Interesting Facts About GPS

GPS is getting to be more a part of our everyday life all the time. If you buy a new car, there is a good chance that an option is available to get a GPS navigation system with it. It is only a matter of time before GPS navigation becomes a standard feature in every new car that rolls off the assembly line. Cell phone GPS is also growing by leaps and bounds. Right now. if you make an emergency phone call to the police or fire department from a hard - wired telephone the police know exactly where you are calling from. But not so with a mobile or cell phone. That, however, will soon change. Virtually, all new cell phones will soon have a GPS inside somewhere. Even photography is getting into the act. Some new cameras have a built in GPS so when you take a photo it tells you the latitude and longitude of where you were and stamps that information on the photo.

We tend to take GPS for granted in the same way we do the Internet. We assume it is almost free for everyone and available everywhere but that really isn't true. GPS was first developed in the 1970s and is owned, operated and controlled by the United States military. If the US military wants to cut off or control your access to the GPS system they can. In fact prior to May of 2000 all civilian GPS units had limited access to the GPS system called Selective Availability. Prior to that date your GPS would work just fine, but would not be as accurate as military GPS units. Normal GPS accuracy is greater than 20 meters but with Selective Availability it is only 100 meters. Today however, all GPS receivers - military or civilian - have the same accuracy. So at the moment, GPS is free for everyone around the world. But in the future, if a terrorist group or country were to get access to GPS guided weapons, the US military could cut off their access to GPS by encrypting the signal.

The GPS system is made up of 24 military satellites circling the earth at an altitude of 11,000 miles such that at any given time and location a GPS receiver gets a signal from at least 6 of those satellites at a time. They are set up in 6 orbital paths with 4 satellites spaced evenly in each of the 6 orbits. Signals from these satellites are available anywhere on the earth, 24 hours a day and are not affected by the weather. Older GPS receivers just had one channel so they had to cycle through the 6 or more satellites one at a time but newer units have 10 parallel channels or more so you get faster more accurate information.

The biggest headache for GPS systems is the time it takes for the signal to get from the satellite to your receiver. The 6 satellites you get signals from will all be at different distances from you and are rotating the earth at high speed. So the signals your GPS receiver gets will not automatically be time synchronized. Because of this problem, the military has limited civilian GPS units so they don't work if they are moving faster than 900 knots or above 60,000 feet in altitude. But most non-aviation GPS units will give error messages if you are moving faster than 90 miles per hour. Clearly, if you are standing still, a GPS will be a lot more accurate.

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to GPS

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Learn About GPS - A Powerful Navigational Tool

What is GPS? The acronym stands for Global Positioning System. It is the new "Polaris" that aids in navigating, positioning and tracking with the use of a satellite-controlled system that broadcasts signals to the equipment on the ground. With receivers hand carried by users, GPS determines the exact location of a vehicle, person or assets and other things useful and valuable to which it is attached and records the position at regular intervals. It is a powerful tracking system that has provided the world with diverse applications for the military and civilian users.

What is GPS? The GPS is a space-based radionavigation system controlled and funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and operated by the U.S. Military. This is the GPS Operational Constellation. The tracking system has space segments consisting of GPS satellites sending signals coming from space. There can be at least 24 operational satellites orbiting in 12 hours that recapitulate the same ground track as the earth turns underneath them. The GPS satellites then transmit the data in a very precise time reference plied by what is called "atomic clocks" onboard the satellite. These atomic clocks then passively transmit the navigation messages in specially coded signals, enabling the equipment on the ground called "receivers" to compute position, time, direction and velocity in three-dimensional locations known as latitude, longitude and altitude.

What is GPS? Your Most Reliable and Most Precise Assistant

The GPS was primarily for the use of the military. However, after the Korean Flight 007 in 1983 tragedy, which would have been prevented had its crew only had access to better navigational tools, President Ronald Reagan issued a directive which would guarantee that GPS signals be made available to the world for free or without restrictions. Though it was intended for civilians as well as military applications at first, from its design, civilian users would not be getting the same accuracy that the military could.

Going public, what is GPS serving the commercial market? GPS became the new powerful tool that improved efficient routing of vessels at sea. It has saved a ship's navigator hours of celestial inference and calculation. GPS enhanced safety at sea made it possible to report precise position to rescuers in case of disasters.

What is GPS navigating the land? GPS also improved efficiency on land: delivery trucks can now receive GPS signals and easily transmit their position back to a central dispatcher; police and fire departments use GPS to efficiently dispatch their vehicles and reduced response time; GPS keeps motorists from getting lost by showing their position and intended route on dashboard displays; railroads now use GPS technology in replacing older maintenance-intensive mechanical signals.

What is GPS navigating the air? Long before the GPS, aircrafts typically flew from one point to another and pilots on long-distance flights relied on navigational beacons situated across the country. The dawning of GPS supplemented existing navigational techniques for aircrafts inexpensively. With GPS navigating the air, airplanes can now fly a direct route to a destination that save significant amount in consumption of fuel and time, the methods of guiding planes to a safe landing in a poor weather or visibility has been improved and simplified and aided pilots with a precise position data to keep the plane on course.

What is GPS surveying, mapping the earth, managing the land and agriculture? GPS is used by surveyors and map makers for precision positioning; map locations of such facilities as telephone poles, sewer lines, and fire hydrants; map construction sites and property lines in minutes. In mapping the earth, GPS points have assigned codes in order to identify roads, streams, or other objects during data collection for analyses and comparison through a computer program called "Geographic Information Systems (GIS)."

GPS can be used in forestry, for mineral exploration, and wildlife habitat management to define positions of important assets precisely and identify their changes. In agriculture, a farm equipment with GPS receivers can provide precise position information and it also gives farmers great accuracy in the application of fertilizers and harvesting crops.

Agricultural GPS systems can be used to create crop yield maps during harvesting, making it easy for farmers to plan exactly how the fields should be used and fertilized for future crops.

So, what is GPS? It is a powerful navigational tool acting as your most reliable and most precise assistant that is transforming the way nations operate in space.

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