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Uncertain<T>

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444 points samtheprogram | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.024s | source
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AlotOfReading ◴[] No.45055844[source]
A small note, but GPS is only well-approximated by a circular uncertainty in specific conditions, usually open sky and long-time fixes. The full uncertainty model is much more complicated, hence the profusion of ways to measure error. This becomes important in many of the same situations that would lead you to stop treating the fix as a point location in the first place. To give a concrete example, autonomous vehicles will encounter situations where localization uncertainty is dominated by non-circular multipath effects.

If you go down this road far enough you eventually end up reinventing particle filters and similar.

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mikepurvis ◴[] No.45056358[source]
Vehicle GPS is usually augmented by a lot of additional sensors and assumptions, notably the speedometer, compass, and knowledge the you'll be on one of the roads marked on its map. Not to mention a fast fix because you can assume you haven't changed position since you last powered on.
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1. blauditore ◴[] No.45062247[source]
> assume you haven't changed position since you last powered on

Sounds like a classic case of programmers ignoring corner cases: Towing, ferries, car trains, pushing the car because it broke down...

It's when you find messages in the log like "this should never happen".

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2. mauvehaus ◴[] No.45062709[source]
You can pretty clearly use it to correct errors up to a point though. If you have a 5km difference from when the GPS was turned off, you've probably hit a corner case. If you have a 25m difference, and it's converging on the last location as you pick up satellites, snapping to the prior location is almost certainly correct.