Some Information about Global Positioning System of the XXI century
NAVSTAR GPS is a very famous navigation facilities that are used by a large number of people nowadays. The aim of the arrangement is the detecting of the velocity and position of the objects. It may define the object at any area on Earth, even in polar areas and in space to 100 kilometers above Earth in any weather conditions. The United States Department of Defense has developed and realized Global Positioning System.
The basic principle of work is definition of the location by the means of measuring the distance to an object from the spot with fixed coordinates. The sending satellite spreads radio signal to a GPS antenna and the delay time is calculated to define the distance between the receiver and transmitter. You can find that GPS receiver has to recognize the distance to 3 satellites and the time of the GPS system to identify 3-dimensional coordinates. As a result, radio signals from 4 transmitters minimum are used for the detecting of a receiver's coordinates and altitude. The direction of the transmitters from Earth is realized in the control station that is located in Schriever base, Colorado.
Today GPS receivers are often used for civil needs, mostly for position and speed detection. If you need handheld GPS systems you can buy it almost anywhere today. It is also built in the most computers, mobile phones and onboarders. A customer may define his geographical position with the help of GPS receiver at any moment of time that he needs. The exactness of the location definition is from 3 to 5 meters and when the signal is improved from Earth it becomes better and may be to 1 millimeter.
You may get GPS tracking software as well. This system helps user detect his location that is shown on the electronic navigation map.
There are two kinds of maps. The first type of raster maps is the most open and the simplest kind. This type of maps is a usual image of the country where the coordinates of GPS antenna are applied. There are used various scales but it mostly depends on the primary version of an electronic map. This map may be a simple picture from space or a scanned navigation map.
But vector maps have their own data system inside them. They have all the data about objects, their characteristics and location. The area information includes the data about the entire object starting from lakes and ending with mountains that are located in this territory. These two kinds of maps contain the information about all the hotels, motels, cafes and filling stations in your place of location. You will receive a real comfort of a travel with the help of portable automotive.
There are also some drawbacks that GPS has. The basic disadvantage is that GPS is radio-navigation arrangement and owing to it signal may not be received in some conditions. A user will be almost imperceptible for GPS signal in reinforced concrete constructions. But nowadays it really is the greatest arrangement of the geographical coordinates defining on Earth.
Posted on June 20th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Progress & Technology