We all have been in such positions when we felt a little lost and we could not find out our way to our favorite hunting or fishing spot, or to the nearest airport for our business meeting. We just felt like if somebody would help us out with the directions to the place, thus saving us a lot of unnecessary effort and time. And that’s why we have the GPS with us. First developed by the Garmin, they actually stand for “Global Positioning System” and it operates due to a network of satellites that transmit coded data, mainly for the purpose of tracking locations on anywhere on the Earth. It was first developed to be used in military applications but later a decree was passed which allowed the civilians to participate in the fun.
It generally consists of three segments: the space segment (the network of 24 satellites), the ground system (the five ground stations, one master and four unmanned), and the user segment (any user with a GPS product). To determine the exact location, the user’s GPS device collects two type of data from the satellites, the almanac data that tells him about the orbit and the current location of the satellite and the “pseudo-random code” that tells him of the distance of the satellite from the user. And since a normal device can track the position and distance of around 4 satellites at a time, they can track their own 3-d location.
GPS is one of the groundbreaking and important innovations that has spread itself to all aspects of our daily life.