The Business Line, Dec. 11th 2002
IMAGINE being an archaeologist on an expedition in the Western Ghats. After preparing for this trip for months, you set out, reach a place and find that you are somewhere close to the treasured spot. The forest is dense, the sun is hot, and the air humid. The only way you can record where you have been, or find your way back to civilisation, is
Or let's suppose that you are sent to the forest to nab the forest brigand Veerappan. You will not enter the jungle without being sure of the route back to civilisation. Wouldn't a GPS receiver come to your rescue on such expeditions?
GPS is commonly used by archaeologists and explorers. Anyone equipped with a GPS receiver can use it as a reference point to find another location. With a basic knowledge of math and science, plus a hand-held GPS receiver, you could be an instant hero if you and friends got lost on a camping trip.
Vehicle-tracking is one of the fastest-growing GPS applications.
GPS-equipped fleet vehicles, public transportation systems, delivery trucks, and courier services use receivers to monitor their locations at all times.
The Coimbatore Corporation, for instance, has installed a GPS receiver on four of its 16 dumper placer trucks, which ferry garbage to the compost yard. This exercise is aimed at ensuring transparency in waste disposal. With shoddy removal of municipal waste attributed to irregularities in the waste-disposal system, the civic body thought it fit to install this receiver in each dumper placer truck to record the details of each trip. This passive vehicle-tracking system records the entire trip to the second (time).
The monitoring office at the Corporation is equipped with Trip Mapp software and a geo reference city map with the names of streets as also the waste-dump locations.
The GPS equipment is plugged to the computer after the vehicle reaches the shed and the details of the trip downloaded. Prior to GPS, tracking of the trucks was impossible.
This had led to manipulation in terms of garbage disposal, distance covered, number of trips made and even the extent of the garbage ferried.
The Corporation can now sit back and watch how the system works.
'Hand-made stars' show the way
This navigation system is one of history's most exciting and revolutionary developments, and new uses for it are constantly being discovered. Sapience Softwares has, with the use of GPS, been able to guide fishermen identify dense spots and save fauna in the Western Ghats that were facing the threat of extinction. GPS satellites, 24 in all, orbit at 11,000 nautical miles above the Earth. They are continuously monitored by ground stations located worldwide.
The satellites transmit signals that can be detected by anyone with a GPS receiver.
Using the receiver, you can determine your location with great precision. The control segment consists of ground stations (five of them, located around the world) that make sure the satellites are working properly.
The navigation system can tell you your location anywhere on or above the Earth to within about 300 ft. Even greater accuracy, usually within less than three feet, can be obtained with corrections calculated by a GPS receiver at a known fixed location.
Automobile manufacturers are offering moving-map displays guided by GPS receivers as an option on new vehicles. The displays can be removed and taken into a home to plan a trip. Several rental car companies in the US are demonstrating GPS-equipped vehicles that give directions to drivers on display screens and through synthesised voice instructions. No more getting lost on the way to Disney World!
Biologists use hand-held GPS receiver in wildlife research projects. Similarly, mapping and surveying companies use GPS extensively. In the field of wildlife management, threatened species are fitted with GPS receivers and tiny transmitters to help determine population distribution patterns and possible sources of disease.
GPS-equipped balloons monitor holes in the ozone layer over the polar regions, and air quality is being monitored using GPS receivers. Buoys tracking major oil spills transmit data using GPS.
The future of GPS is as unlimited as your imagination.
New applications will continue to be created as the technology evolves. The GPS satellites, like handmade stars in the sky, will be guiding you well into the 21st century.
Beware, you cannot hide anymore!
