“On the status screen, if the Galileo satellite has a ‘U’ next to it, that satellite is being used by your device to calculate your position at that very moment.” “You will likely see that your phone is using several GNSS for positioning, and if one of those is Galileo, you should be able to see the blue Galileo flag on the app,” notes Dr. Read this: MyGalileoDrone contest open for submissions! It also shows regional satellite-based augmentation systems ( SBAS), including QZSS (Japanese flag), GAGAN (Indian flag), ANIK F1 flag (Canadian flag), Galaxy 15 (American flag), Inmarsat 3-F2 and 4-F3 (UK flag), SES-5 (Luxembourg flag), and Astra 5B (Luxembourg flag). The application shows four global constellations: GPS (American flag), Galileo (EU flag), GLONASS (Russian flag) and Beidou (Chinese flag). “In just a matter of seconds, you should be able to see the available satellites providing positioning data to your device,” says Dr. Once you have it installed, simply launch the app. Sean Barbeau, who is the Principal Mobile Software Architect for R&D at the Centre for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida, displays real-time information for satellites in view of your device. For example, to test whether your phone uses Galileo, you can download the GPSTest application from the Google Play store or F-Droid.

The question is, which constellations is your phone using?Īndroid users can choose from several applications, most of them available free of charge, that will check if your phone is currently using Galileo, GPS or Glonass satellites to determine its position.

The good news is that most of the chips found in phones are multi-Global Navigation Satellite System ( GNSS), meaning they use data from more than one GNSS constellation. Use the GPSTest app (or similar) to find out whether your smartphone is benefiting from the increased positioning accuracy that Galileo provides.Īs Galileo is a native feature of the smartphone hardware itself, the only way to have Galileo capability on your phone is to purchase one that comes with a chip that tracks Galileo.

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