The prospect of Australian farms, mines and essential services using autonomous and remotely operated equipment ranging from combine harvesters to rescue and retrieval drones has inched closer to reality after a deal for a 50-fold increase in satellite positioning accuracy was inked. Known as the Southern Positioning Augmentation Network (SouthPAN), the $1.18 billion deal between Geoscience Australia and Lockheed Martin will improve geospatial positioning accuracy from between 5 and 10 metres down to as little as 10cm. The fineness of positioning accuracy makes a huge difference for automated systems and operator-assisted technologies like instrument landing for aircraft and operating in very low visibility environments like fog or night. It also means much better maps.