Auto navigation tech firm Swift has announced a new platform that improves existing single-frequency GNSS positioning from today’s average 3 metres to lane-level accuracy, without changing existing hardware and antenna. In tests, the new Skylark service improved positioning accuracy of a production vehicle using a standard low cost automotive receiver and antenna to 70 cm.

According to Swift, this improvement in performance unlocks lane-level precision previously not possible on existing single-frequency hardware.

These findings were demonstrated during regular test drives the Swift team has conducted to confirm the efficacy of its solutions and software updates.

Skylark is Swift’s wide area, cloud-based GNSS corrections service. It is designed to deliver real-time, high-precision positioning and is hardware-independent.

Swift says that Skylard is most accurate when integrated with Starling, a high-precision positioning engine that works with a variety of automotive-grade GNSS chipsets and inertial sensors. Swift says that the combination is designed for autonomous, ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems), V2X (vehicle-to-everything) and navigation applications. Starling is platform-independent and enhances the measurements for commercially available GNSS receivers.

“Swift is excited to share these findings with the public,” said Joel Gibson, Executive Vice President of Automotive. “The ability to provide higher accuracy to programs without requiring hardware changes can be a game changer for cost-sensitive programs and brings immediate visible benefit to navigation systems, V2X and many other applications.”