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Millions of Android smartphones were quietly enlisted into one of the biggest crowdsourced navigation projects ever
Google researchers turn Android devices into scientific ionosphere tools
While ground-based GNSS stations provide detailed maps of ionospheric total electron content (TEC), their coverage is uneven, leaving large gaps in underserved regions. The ionosphere, a layer of ionized plasma extending from 50 to 1,500 km above Earth, significantly impacts Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals by introducing positioning errors. By aggregating and averaging measurements from millions of devices, researchers achieved accuracy comparable to dedicated monitoring stations, even resolving phenomena like solar storms and plasma density structures.
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