The smartphone is the most miraculous invention of the 21st century because it has many X-features that man has never dreamt of. The most important feature of the smartphone is that we can now locate the exact position of a person by using it. Every company in the world is working on it and making mobile phones which can track the position of your friends, family members, and others by using mobile phone trackers. In the past, it was thought to be impossible to know a person’s exact and correct location by mobile phone just sitting at home. We can also use a GPS mobile tracker to find our lost mobile phones.
This facility to know about the position of a person is the obligation of Global Positioning Systems (GPS). The Global Positioning System is the satellite navigation system to find the location of an object on earth; the US navy and Air force own it. This technology is developed by the US government, and it is free of cost for everyone worldwide. There are almost 4550 satellites revolving around the earth that are sent from different countries and are connected. For the navigation system, your mobile phone should have to receive signals from at least four satellites or more than 28 satellites for geolocation use.
In this article, we will learn how GPS helps us find the location of a place, object, or mobile phone.
How do Satellites send and receive data?
In communication with satellites, there are two essential components: sender and Receiver. A sender is a component that sends signals from one place to another place, and a Receiver is a component or a device that receives the signals coming from the sender. GPS uses radio signals to transfer the Receiver’s information to your mobile phone. Each satellite has its internal time clock, which sends a time-coded signal at a particular frequency received by your mobile phone.
First, your mobile phone checks which satellites are unobstructed and are free to work with, which is very important; when your mobile phone finds a satellite with stronger signals, it tries to connect it. Its reason is straightforward: satellites run on a chargeable battery, and they have to send data thousands of miles away, which requires a strong connection; that is why it takes a maximum of a few minutes to get your geolocation.
Why does GPS at least require 4 Satellites?
GPS calculates a person’s exact location requires four satellites because an atomic clock is synchronized with the global positioning system to compute three signals. However, the Receiver of our mobile phone avoids the need for an atomic clock. That is why the Receiver uses four satellites to compute a person’s latitude, longitude, altitude, and time.
This is why the GPS always requires a system of 4 satellites to work accurately.
What is AGPS?
GPS receivers uses a lot of power and strong connection for an unobstructed view of the multiple satellites to work with. Obstructions between satellites and receivers could be tall buildings, which means if we live in that area, we can have trouble finding the location. That’s where AGPS comes into the picture.
AGPS stands for Assisted Global Positioning System for beginners; use AGPS on their mobile phones to know about their locations from your phone. As we have earlier mentioned, GPS sends messages in the form of radio signals which requires a strong connection between the Receiver and satellites to work with, and it takes minutes to locate you. It means while you are traveling, it will be unable to give you the exact and required results.
AGPS adds cellular location data to find geolocation; how precise your location will be it all depends upon the strength of the signals between you and the tower. But it is usually enough to be used as location data. Software on your phone feeds this data to the Receiver of your mobile, which will periodically switch between GPS data and cellular location to get a very close approximation within the 50 meters range. In simple words, we can also say that GPS works on the data given by mobile phones to work faster and more accurately.
Sum up:
In this article, we have thoroughly studied the Global Positioning System and its advantages; in this present era, GPS mobile trackers are also used to track your mobile phone if you lose it. This is a beneficial technology in many ways, so we should use it for our benefit as much as we can use them.