For example, they will be better able to locate critical assets, precisely align machines such as driverless trains at platforms and let farmers, airports, and fleet operators know the exact whereabouts of their autonomous vehicles, buggies and cars at any given time. Vodafone believes that large enterprises will benefit hugely from these new technologies. By identifying key network capabilities, and making them available through common APIs in a cloud platform, Vodafone is delivering new software, video and data applications at scale, in addition to gigabit-capable connectivity. The new precise positioning service is another example of how Vodafone is redefining its network and technology on a 'Telco as a Service' (TaaS) model. Now we are applying the same levels of accuracy to the outdoor world." "Our in-building 5G and IoT services already allow manufacturing plants, research laboratories and factories to carry out critical, and often hazardous, precision work with robots. What we can do now is take new digital services like this one, integrate it with our global IoT platform and fast networks, and offer it securely at scale to many millions of customers. Vodafone Business Platforms and Solutions Director Justin Shields said: "We might not be able to locate a needle in a haystack yet, but we are getting close. It will also allow an autonomous truck to mind other road users, including cyclists, whose e-bikes can automatically transmit their position and intended direction of travel. A matter of centimetres could be crucial to ensuring the safety of passengers on a driverless bus, or knowing the precise location of a medical drone. Pinpoint accuracy is critical to the acceptance and mass adoption of autonomous vehicles not just on the road but in factories, airports, dockyards and any site where machines are in motion. It did this in partnership with leading global positioning provider Sapcorda, using Vodafone's global Internet of Things (IoT) platform – the largest in the world with 118 million connections. Vodafone has successfully used new precision positioning technology to remotely track a vehicle to within just 10 centimetres of its location, an improvement of more than three metres compared with current standard satellite based systems. Vodafone customers will have applications that do all that and more thanks to a new technology it is testing. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - Autonomous trucks need to warn e-bikes of their presence to avoid accidents, first responders need to know the position of critical medical drones with pinpoint accuracy, and operators need to precisely locate precious cargo.