A free satellite navigation system called EGNOS was Thursday launched by the European Union (EU), with the objective of bringing about an improvement in the exactness of the US global positioning system (GPS). The EU also has said that the "Safety-of-Life" service for aircraft navigation would likely be introduced next year.

The EGNOS, which will make use of three satellites and 34 ground stations, would be of great help to the pilots, drivers and blind people as it would enhance the precision of the GPS, vertically as well as horizontally, to nearly 2 meters from the earlier 7-meter accuracy.

An EU statement pertaining to the newly-launched EGNOS said: "It will make all personal navigation applications much more precise, giving birth to new possibilities like guiding aids for blind people."

Furthermore, the system is also expected to benefit farmers in terms of better spraying of fertilizers, thereby becoming a medium for the introduction of new services on the road, like automatic tolling, as well as pay-per-use car insurance.

The EGNOS, initiated by the European Commission, the European Space Agency and aviation safety authority Eurocontrol, would also likely give a much-needed boost to the better-known Galileo project - a far more sophisticated European satellite system, which would expectedly become functional in 2014, and would be a potential rival for the GPS.