BeiDou system, are used in many applications. The first systems were developed in the 20th century, mainly to help military personnel find their way, but location awareness soon found many civilian applications.[1]
Navigation
aftermarket equipment. Units often display moving maps and information about location, speed, direction, and nearby streets and points of interest
GNSS Flight Recorders to log GNSS data verifying their arrival at turn points in gliding competitions, and for information to aid en route decision making for cross-country soaring
.
AIS
.
GPS unit showing basic way point and tracking information as typically required for outdoor sport and recreational use
Heavy equipment can use GNSS in construction, mining and
Agricultural equipment may use GNSS to steer automatically, or as a visual aid displayed on a screen for the driver. This is useful for controlled traffic and row crop operations and when spraying. Harvesters with yield monitors can also use GNSS to create a yield map of the paddock
being harvested.
Bicycle with GPS (left) and cyclocomputerCyclists often use GNSS in racing and touring. GNSS navigation allows cyclists to plot their course in advance and follow this course, which may include quieter, narrower streets, without having to stop frequently to refer to separate maps. GNSS receivers designed specifically for cycling may include 'street-aware' mapping features, or may be oriented towards recording the progress of the cyclist along the route. This data can be reviewed after the ride to inform the rider's training or competition planning, or uploaded to online services which allow riders to view and compare each other's rides.[2]
climbers
, and even ordinary pedestrians in urban or rural environments can use GNSS to determine their position, with or without reference to separate maps. In isolated areas, the ability of GNSS to provide a precise position can greatly enhance the chances of rescue when climbers or hikers are disabled or lost (if they have a means of communication with rescue workers).
autonomous spacecraft navigation, formation flying, and autonomous rendezvous. The use of GNSS in MEO, GEO, HEO, and highly elliptical orbits is feasible only if the receiver can acquire and track the much weaker (15 - 20 dB) GNSS side-lobe signals. This design constraint, and the radiation environment found in space, prevents the use of COTS receivers. It is easier for low Earth orbit satellites to use GNSS. One such constellation operated by Orbcomm uses GPS receivers on all satellites.[3] China has performed some experiments using low-cost COTS single-frequency GPS receivers installed on Yaogan-30 (YG30; LEO) series and Fengyun-3C (FY3C; SSO) satellites with favorable results; using multiple systems at once helps with the polar orbits of FY3C by allowing more GNSS satellites to be visible.[4]
the data, positioning errors on the order of 10 centimeters are possible with these receivers.
Several projects, including OpenStreetMap and TierraWiki, allow users to create maps collaboratively, much like a wiki, using consumer-grade GPS receivers.
Geophysics and geology — High precision measurements of
deformation, such as a dike or sill beneath the surface of an active volcano. Real-time GNSS positioning can also be employed as part of earthquake early warning systems
.
Archaeology — As archaeologists excavate a site, they generally make a three-dimensional map of the site, detailing where each artifact is found.[5]
ionospheric errors. These dual-frequency GPS receivers typically cost US$10,000 or more, but can have positioning errors on the order of one centimetre or less when used in carrier phase differential GPS
systems use a directional antenna (usually a "dish") pointed at a satellite. The antenna on a moving ship or train, for example, must be pointed based on its current location. Modern antenna controllers usually incorporate a GNSS receiver to provide this information.
Assisted GPS
reduces the power requirements of the mobile phone and increases the accuracy of the location. A phone's geographic location may also be used to provide location-based services, including advertising or other location-specific information.
Marketing – Some market research companies have combined GIS systems and survey-based research to help companies to decide where to open new branches and to target their advertising according to the usage patterns of roads and the socio-demographic attributes of residential zones.
Aircraft passengers – Most airlines allow passenger use of GNSS units on their flights, except during landing and take-off, when other electronic devices are also restricted. Even though consumer GNSS receivers have a minimal risk of interference, a few airlines disallow use of hand-held receivers during flight. Other airlines integrate aircraft tracking into the seat-back television entertainment system, available to all passengers even during takeoff and landing.[7]
Heading information – The GNSS can be used to determine heading information, even though it was not designed for this purpose. A "GNSS compass" uses a pair of antennas separated by about 50 cm to detect the phase difference in the carrier signal from a particular GNSS satellite.[8] Given the positions of the satellite, the position of the antenna, and the phase difference, the orientation of the two antennas can be computed. More expensive GNSS compass systems use three antennas in a triangle to get three separate readings with respect to each satellite. A GNSS compass is not subject to magnetic declination as a magnetic compass is and does not need to be reset periodically like a gyrocompass. It is, however, subject to multipath effects.
GPS tracking
systems use GNSS to determine the location of a vehicle, person, pet or freight, and to record the position at regular intervals in order to create a log of movements. The data can be stored inside the unit or sent to a remote computer by radio or cellular modem. Some systems allow the location to be viewed in real time on the Internet with a web browser.
Monitoring the whereabouts of convicted sex offenders, using a GPS anklet as a condition of parole. Law-enforcement officials can review the daily movements of offenders for a cost of only $5 or $10 per day. Real-time, or instant, tracking is considered too costly for GPS tracking of criminals.[9]
Geo-fences can enable or disable devices based on their location.
GNSS road pricing systems charge of road users using data from GNSS sensors inside vehicles. Advocates argue that road pricing using GNSS permits a number of policies such as tolling by distance on urban roads and can be used for many other applications in parking, insurance and vehicle emissions. Critics argue that GNSS could lead to an invasion of people’s privacy.
Weather prediction (
GNSS radio occultation) – Measurement of atmospheric bending of GNSS satellite signals by specialized GNSS receivers in orbital satellites can be used to determine atmospheric conditions such as air density, temperature, moisture and electron density. Such information from a set of six micro-satellites, launched in April 2006, called the Constellation of Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate COSMIC
has been proven to improve the accuracy of weather prediction models.
photographs taken with a (typically digital) camera allows to view the photographs on a map[10] or to look up the locations where they were taken in a gazetteer. It is possible to automatically annotate the photographs with the location they depict by integrating a GNSS device into the camera so that co-ordinates are embedded into photographs as Exifmetadata. Alternatively, the timestamps of pictures can be correlated with a GNSS track log.[11][12]
Skydiving
– Most commercial drop zones use a GNSS to aid the pilot to "spot" the plane to the correct position to allow all skydivers on the load to be able to fly their canopies back to the landing area.
Wireless networking – A technique of mapping and uploading the exact or accurate location of a wireless network is called wardriving. It uses signal-strength data from the wireless adapter and GPS to identify the location. Kismet for Linux
is a widely used wardriving program.
echosounder
.
Social networking – A growing number of companies are marketing cellular phones equipped with GPS technology, offering the ability to pinpoint friends on custom created maps, along with alerts that inform the user when the party is within a programmed range. Not only do many of these phones offer social-networking functions, they offer standard GPS navigation features such as audible voice commands for in-vehicle GPS navigation.[13]
