A Summary Of Smartphone GPS Tracking

A few worthwhile technical features and functions related to GPS cell tracking to think about include: Tracking Application “Persistence”. The tracking application on a smartphone usually must be enabled by the user. Depending on the cell phone, the application may persist – remaining enabled when the phone is turned on after having been turned off. This feature can be especially usefull if mobile phone tracking is relevant and you do not want to instruct the person using the phone to turn tracking on and off. Another thing relevant to Tracking Application “Persistence” and cell phone GPS location is the possibility of over using the battery. It is important to be able to remotely adjust the frequency of taking GPS position. Selecting real-time or periodic sampling affects both the accuracy of finding position along with battery life. One typical means of minimizing battery and data use is Passive Tracking. Some handset GPS tracking devices will record location data internally so that it can be downloaded later. Also referred to as “data logging,” which can maintain position information even when the device has traveled outside the wireless network. Passive tracking is not a universal feature built-in to standard mobile phone, but the hottest mobile phones tend to include Passive tracking ability.

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

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

The GPS Space Segment consists 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, they travel at over 7,000 mph. GPS satellites are solar powered but have battery backup for when they are on the dark side of the earth. They are placed so that 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 last about ten years until all their fuel is exhausted.

GPS Satellites are not communications satellites. Geostationary or communications satellites use a higher altitude 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 force of gravity and centrifugal forces are canceled and are in equilibrium. This is the best location to park a communications satellite. The earth rotates at about 1,000 miles an hour, and because of their high earth orbit the geostationary satellites need to move at about 7,000 mph to maintain position. This is just about the same speed as GPS satellites, but since stationary satellites are 10,000 miles further away they don?t move relative to the earth.

The GPS Control Segment is comprised of Master Control Station, an Alternate Master Control Station, and numerous dedicated and shared Ground Antennas and Monitor Stations that work together to ensure the satellites are working to specification and the information they send 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 programs that make them function.

GPS receivers often take a long time to become ready to navigate after being turned on because it must acquire some basic information in addition to finding GPS satellite signals. This delay is sometimes caused if the GPS mobile 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 acquire signals and compute initial location faster.

In the event that satellite signals are not accessible, or accuracy and precision is less important than battery life, applying Cell-ID is a good alternative to GPS mobile phone tracking. The location of the handset can be estimated by the cellular network cell id, which identifies the cell tower the cell phone is using. By having the location of this tower, then you can know roughly the place that the device will be. Nonetheless, a tower can cover a massive area, from a couple of hundred meters, in higher populationdensity locations, to a few kilometers in lower density zones. This is the reason location CellID accuracy is lower than GPS accuracy. Nonetheless monitoring from CellID still can provide quite a good substitute.

A Summary Of Smartphone GPS Tracking