Future GPS..

[J.A.C.K.A]

What are peoples thoughts of where gps's will be going in the future what wild technology could they add to the existing?
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I had a weird thought the other day. What if your gps could upload your coordinates to the satelites and provide your location for others to find. That would help to find missing hickers and such. Plus that would change the sport of geocaching. People could make a 'movible person cache' where people would have to get a photo with the owner of the gps to log it... Since the person was constantly moving that would prove difficult. Perhaps a little to big brother though for you paranoid types...
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Any other thoughts of what crazy technological advances our gps's could make?

[Richary]

I believe some of the newer EPIRB devices do that, or are about to.

[Papa Bear_Left]

The addition of the European system will make GPSr accuracy much better, but that's a difference of degree, not of kind.

One big drawback of GPS is that it's large-scale and outdoor-only.

I think the next step is for there to be a standard that uses local transmitters within major buildings to allow pinpoint accuracy inside.
This is already under development for use by emergency services, especially firemen, to keep track of where their people are in smokey buildings. The military are also interested, of course.
If this takes off, then they'll get built into the same device as the standard GPS (with cellphone, PDA, camera, etc. all built-in, naturally)

The concept of virtual space/graffitti has already been discussed elsewhere, where information can be loaded into a geographically-indexed web that can be accessed by GPS-capable information terminals. Stand outside a restaurant and read the reviews left by others, get information on the park you're walking through, define a meeting spot for the latest flashmob and get directions to it as you approach.

Maybe you could use GPSrs for some sort of hidden treasure game...

[Mind Socket]

I expect there may be privacy/security concerns with uploading coords to a satellite, not to mention much greater power demands in having a transmitter.

I think there are some little GPS units that can transmit your coords to a buddy over UHF or GSM (also potentially subject to privacy/security problems). That could make for some very fun stuff.

As for finding lost hikers, there are devices called EPIRBs (google will tell you more). Not much point integrating these with a handheld GPS really.

[dcr]

An interesting Discussion on SlashDot this morning, on a similar topic ...

GPS vs. Galileo; Where Are They Headed?
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"This keynote speech from the recent European Navigation Conference talks about the history between the US military's GPS and the proposed EU Galileo system, as well as where they're both going. Interested in how you know where you are and what's going to happen to those satellites?"

The paper:
http://www.informatics.bangor.ac.uk/~jdl/gnss2004.pdf

[HMAS MB]

I want one that makes coffee......but that will never happen.

Some EPRIBS all ready have GPS inputs. There are already GSM Phones with built in GPSr's

Pretty much if you can think off it...the miliatry has either had it and got rid of it or already tried and given up.

I remember prior to GW1 we had a number of "P" code sets and heaps of Course Aquistion sets ( the difference is "P"code IS accurated to 1metre or less in fact they are the sets that missiles get fitted with and CA sets are accurate to 13 sperical metres...all civvy sets are CA) The disscuon to turn SA off was based on the fact that there was not enough "P" Code sets for the land forces so they had to turn it off so the CA sets were a little more accurate.

A slight digression. I hadnt seen any updates to either software of hardware other than mutl channel receivers by the time I had left the Navy.

Just my thoughts

[Kerry]

I remember prior to GW1 we had a number of "P" code sets and heaps of Course Aquistion sets ( the difference is "P"code IS accurated to 1metre or less in fact they are the sets that missiles get fitted with and CA sets are accurate to 13 sperical metres...all civvy sets are CA) The disscuon to turn SA off was based on the fact that there was not enough "P" Code sets for the land forces so they had to turn it off so the CA sets were a little more accurate.

Oh my? where do some of these myths come from?

For a start a dual frequency P/Y-code receiver basically eliminates some atmospheric errors as Selective Availability is handled in other ways, in the days of SA that was. The only number that basically changes in the error model with a P code receiver is the ionospheric correction. For a P/Y or C/A receiver ALL the other errors like ephemeris, satellite clocks, troposphere, multipath and receiver measurement are basically the same, well not basically, they in fact are.

The horizontal error with C/A is something around 10 metres compared to the dual freq P/Y code of around 6.5 metres and the difference is in the ionosphere, which is a little less than 4 metres, nothing more nothing less.

P/Y-code accurate to 1 metre is a myth, simply can't happen people and these days with S/A discontinued there isn't a hell of a lot of difference between civil SPS and military PPS type accuracy.

As for missiles well there's a lot more to launching and guiding a missile than simply using GPS as GPS alone can't do the job, not really entirely. Also the biggest factor in actually hitting something a few thousand km's away is actually knowing where it is (accurately) in the first place. In the first gulf war and especially in Kuwait there are some very good reasons for knowing the targets as accurately as they did and that basically had to do with Kuwait's mapping data base, which was rebuilt in record time by the actual software vendors plus some specialized industry input.

C/A sets accurate to 13 metres sperical metres, then again 13m SEP isn't the specification for GPS SPS accuracy. Signal-In-Space (SIS) accuracy specs for SPS receivers is horizontal global average less than 13 metres 95% and worst case scenario less than 36 metres 95% with vertical global average less than 22 metres 95% and worst acse scenario less than 77 metres. Don't forget the values are SIS spec.

Also one problem during the first gulf war was that there wasn't in fact full 24 hour GPS coverage either to 2D or 3D capability. At the beginning of the first gulf war there were only 16 satellites in the constellation with GPS II-8 (SVN 21) launched the same day Iraq was inavaded and was activated in a record 22 days to give much needed coverage in the middle east.

Cheers, Kerry.

[¢ha®lie ÃÂ]

Well, unknown about our gps units, but mobile phones will be doing it in the very near future.. re: United states.. e911..
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With more than 200,000 emergency calls coming from cellphones daily, the Federal Communications Commission is eager to remedy this defect. In 1997, the agency ordered wireless carriers to equip their systems with Enhanced 911 (E911) technologies, which would enable rescuers to pinpoint a caller's location to within a few dozen meters. But privacy advocates aren't convinced that the upgrade, due to be completed by 2006, is good news. They fear E911 could make it impossible for people to do anything without someone—employers and the police, for starters—being able to discover where they are.

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Quote is from Popular Science.. You can read the full article here:
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/ar ... 52,00.html
<br><br>Worth reading the second page.. getting sms'd a big mac voucher as you walk past mcdonalds is pretty crazy..<br><br>
Interesting stuff.. Originally the FCC ordered all carriers to have e911 implemented by October 1, 2001 but due to technological probs none of the carriers made the deadline. GPS was the obvious option but due to the problems with no signals indoors made it ineffective.. It will be interesting to see if any of them make the 2006 deadline..
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Maybe e911 will mean lots of mobile phones with full gps features.. geez imagine all the potential geocachers then!! There will be caches all over the place.. horray!!

[Team GeoCoopers]

I would like to see underwater GPS perfected for SCUBA !!!
They should just dial up the power of the sats so it can reach to murky depths. (ahh if only it was that easy)

With visability sometimes down to 3 metres it can get quite tricky to know where you are (esp. in relation to the jetty or dive boat which you have to get back to).

You can currently get a very basic system which shows you the direction of a transmitter dangling in the water off the side of the boat. But having your Lat and Long would be great for navigation along reefs etc.

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Jeremy
TeamGeoCoopers@jezza1.com

[Kerry]

GPS underwater? now if it could only be that easy but won't happen with the existing frequencies.

One thing that L2C will give is improved navigation capabilities indoors and forested type areas. probably won't go all the way towards a 911 (000) type location 100% of the time but then GPS isn't gauranteed 100% of the time either. Simply not a case of more power, more power as this is really not an option as the higher the power the more issues there are with panel design and heat dissipation.

But the first satellite to carry L2C is still not sheduled now until early 2005 and there won't be enough with L2C sats in 2006 either to make 911 locations effective.

Cheers, Kerry.

[wildbill]

This sort of GPSr equipment already exists.
It is used routinely to track animals in studies. At something like $1,0000 a pop it will take a while for the general public to show any interest.
I do not have a link to it but at the moment there is a race of sorts being conducted using Albatross and GPS as a fundraiser. The birds are sponsored and their progress on their annual migration is tracked.



mick

[Kerry]

I suppose with tracking systems the GPS is simply but one component of an overal system comprising other electronics, radio/satellite communication receivers and other associated hardware and software.

Add all the equipment and in the type of environment used the $$'s can get expensive when say fitted to something like Great white sharks as one really shouldn't be expecting to ever get the gear back and then it can only last so long all basically being battery driven. The Great white that was being tracked from SA, visted Victoria, Tassie finally disappeared off the north NSW coast somewhere?

As for animals there's also the virtual fence/paddock. Each beast is fitted with a radio receiver/GPs etc, which allows the system to be programmed (using radio) with a virtual fence/paddock. When ever the beast appears it might step outside the fence the system gives it a little shock, keeps going increased shock so it gets to know to turn back.

Want to gradually shift the herd around an area, send out some new fence coordinates. Cheaper than a physical fence? maybe not but certainly more flexible and convenient.

Cheers, Kerry.

[ToolkiT]

I would like to see underwater GPS perfected for SCUBA !!!
They should just dial up the power of the sats so it can reach to murky depths. (ahh if only it was that easy)

With visability sometimes down to 3 metres it can get quite tricky to know where you are (esp. in relation to the jetty or dive boat which you have to get back to).

You can currently get a very basic system which shows you the direction of a transmitter dangling in the water off the side of the boat. But having your Lat and Long would be great for navigation along reefs etc.

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Jeremy
TeamGeoCoopers@jezza1.com

I would like to see that too! real easy to get lost underwater!

[Kerry]

So how about a full autopilot landing of a F16 onto a aircraft carrier? Think about the dynamics of the aircraft, the muiltiple dynamics of the aircraft carrier, the angled deck, wind, waves, pith, roll, yaw in about 6 dimensions with the intent of droping the hook on the wire and all with no hands.

Actually was sea trialed several years ago under operational conditions, like threading the eye of a needle. The cockpit vision sort of asked the question, now if that was me and doing that speed just 14 feet of a carrier deck would I be worried about satellite geometry and what do do with these hands

Cheers, Kerry.

[Team Stargazer]

When ever the beast appears it might step outside the fence the system gives it a little shock ... certainly more flexible and convenient.

Not to the poor moo-moo!