Vehicle navigation in urban environments: overcoming GPS shadows

Overcoming GPS signal disturbances is essential for achieving adequate vehicle navigation in urban environments. In a previous paper, we have proposed a top-down approach for modeling context-aware vehicle navigation systems. We have also proposed an innovation concerning the technical aspects of navigation. Furthering this work, we discuss in the current paper more thoroughly the issue of GPS shadows identification and our proposed ways of overcoming them. It is important to mention that overcoming GPS shadows is considered complementary with regard to a typical GPS navigation. We therefore assume a context-aware service provisioning where an "A Scenario" GPS navigation gives way to an alternative "B Scenario" navigation in the event of encountering GPS shadows. We especially focus on the latter, by super-imposing GPS shadows calculation and corresponding real-time measurements, for the sake of precision. Counting on those two "channels" is expected to provide an adequate "B Scenario" alternative to the typical GPS navigation when obstacled by GPS shadows.