Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Tips about Smartphone Applications for GPS Tracking

Cell tracking, mobile GPS and mobile phone tracker software applications are unquestionably attracting interest from individuals, cell phone businesses and software coders. The latest smartphones include GPS position functionality to track cell phone position.


 Phone Tracking


In order to adhere to Federal Communications Commission rules, cellular phone companies have to be able to deliver authorities with smartphone latitude and longitude to an accuracy of 50 to 300 meters. Cell Tower Triangulation isn’t going to always satisfy this condition. By way of evaluation, commercially available GPS systems are able to get precision right down to 3-10m. This relies on several factors, as GPS signals tend to be rather weak and are influenced by numerous variables. With Mobile Location Services (MLS), the GSM cell network provider utilizes triangulation techniques to try to pinpoint the position of the handset, its accuracy is proven to be much worse than that of GPS. MLS is further affected by factors similar to GPS in the sense of the barriers impeding signal strength and the density of GSM towers to help in the triangulation calculation. In remote areas location accuracy may be off as much as a mile.


GPS Hot Start is whenever the GPS enabled device retains its last known location, the satellites that were in range before, and also the almanac data in memory, and attempts to obtain the same satellites and calculate a brand new position based upon the previous information. This is generally the quickest GPS lock but Hot Start only works if the phone is generally in the same location as when the GPS was last turned off. GPS Warm Start refers to whenever the GPS enabled mobile phone recalls its last known position, and almanac used, but not which satellites were in view. It resets and tries to lock onto satellite signals and calculates the latest position. The GPS receiver has a general idea of which satellites toseek because it kept its last known location and also the almanac data helps determine which satellites are in range. The Warm Start is going to take more time than the Hot Start although not as long as a Cold Start. With GPS Cold Start, the device dumps all the previous information, and tries to locate satellites and complete a GPS lock. This takes more time since there is no known reference information. The GPS enabled cell phone receiver must try to lock onto a satellite signal from any available satellites.


In order to get improved GPS lock times cellphone manufacturers and wireless operators introduced Assisted GPS technology. This downloads the ephemeris and helps triangulate the handset general position. GPS Receivers can get a quicker lock in return for a few kilobytes of data transmission. Assisted GPS, generally known as A-GPS or AGPS, enhances the performance of normal GPS in handsets connected to the cell network. In America Sprint, Nextel, Verizon Wireless, and Alltel all use A-GPS. Which is a means of using the cell network to speed up finding of GPS satellites.


A-GPS assists location tracking performance of smartphones (as well as other related devices) in two ways:


One method is by assisting to acquire a faster “time to first fix” (TTFF). A-GPS gets and stores data regarding the location of satellites utilizing the cell network so the coordinates details does not require to be downloaded via the satellite.


The next way is by helping position devices when GPS signals are weak or blocked. Since GPS satellite signals may be interfered with by tall buildings, and do not go through building interiors well A-GPS employs proximity to cellular towers to approximate position when GPS signals are not available.


In the event that satellite signals are not accessible, or accuracy is less important than battery life, using Cell-ID is a viable alternative to GPS cell phone tracking. The location of the cell phone may be approximated by the cellular network cell id, which pinpoints the cell tower the cell phone is connected to. By knowing the position of the tower, you’ll be able to know roughly where the cell phone is. But, a tower can cover a huge area, from a couple of hundred meters, in higher populationdensity areas, to several miles in lower density zones. This is why location CellID precision is less than than GPS accuracy. Even so location via CellID still presents a truly useful alternative.


Another method of calculating handset position is Triangulation or Mobile Location Services (MLS). Cell Tower Triangulation uses signal analysis data to calculate the time it takes signals to travel from your phone to a minimum of three cell towers to determine position.



Tips about Smartphone Applications for GPS Tracking

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