GMV launches a Software GPS receiver for mass-market applications

GMV’s is presenting its new inhouse product SRX-10, a software GPS receiver for mass-market applications, at this year’s GSMA Mobile World Congress, to be held from today until this Thursday 17 February in Barcelona. This is the world’s leading mobile communications conference.

The new product SRX-10, which GMV is proud to present at the Congress, is a fully hosted software GPS receiver; it has been developed with mass-market applications in mind, especially urban scenarios. As a fully hosted solution, a general purpose CPU can host all receiver functions, even signal acquisition and tracking, with the only requirement of adding on a low cost RF front-end. In order to target mass-market applications the software receiver is optimized to run on low cost CPU platforms. In fact, GMV announces that versions ported to XScale (PXA270) and ARM9-SAMSUNG 2440 CPUs are already available.

With this approach, GMV’s product aims to offer GPS reception with almost zero marginal production costs. “User devices for personnel location and telematics applications will therefore be able to slash their BOM cost compared to conventional hardware receivers or partially hosted hardware receivers” said Miguel M. Romay, GNSS Director for GMV.
 

Other benefits offered by GMV’s new software receiver are its enormous flexibility and upgradeability. Since it is a fully hosted solution, there is no need to change any HW; this makes it much easier to phase in new features and market receiver customizations. Moreover, the upgrading of the receiver to include new constellations or SBAS will not require any hardware change. In the case of automotive OEMs this feature will allow remote in-factory upgrading of telematic devices to include the latest available GNSS services.

GMV’s extensive testing campaigns with low cost CPUs in urban and non-urban scenarios are now providing performances very similar to those offered by top class mass market GPS conventional receivers.

The new SRX-10 product is the result of several years of R&D effort by GMV. The company is proud to have contributed to the development of satellite navigation for more than 20 years, becoming one of the main players in the implementation of Europe’s satellite navigation strategy. GMV's knowledge in this field and the experience of our human resource team have led us to a key position both in the development of navigation systems and also in the development of different GNSS applications, where GMV has been pioneer in the use of GPS, GLONASS and EGNOS signals. Currently, GMV has a dedicated team of more than 150 GNSS experts. This new breakthrough has enabled GMV to round out its capabilities and range within the GNSS industry.