Cambridge Positioning Systems, a Cambridge, United Kingdom-based company, last week introduced its Cursor Global System for Mobile communications location system at the GSM World Congress in Cannes, France.
The company said Cursor is the first demonstrable system of its kind. Cambridge is demonstrating the system to potential business partners-including network operators, handset manufacturers and information and service providers-using a local area network around the city of Cambridge.
Cursor is designed to pinpoint the location of Global System for Mobile communications customers using Time of Arrival technology.
The Cursor technology consists of three elements, including a firmware addition to the handset, a receive-only supplement to the operator’s GSM network and the position calculation program run on a PC server, said the company. The location of a mobile phone is calculated using signals inherent to the GSM network, which reduces implementation costs, said the company.
A base transceiver station is located within each cell and continually radiates modulated signals that poll for handsets in its cell. The Cursor system calculates the location of the mobile handset by comparing the signals received from at least three of the GSM network’s base transceiver station units at two separate locations-the handset itself and a dedicated base unit.
The caller’s geographic position then is automatically displayed as a reference point on a digital map display at the headquarters of the emergency service operator.
Cambridge maintains that its system is more appropriate for GSM systems in local mass consumer services environments than global positioning system products. According to the company, GPS hardware adds significant cost to handsets and increases battery drain.
Cambridge initially will offer the product as a solution in the United States to the Federal Communications Commission’s mandated E911 requirements. Geoff Morris, chief executive officer of Cambridge, said he expects Europe to follow the United States in mandating an E911 requirement.
Morris said long-term goals for Cursor include location-based information services. Potential applications include asset tracking and services that allow mobile users to request or automatically receive-via push technology-information related to their location, such as nearby services and entertainment, said the company.
Morris said a corollary in the European market will be the ability to provide local information to travelers in foreign countries in their own language.
While the company is developing a system for Code Division Multiple Access, it has not yet done any CDMA trials on its platform. Cambridge is marketing its GSM location product as a personal safety differentiator for GSM operators.
Founded in 1995, Cambridge is a privately funded company. The Cursor technology was originated at the Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory by its inventor Dr. Peter Duffet-Smith, who serves as Cambridge’s chief technical officer.
