Thursday, October 31, 2013

Mobile Tracker Fundamentals

GPS tracking, cell phone GPS and cell phone tracking software applications are unquestionably gaining curiosity from potential buyers, cellular telephone companies and application designers. The up-to-date mobile phones contain GPS location functionality to track cellphone location.


 Mobile Tracker


In order to adhere to Federal Communications Commission guidelines, cell phone companies are required to be able to deliver authorities with smartphone latitude and longitude to an accuracy of 50 to 300 meters. Cell Tower Triangulation fails to always meet this condition. For evaluation, commercially accessible GPS modules can realize accuracy right down to 3-10m. This depends upon numerous factors, as GPS signals tend to be very weak and are affected by many factors. With Mobile Location Services (MLS), the GSM cellular network provider uses triangulation techniques to estimate the position of the smartphone, its accuracy is proven to be less than than that of GPS. MLS is also affected by factors similar to GPS in the sense of the interference affecting signal quality and the density of GSM towers to assist in the triangulation calculation. In rural areas position accuracy may be off as much as a mile.


GPS Hot Start describes when the GPS enabled smartphone retains its last calculated location, the satellites that had been in view at the time, and also the almanac data in memory, and tries to connect to the same satellites and calculate a fresh position based upon the previous data. This is almost always the quickest GPS lock but Hot Start only works if the phone is generally in the same location as when the GPS was last switched off. GPS Warm Start is the term for when the GPS enabled device remembers its last known location, and almanac used, but not which satellites were in view. It resets and attempts to lock onto satellite signals and computes a new position. The GPS receiver narrows the choice of which satellites tolook for because it saved its last known position and also the almanac data helps identify which satellites are in range. The Warm Start will need longer than the Hot Start but not as long as a Cold Start. With GPS Cold Start, the device dumps all the previous data, and tries to find satellites and attain a GPS lock. This usually takes more time since there is no known reference information. The GPS enabled device receiver has to try to lock onto a satellite transmission from any available satellites.


To be able to get better GPS lock times mobile phone manufacturers and telco operators introduced Assisted GPS technology. It downloads the ephemeris and helps triangulate the smartphone basic position. GPS Receivers can get a faster lock in exchange for a few kilobytes of data transmission. Assisted GPS, also referred to as A-GPS or AGPS, helps the performance of normal GPS in devices connected to the cell network. In America Sprint, Nextel, Verizon Wireless, and Alltel all use Assisted GPS. This is a method of utilizing the cellular network to speed up acquisition of GPS satellites.


A-GPS assists location tracking functions of mobile phones (and other related devices) in two ways:


One method is by helping to obtain a more rapid “time to first fix” (TTFF). A-GPS gets and stores information regarding the location of satellites utilizing the cell network so the coordinates data does not require to be downloaded from the the satellite.


The second method is by assisting locate handsets when GPS signals are weak or not available. Due to the fact GPS satellite signals may be impeded by tall structures, and do not pass through building interiors well Assisted GPS utilizes proximity to cellular towers to compute position when GPS signals are not obtainable.


If satellite signals are not obtainable, or accuracy and precision is less important than battery life, applying Cell-ID is a good alternative to GPS smartphone location. The location of the device can be determined by the cell network cell id, which identifies the cell tower the mobile phone is connected to. By knowing the position of this tower, you’ll be able to know roughly the spot where the device might be. Still, a tower can cover an enormous area, from a few hundred meters, in high populationdensity regions, to a few miles in lower density areas. This is why location CellID precision is lower than GPS accuracy. Nonetheless monitoring from CellID still offers a really useful substitute.


Another way of determining device position is Triangulation or Mobile Location Services (MLS). Cell Tower Triangulation utilizes signal analysis data to calculate the time it takes signals traveling from the telephone to a minimum of 3 cell towers to calculate position.



Mobile Tracker Fundamentals

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