while allowing the US military to deny GPS signals regionally based on threat assessments. The security-motivated degradation would not affect civilian or business uses.
Originally developed by the Defense Department, the GPS is the dominant standard satellite navigation system globally and is available free of charge worldwide.
The improved signal will allow drivers more pinpoint accuracy in their car systems, which now give a location of only within 100 meters (yards) and can cause problems on parallel highways where it was difficult to determine which road the vehicle is on.
It will also enhance tracking for hikers on uncharted terrain and give boaters a better view of sandbars and other underwater hazards.
Emergency teams responding to calls on roadways will also be able to determine which side they must respond to, saving critical minutes in life-threatening situations.
Other applications for GPS include mining, telecommunications, rail navigation and oil exploration.
There are more than four million GPS users worldwide, according to the White House, which estimates that the market for GPS application will double in the next three years, from eight billion dollars to over 16 billion dollars.
GPS technology is based on super reliable atomic clocks that cannot be matched by mechanical devices. Innovative engineering allowed the mechanisms, which once had to be housed in huge laboratories, to be packaged in compact devices that could be applied to civilian uses.
The improved GPS signal will also simplify the design of many systems, which will encourage wider use and lower retail costs, according to the White House.
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