GPS : Global Positioning System



Friends,

GPS stands for Global Positioning System. It is a system of satellites revolving around our planet Earth by which a user through its mobile, tablet or navigation unit can easily find out its exact location.
GPS satellite
It was started in United States of America between 1970 and 1980 when US Air force launched its GPS satellites for army navigation purpose but when Russia shot a civilian aircraft of United States in 1983 as this plane entered in Russian airspace, then contemporary US govt. decided to use GPS for civilian purposes also and authorized to install this unit in every civilian aircraft for navigation purpose. After hard work and re-design GPS again launched in 1995 for public use, but at this time GPS was not so accurate and advanced and  it was used to just take the idea of location but in year 2000 with many corrections and added features it was re-launched  for public use. US Air force had been launched around 50 GPS satellites between year 2005 and 2015. Between this time GPS technology has been more advanced and at present time it is capable to locate the exact location of user.


Aerial view from ISS

How GPS does works?


All the GPS satellites which are revolving around the earth contain an atomic clock inside it. What is atomic clock, atomic clock is such a type of clock which continues to be a correct clock for many million years. It will be error less for that period of time. Even a millisecond error cannot be found in this clock. In working with GPS satellites sends signals to earth and with every signal satellite notes the time at which signal was sent to earth and speed. Speed with which satellite sends signals is around 50 bytes/minutes means the signal is very small in magnitude and less in speed (rate of sending). On the earth in every cell phone there is GPS receiver present which tries to make more links with these GPS satellites and to receive more signals and if this GPS receiver in mobile successfully makes links with any three satellites of GPS system then it can tell the exact location of anyone exactly. It smartly calculates the distance of user from satellite as it knows when the signal was sent when was received. And if we add one more satellite to the system of this three satellites means if link is made between four satellites then also it can easily find out location from means sea level.

Friends, when we are navigating means when we are changing our position from one place to other then in this situation GPS tells the way along with our present location which is changing rapidly, it is all by continuously switching of the satellites to make more fresh links, in this process our battery discharge easily as after every few time GPS receiver of mobile tries to make this link. The rate of discharging battery increases with increase in your driving speed. Because receiver in mobile more rapidly tries to link the satellites and receives data in order to tell you exact location.

What is A-GPS?


Friends sometime you heard about AGPS. AGPS stands for Assistant GPS. In its working AGPS consumes the some mobile data to rapidly provide your location. This AGPS along with help of location of our mobile network tries to pull the information of all satellites which will be present on overhead at that time and when GPS searches for GPS satellites then it only targets the satellites by which our mobile network get its location easily.
Beside GPS there is another navigation unit present which is called as GLONASS. It is a Russian navigation technology. It is not as popular as GPS. Around the world approximate every phone is using GPS as a navigation unit but there are also some smart phones available around the world which uses GLONASS as it navigation unit.  

Many European joint ventures are currently working with US to improve the features available in GPS.

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