A Short Intro To Mobile Phone GPS Tracking

Mobile phone GPS is what consumers usually think about any time looking at locating cell phones. GPS (Global Positioning System) using satellites is the most well known and more accurate technology of tracking. But, GPS requires satellites to be in direct line of site of the smartphone. It doesn’t work particularly well indoors or in dense urban centers. In the event that the handset is inside a building, for instance your house, shopping center, or often riding in a car the signals may not reach the smartphone. At times thick cloud cover and dense trees impedes with reception. Some cell phones may store the last identified GPS position, others might not.

Much of the discussion dealing with GPS tracking, mobile GPS and cell phone tracking software could be helped by a GPS Satellite primer.

GPS satellites broadcast signals from space that GPS receivers utilize to provide three-dimensional location (latitude, longitude, and altitude) plus precise time. GPS stands for Global Positioning System and is a network that is made up of 3 main segments: Space Segment, Control Segment and User Segment.

The GPS Space Segment is comprised of twenty-four to thirty-two satellites that orbit the earth at a height of about 12,000 miles. These satellites are referred to as the GPS Constellation, and they make an orbit once every 12 hours. They are not geostationary, but rather move at over 7,000 mph. GPS satellites are solar powered but have battery reserve for when they are on the dark side of the earth. They are positioned so that at any given time there are at least 4 satellites ?visible? from any point on earth. Small rocket boosters on each satellite keep them flying in the correct path. The satellites have a lifetime of about 10 years until all their fuel is exhausted.

GPS Satellites are not communications satellites. Geostationary or communications satellites are at a much higher orbit of about 22,300 miles above the equator. These satellites are used for weather forecasting, satellite TV, satellite radio and most other types of global communications. At exactly 22,000 miles above the equator, the earth’s gravitational force and centrifugal forces are canceled and are in equilibrium. This is the ideal location to place a stationary satellite. The earth rotates at about 1,000 miles an hour, and because of their high earth orbit the earth-synchronous satellites need to move at about 7,000 mph to sustain position. This is just about the same speed as GPS satellites, but since stationary satellites are 10,000 miles further away they stay in place relative to the earth.

The GPS Control Segment is comprised of Master Control Station, an Alternate Master Control Station, and a host of dedicated and shared Ground Antennas and Monitor Stations that work together to ensure the satellites are working correctly and the information they beam down to earth is accurate.

The GPS User Segment is composed of of GPS receivers taking the shape of smartphones and , laptops, in-car navigation devices and hand-held tracking units along with the people that use them, and the software applications that make them work.

GPS receivers sometimes take longer to become ready to navigate after it’s turned on because it must acquire some basic information in addition to capturing GPS satellite signals. This slow start is sometimes caused when the GPS cell phone has been turned off for days or weeks, or has been moved a significant distance while unused for. The GPS must update its almanac and ephemeris data and store it in memory. The GPS almanac is a set of data that every GPS satellite transmits. When a GPS receiver has current almanac data in memory, it can capture signals and determine initial location faster.

If satellite signals are not accessible, or precision is less important than battery life, making use of Cell-ID is a good substitute to GPS mobile phone tracking. The position of the smartphone might be calculated by the cellular network cell id, that pinpoints the cell tower the smartphone is connected to. By knowing the position of this tower, you’ll be able to know roughly the spot where the cell phone might be. But, a tower can cover an enormous area, from a few hundred meters, in higher populationdensity locations, to a few miles in lower density regions. For this reason location CellID precision is lower than GPS accuracy. Having said that location using CellID still delivers a truly viable substitute.

A Short Intro To Mobile Phone GPS Tracking