GPS

Navigation Systems

W

hilst many people think that GPS means satellite navigation, it is actually short for “Global Positioning System.” The system works by receiving signals from overhead satellites and triangulating where you are using these signals. It’s a bit more sophisticated than this but essentially, that’s how it works. GPS actually requires four satellites for a proper position fix, the fourth satellite providing the solution with a time fix. See below for a more technical description of how GPS works.

It’s All In The Software

The clever bit isn’t in the GPS receiver, either, but it is in the software that reconciles your position with a map. If it’s a road map, it then figures out how to get you to where you need to be. Even this isn’t especially difficult although intra-drive re-routing is impressive when it happens.

From a user perspective, when we fire up the GPS system all I have to do is tell is where I want to go. This can be difficult by its own right, especially when we’re looking at foreign addresses, but once it knows where you need to be it takes care of everything else for you. If you take a wrong turn the software will automatically plan a revised route (or tell you to double back on yourself).

This photograph shows our own GPS software solution displaying our route past Lake Garda, Italy (see here for more details). It’s difficult to take a decent picture of the GPS software in action so I’ll come back to this and update it in due course.