Friday, November 15, 2013

An Overview Of Mobile Phone GPS Tracking

Mobile phone GPS is what consumers commonly think about whenever investigating tracking cell phones. GPS (Global Positioning System) utilizing satellites is the most widely recognized and more accurate way of tracking. Still, GPS demands satellites to be in direct line of site of the smartphone. It doesn’t work really well indoors or in dense cities. In the event that the telephone is in a structure, for instance your school, shopping center, or often if driving the signals might not get to the cell phone. Occasionally thick cloud cover and thick foliage interferes with reception. Some smartphones may keep the last identified GPS location, others may not.


A few worthwhile technical capabilities related to GPS cell phone tracking to consider include: Tracking Application “Persistence”. The tracking application on a cell phone typically must be enabled by the user. Depending on the mobile phone, the application may persist – remaining enabled when the phone is turned on after having been turned off. This feature can be especially important if cell phone tracking is relevant and you do not want to require the person using the phone to turn tracking on and off. Another issue relevant to Tracking Application “Persistence” and smartphone GPS tracking is the potential 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 determining position along with how long the battery will last. One typical method 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 known as “data logging,” it can keep position information 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 mobile phones tend to offer Passive tracking features.


 Mobile Tracking


A lot of the discussion dealing with cell tracking, mobile GPS and cell phone track 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 is an acronym for Global Positioning System and is a system that is composed of 3 primary segments: Space Segment, Control Segment and User Segment.


The GPS Space Segment consists of twenty-four to thirty-two satellites that orbit the earth in medium earth orbit MEO. These satellites are also known as 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 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 runs out.


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 gravitational force 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 geo-synchronous satellites need to move at about 7,000 mph to keep position. This is approximately 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 consists 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 to specification and the information they beam down to earth is accurate.


The GPS User Segment made up of 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 applications that make them work.


GPS receivers, whether in a phone, or a dedicated Gps tracking device, estimate location through precisely timing the signals transferred by GPS satellites. This critical information comes with the moment the message was sent, exact orbital details (technically referenced as the ephemeris), plus the basic system health and rough orbits of all GPS satellites (technically referenced as the almanac).


In the event that satellite signals are not accessible, or precision is less important than life of the battery, employing Cell-ID is a useful alternative to GPS cell phone location. The position of the smartphone may be estimated by the cell network cell id, which recognizes the cell tower the cell phone is connected to. By having the location of this tower, you may know roughly the place that the handset might be. However, a tower can cover a huge area, from a few hundred meters, in higher populationdensity areas, to a few kilometers in lower density areas. This is why location CellID accuracy is lower than GPS accuracy. Nevertheless tracking using CellID still supplies a really good substitute.



An Overview Of Mobile Phone GPS Tracking

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