Realizing self-driving with high-precision location information and real-time situational awareness
u-blox, GNSS receiver module capable of transmitting and receiving cm-level location information

On the way home at dawn. I turned on the GPS-based map to use the taxi service called by smartphone. I accessed the map to report my current location, but I saw an absurd result. The smartphone was located in a building across the street. I had been in the same place for 18 hours, but the GPS receiver recognized me as being several meters away. I tried refreshing, but in the end, I had to manually re-set my current location. This is the reporter’s real experience.

We unconsciously use location services through GPS receivers in our daily lives. We use numerous services ranging from ordering food such as coffee or hamburgers to public transportation arrival time notifications and directions, but it is meaningful that location information services are related to our lives. This is the autonomous driving market.

Global consulting firm McKinsey predicted that while vehicle manufacturers have been leading the automobile market with technological advancements, the market structure will change due to the emergence of autonomous driving markets that require connectivity in vehicles.

McKinsey & Company reported that based on its customer needs survey, 13% of buyers would no longer consider buying a new car that couldn't access the Internet, and more than 25% of respondents placed a higher priority on connectivity over mechanical factors such as engine performance or fuel efficiency.

Global research firm Technavio suggests that the connectivity of autonomous vehicles is a promising solution for reducing traffic accident rates, and that functions such as real-time connected location information, remote diagnostics, and vehicle maintenance and diagnostics are effective in preventing car accidents.

Autonomous vehicles are now focused on developing body capabilities that connect with the outside world and enhance the in-vehicle experience, with a focus on optimizing consumer convenience through onboard sensors or internet connectivity.

Digital maps created based on accurate location recognition play a key role in autonomous driving, and autonomous vehicles require a process to confirm their current location in the traffic flow through communication between the vehicle and the environment.

In order to identify the current vehicle location and receive information about the road ahead on a road where conditions change every moment, a precise map that is updated in real time is required. However, the global road network is 3,170 km long, so it is expected that it will be difficult to provide a map that is updated every second without error in real time.

In addition, existing GPS receivers have an error range of about 20m, so they can only provide an approximate location of the vehicle and cannot provide accurate information such as road traffic conditions or lanes. Lidar, cameras, and radar, which are core sensors used in autonomous vehicles, are also subject to constraints such as climate conditions.

We met in person with a company that developed a positioning receiver (GNSS receiving module) that has sold over 500 million units with technology that reduces location information errors of several meters to centimeters and temporal latency, and heard about their differentiated technology.

This is Director Park Seong-jin, who is in charge of technical support at the Korean branch of u-blox, a company specializing in wireless communication and positioning modules and chips.


- People are generally more familiar with GPS receivers than GNSS. What is the fundamental difference between GPS and GNSS?
Most people are more familiar with the word GPS. Many people may recognize GPS as a location recognition service. In fact, GPS is a proper noun that refers to a satellite navigation system maintained and managed by the U.S. Department of Defense.

In contrast, GNSS is an all-encompassing term that includes GPS, Russia's GLONASS, China's Beidou, Europe's Galileo, Japan's Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), and India's NAVIC.

ublox also introduced GPS products to customers in the past. As the autonomous driving market has emerged, we have launched GNSS products in line with the trend of new satellite systems continuously emerging.


- In order to manufacture autonomous vehicles, sensors such as lidar, radar, and cameras are used as core equipment. What is the actual role of GNSS in autonomous vehicles?
Most autonomous vehicles are driven by lidar, radar, cameras, etc. GNSS serves as an auxiliary device for these sensors.

Equipment such as lidar, radar, and cameras have limitations that are greatly affected by climatic constraints. In many cases, autonomous vehicle sensors do not function properly on roads covered with snow due to heavy snowfall or on roads where lanes are not clearly distinguished. GNSS plays a complementary role in this.

In particular, autonomous vehicles require maps based on a massive database called HD Map. Based on the information data of the received map, the vehicle compares the currently recognized terrain features, etc. to recognize the current vehicle location and road conditions.

If there is a high-precision positioning system, the current location can be accurately determined even without a database. This is because on highways and country roads, the current location of the vehicle can be clearly determined with only simplified data.

Considering that autonomous vehicles transmit and receive data in real time, we believe that our GNSS products are also valuable as devices that transmit information to the Map DB cloud. This is similar to the fact that a large amount of customer information is stored in the cloud just by smartphone users installing and using applications.

Even in autonomous vehicles, if 3D data is collected and transmitted to the cloud, the data will contain not only the exact location of the current vehicle but also time information. Considering that the road is not a fixed, static space but a dynamic space that can change in real time, the value of the information sent by the GNSS receiver is clearly high.


- Many consumers are concerned about privacy issues, as autonomous vehicles currently transmit and receive a large amount of data. Hacking threats related to this have also been an issue for years. If u-blox’s GNSS provides not only real-time accurate location information but also time data, wouldn’t it pose a major security problem?
As systems become more sophisticated, the threat of hacking is bound to increase. This is because the nature of data itself makes it impossible to completely block hacking. This means that the more data there is, the wider the area hackers can attack.

Hacking elements of GNSS are largely divided into two categories: wireless communication (air) and internal hacking of the system. Hacking in the industry includes jamming and spoofing. Manufacturers are designing receivers based on this. Being able to make a receiver means, in other words, being able to make a transmitter.

Hackers are creating satellite transmitters on the ground to jam the signals as if the satellite is transmitting real radio waves. This has the side effect of increasing the error range of the receiver or creating errors in certain locations.

u-blox provides a service that helps prevent such hacking in advance. It has a reporting system that notifies when an incorrect signal is coming in, such as a jamming signal or spoofing.

In addition, the product itself has a security update function to prevent firmware disabling or interface penetration in advance. Data transmitted and received between the CPU and GNSS receiver is managed through encryption, making it difficult for hackers to find out even if they attempt to hack.


- I understand that in the case of u-blox GNSS, if the latency is good, the separation distance can be around 3m, and if high-end GNSS is used, it can be reduced to sub-meter units. What technology is used here?
The core of the technology used in GNSS products is divided into accuracy and correction information. The value of GPS is ultimately how accurately it can determine the current location of the vehicle.

The GPS of smartphones currently used by many consumers is a low-cost product with an error range of several meters. In the autonomous driving market, there has been active discussion about precision receivers recently. Precision receivers are in the spotlight because they have an error range of only a few centimeters to several tens of centimeters.

This means that even if the same satellite signal is used, there can be an error range of several meters to several centimeters.

It is a reality that satellite navigation systems are inherently subject to error ranges. The ionosphere, continental sphere, and multipath within the ground act as sources of error before satellite information reaches the troposphere where we live, and there are also errors in the atomic clocks on the satellite and errors within the receiver. Here, the location information that we currently see through the receiver is my location value from a little while ago, so there is bound to be a temporal latency.

In order to reduce error information, a method of reducing error information in the receiver is utilized by receiving correction information from the reference station. Positioning navigation system signals include codes, carrier waves, and navigation data.

Most low-cost GPS devices are code-based devices. Since they use code signals to calculate the current distance, there is a limit to the wide range of errors. In the case of u-blox GNSS, they use carrier waves to calculate ambiguous or unknown values, and then accurately calculate the distance between the satellite and the vehicle down to centimeters.


- Does the specialized accuracy of u-blox GNSS provide the same accuracy regardless of location, such as above ground, underground, or in a parking lot inside a building?
u-blox GNSS accuracy refers to open-sky accuracy, where the sky is completely visible. Accuracy drops exponentially in urban areas with dense forests of buildings, and indoor positioning ability also changes as you move further away from windows.

To overcome this, u-blox is using gyros, elsometers, lane pulses, and speed pulses to complement the shortcomings of GNSS. For example, when entering a parking lot, the vehicle is designed to continue positioning based on sensors mounted on the vehicle even if the satellite signal coming into the GNSS is cut off.


- If additional functions are added to improve GNSS accuracy, the cost resistance will likely increase. Won’t this become an obstacle to the mass production of autonomous vehicles?
It is true that price resistance is increasing. However, since we have launched the GNSS transceiver as a solution for autonomous driving, we plan to mass-produce the solution at a reasonable price that consumers can accept. We are trying to achieve price stability by realizing economies of scale.

GNSS technology is not something that has been around recently, but has been developed 20 to 30 years ago. However, because it is classified as expensive equipment, it has been difficult to use in various fields across industries. Furthermore, because the application areas are limited, the price has inevitably remained high.

The price of precision positioning receivers, which have been used in limited areas such as heavy construction equipment, geodesy, and autonomous driving tractors, will be made realistic so that they can be commercialized in the autonomous driving market. As the demand for precision receivers is also growing in the autonomous driving car market, the price of GNSS is expected to drop to a level that consumers can tolerate.


- Most GNSS solutions use commercial satellites. How many satellites does u-blox GNSS receiver currently use?
The current satellite system consists of multiple GNSS. GNSS such as GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, Beidou, QZSS, and Navik have various performances depending on the product, ranging from covering a specific area to covering the whole world. All together, there are over 130.

The number of satellites visible from a specific location where the vehicle is currently located is around 30, and the u-blox GNSS receiver is capturing all 30 satellites. Increasing the number of available satellites also improves the receiver’s positioning accuracy.

Especially in urban areas where signals heading to the sky are often obstructed by the forest of buildings, the technology of increasing the number of satellites is very advantageous in improving accuracy.

u-blox designs everything from channel and multi-band expansion to RF filters from the product development stage. As the number of satellites increases, the computing power of the CPU is comprehensively considered and reflected in the initial IC design to prepare for the increased computational load.


- Recently, domestic telecommunications companies such as SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus are actively jumping into the V2X market based on 5G communication infrastructure. It is known that they are preparing not only autonomous driving within the vehicle but also Car to Car service that communicates with external devices. Can you tell us about any areas where you are collaborating with domestic telecommunications companies?
Currently, u-blox's GNSS receivers are widely used in university research institutes and research companies. This is because the price is more than one-tenth of the price of products in the precision positioning receiver market.

Although we are not currently conducting direct B2B with domestic telecommunications companies, we will provide consulting on product solutions as well as GNSS market and technology trends at any time for places that need precision positioning receivers.


- On October 15, the government announced that it would complete the construction of infrastructure such as major roads to realize a Level 4 fully autonomous driving market by 2024, and commercialize fully autonomous vehicles on major roads nationwide by 2027, three years ahead of the original plan, for the first time in the world. On the 6th, it also established the world's first safety standards for Level 3 autonomous driving. Could you explain the short-term or mid-to-long-term roadmap that u-blox is planning according to the government's roadmap?
The current atmosphere in the autonomous vehicle market is one where the importance of precision receivers is acknowledged, but practical constraints such as cost resistance and correction information reception technology are preventing them from spreading as quickly as expected.

Even if we predict the next 3 to 4 years, it is judged that there will be many difficulties in expanding the precision receiver market.

An antenna is as important as a precision receiver for accurate location recognition. The products currently being mass-produced on the market are single-band (L1) types, and in the future, multi-bands (L1, L2, L5) should be installed to compensate for frequency limitations.

As a company that designs all the underlying technologies from semiconductor design to algorithms and connected services, u-blox was also the first to present technology for multi-band solutions.

Although demand for precision positioning receivers is not yet active in the market due to rising prices and technological limitations, European automotive OEMs have already started development. We plan to release a mass-produced vehicle equipped with a precision positioning receiver and multi-band by 2021 at the latest.

If cars can transmit and receive location information through communication networks such as LTE or 5G, the error range can be reduced, and when the V2X market based on 5G is commercialized, error accuracy will also improve further.

U-blox's GNSS receiver is designed to combine all frequencies from L1 band to L2 and L5. It is a technology that reduces the error range by measuring the satellite ionosphere error. It is small enough to be installed in the shark-type antenna of existing vehicles, and power consumption is also minimized.


- It seems that the real competition has just begun with the launch of autonomous vehicles. What do you think are the technological prerequisites necessary for the successful establishment of the autonomous driving market?
What GNSS receivers contribute to autonomous vehicle systems is precise position and velocity information, as well as visual information at the nanosecond level.

In the autonomous driving market, where situational information is provided on a per-second basis, policy infrastructure will also need to be established for vehicles to move smoothly. In Korea, the central government as well as local governments are already building and operating infrastructure related to the autonomous driving market according to their own purposes.

Since the autonomous driving market is a global market, it is necessary to build related infrastructure so that correction information can be received from overseas. It is also believed that public services should be activated so that the autonomous driving market can be established by allowing the public to accept big data transmitted and received from vehicles without resistance.


- As a company that has developed a real-time mobile precision positioning module for autonomous vehicle developers, can you give us a word of advice?
The autonomous driving market is an inevitable global trend. One of them is GNSS. The current location service market, including autonomous vehicles, is going through a transition period from low-cost GPS receivers to precise positioning receivers.

If you recognize the importance of precision positioning but are having difficulty entering the technology market due to price resistance or technological limitations, I would like to ask you to shake off your vague fears and misunderstandings.

The precision positioning receiver market is not a high-priced or high-technology field, contrary to expectations. Precision positioning in the order of a few centimeters is a technology that can be implemented on your desk.


u-blox is a global provider of positioning and wireless semiconductor solutions for automotive, consumer, and industrial markets. It has a broad portfolio of chips, modules, and software, and is headquartered in Thalwil, Switzerland, with a global network in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Global research firm Counterpoint predicted that the number of connected vehicles worldwide would reach 130 million in 2020, and global market research firm Research and Markets forecasted that the connected car market size would reach approximately KRW 246 trillion in 2025.

Transparency Market Research predicts that there will be about 600,000 self-driving cars on the road worldwide by 2025, and that the number will approach 30 million by 2035. The self-driving car market size is expected to reach KRW 624 trillion by 2026.