Location :To determine a basic position Navigation: Getting from one location to another Tracking: Monitoring the movement of people and things Mapping: Creating maps of the world Timing: Bringing precise timing to the world
Space segment - consisting of satellites which broadcast signals Control segment - steering the whole system User segment - including many types of receivers
SPACE SEGMENT 24 Satellites 12 Hour Orbital Period 10,900 N.miles Altitude USER SEGMENT Track Code and Phase Extract Satellite Message Computes Position CONTROL SEGMENT Time Synchronization Orbit Prediction Satellite Health
Control Segment One master control station Five monitoring stations Three ground antennas Satellites health maintained and monitored Satellite orbits were determined and checked Clocks behavior are monitored and calculated Inject broadcast message
User Segment
Computers (Hardware)
Processors (Software) Land, Sea, and Airborne Operators
GPS Receiver
Recording Device
Power Supply
Triangulation from satellite is the basis of the system A GPS receiver measures the distance using the travel time of a radio signals GPS needs very accurate clock to measure travel time Once the distance to satellite are known, then we need to know exactly where the satellites are in space Satellites and receivers generate same code and keeps same time As the GPS signal travels through the atmosphere, the signal is delayed (time difference is calculated).
Triangulation
Position is calculated from distance measurements (ranges) to satellites . Three ranges are enough if we reject ridiculous answers or use another tricks Mathematically we need 4 satellites ranges to determine location
6 seconds
4 seconds
Pseudo range of third satellite cannot intersect at the intersection of pseudo ranges of first two satellites. It alerts the receiver computer that there is the clock error. In this example,by subtracting 1 second from each measurement the ranges would intersect at one point. With that error correction determined, the receiver apply the correction to all measurements from then on. It is in 2D explanation. In 3D, one more satellite measurement is required.
Errors
Atmospheric delays (Ionospheric particles, Tropospheric clouds) Satellite Clocks Orbital (Ephemeris, Cycle slip) Multipath (reflections) Receiver measurement noise
Satellite Clock Offsets Satellite Position Offsets (may be deliberate) Ionospheric Delay
Multipath Reflection
Differential GPS
Differential GPS measurements can be much more accurate than standard GPS measurements A receiver placed at a known location calculates the combined error in the satellite range data That correction can be applied to all other receivers in the same locale, to eliminate virtually all error in their measurements
Two GPS Reference station which is put at precisely known location. Rover receiver which is moving around to measure.
Backward calculating by Reference station By using its know position and known satellite position, the theoretical distance is calculated. Then the theoretical distance is divided by speed of light to get the time. Compare the theoretical time and the time actually they took. Difference is the error or delay in the satellite signal. List of instantaneous errors Reference station must go through all the visible satellites and computes their instantaneous errors. Then list of errors is encoded to standard format (RTCM104) and transmit it to the rover receivers through radio links. Roving receivers receive the complete list of errors and apply the corrections for the particular satellites they are using. Real-Time DGPS Post-Processing DGPS
Reference Receiver
Data Collector
Antenna
Base Station
Antenna
Receiver
Laptop Computer
Receiver
Data Collector
GPS Applications
Emergency Services Military
Natural Resources
Remote Sensing and GIS Social Science Surveying and Mapping Transportation Urban Watershed Management