According to DARPA, or the US' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to you and me, GPS is simply too unreliable. That kind of makes sense, especially as DARPA designs new technology for deployment in the military field, and the last thing you want is the incorrect GPS-info when launching an attack. As such, DARPA is working on a new and more reliable version of GPS, one which will not disappear in blind spots or have its signal jammed.

Termed as a "radical" new system by DARPA, this new technology will provide a more accurate position-reading and the speed of this real-time GPS-like system will give military troops a distinct advantage. DARPA says that GPS has been a great aid to troops in combat, but the technology itself is not entirely foolproof, specifically as it can be jammed by enemies and can be inaccessible in some parts of the world.

In a document posted earlier in the week, DARPA said that “The need to be able to operate effectively in areas where GPS is inaccessible, unreliable or potentially denied by adversaries has created a demand for alternative precision timing and navigation capabilities.”

Although a timeline for this new tech has not been revealed, DARPA has said that "self-contained" devices are currently in development. These new devices will hinge off of the position, time and motion tracking measures currently used by modern day GPS devices, but also utilise high-precision clocks, self-calibrating gyroscopes and new types of sensors to provide highly accurate real-time GPS info.

As far as civilian applications for this tech goes, little is known, but we're sure GPS companies will be chomping at the bit to try it out.