Mobile phone GPS is what consumers commonly consider whenever considering locating mobile phones. GPS (Global Positioning System) using satellites is the most well known and more accurate technology of tracking. Yet, GPS requires satellites to be in direct line of site from the mobile phone. It doesn’t work as well indoors or in dense metropolitan areas. In the event that the handset is in a building, for example your office, shopping center, or often sitting in an automobile the signals may well not reach the mobile phone. Occasionally thick cloud cover and thick trees impedes with reception. Some mobile phones can retain the last identified GPS location, others may not.
Several important technical capabilities related to GPS cell phone tracking to think about include: Tracking Application “Persistence”. The tracking application on a smartphone usually must be enabled by the user. Depending on the handset, the application may persist – remaining enabled when the phone is turned on after having been turned off. This feature can be particularly important if mobile phone tracking is important and you do not want to instruct the person using the phone to turn tracking on and off. Another issue relevant to Tracking Application “Persistence” and mobile phone GPS tracking is the potential of over using the battery. It is important to be able to remotely adjust how often of taking GPS position. Selecting real-time or periodic sampling affects both the accuracy of determining location as well as battery life. One common method of minimizing battery and data use is Passive Tracking. Some mobile phone GPS tracking devices will store location data internally so that it can be downloaded when preferred. Also referred to as “data logging,” which can maintain location data even when the device has traveled outside the wireless network. Passive tracking is not a universal feature built-in to standard cell phone, but the hottest smartphones tend to offer Passive tracking ability.
Much of the discussion dealing with GPS tracking, mobile GPS and mobile phone track software could be helped by a GPS Satellite primer.
GPS satellites broadcast signals from space that GPS receivers use to determine 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 primary segments: Space Segment, Control Segment and User Segment.
The GPS Space Segment includes twenty-four to thirty-two satellites that orbit the earth at a height of about 12,000 miles. These satellites are also known as as the GPS Constellation, and they are orbiting once every 12 hours. They are not geosynchronous, they travel at over 7,000 mph. They are solar powered but have battery backup for when they are on the dark side of the earth. They are placed 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 last about ten years until all their fuel runs out.
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 force of gravity and centrifugal forces are offset and are in balance. This is the best location to position a stationary satellite. The earth rotates at about 1,000 miles an hour, and because of their high earth orbit the geo-synchronous satellites need to move at about 7,000 mph to keep position. This is just about the same speed as GPS satellites, but since they satellites are 10,000 miles further away they don?t move relative to the earth.
The GPS Control Segment consists 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 functioning correctly and the information they beam down to earth is accurate.
The GPS User Segment includes of GPS receivers taking the shape of cell phones 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 capturing GPS satellite signals. This delay is sometimes caused when the GPS mobile phone has been turned off for days or weeks, or has been transported a far distance while turned off 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 calculate initial position more quickly.
When satellite signals are not readily available, or accuracy is less important than life of the battery, utilizing Cell-ID is a useful substitute to GPS smartphone location. The location of the cell phone might be computed by the cell network cell id, that identifies the cell tower the cellphone is connected to. By having the position of this tower, you’ll be able to know approximately where the cell phone will be. However, a tower can cover a large area, from a couple of hundred meters, in high populationdensity locations, to a few miles in lower density zones. For this reason location CellID precision is lower than GPS accuracy. Having said that location from CellID still can provide quite a useful alternative.
An Overview Of Mobile Phone GPS Tracking
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