GPS Can Track Anything

Thursday, May 14, 2009

GPS has long been used for fleet tracking by businesses and the military, but now this technology is making its way in our homes in an ever increasing fashion.

The first on the scene with GPS navigation units. These small, compact devices fit inside our cars and helped us find our ways out on the highways and streets of our towns and communities. At first these gadgets were large, pricey, and hard to get. Today, millions upon millions of units have been sold and many Americans enjoy the ease and comfort of computer aided navigation for a relatively reasonable price.

After navigation units came GPS small enough to fit inside cell phones. Mobile providers were required to provide tracing technology in all there phones in the early 2000s, and many companies went with GPS tracking chips over using a cell tower based strategy. This then led to a boom in cell phone GPS.

Navigation technology is now integrated into cell phones. You can track your spouse, teen, or child with their cell phone for relatively nominal fee - around $5 a month. You can even use your phone to get housing quotes at your location!

The most interesting thing about this proliferation of GPS technology is that the same thing is going on whether you are tracking a fleet of vehicles or your teen driver - trilateration.
Trilateration is a mathematical principle that takes the known location and distance from three or more objects and calculates the your location. Both GPS fleet tracking and kid tracking work exactly the same way.

A satellite circling the earth in geosynchronous orbit emits a signal that gets picked up a GPS unit. As the unit collects more and more signals from these satellites it plugs them all into a math equation that tells the device's computer where the unit is.

If the unit is a data logger, it takes the position information and stores it in its database and displays the information to the user if it has a visual display. This is your more traditional GPS navigation units.

If the unit is a data pusher, it takes the position information and sends it out via cell phone or radio signal to a central processing center where the information is stored for access via the Internet. This is real-time GPS tracking.

Both types of tracking have their advantages and disadvantages and should be applied in their own special situations. For example, you certainly don't want a data logger if you are trying to get real time information on your teen's driving habits are are trying to keep your child safe from predators. You also are not going to need or want a real time tracking solution for car navigation (unless you are a business too). It just doesn't make sense.

We probably have not even begun to scratch the surface of all the things that can be tracked with GPS as a society, and we have already used it to track many strange and incredible things.

People have even used it to create art! Only time will tell what we will use GPS tracking for next.

For more GPS Tracking Devices, please visit our web store links: Electronic Peripherals UK, Home Appliance UK

Article Courtsey: Article Rich. Com

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