GPS System and its Application

Irrespective of time, location, and whether, Global Position System provides unparalleled range of services to commercial military and consumer applications. Majority of these services enables airborne, land, and sea users to know their exact velocity, location, and time whenever and wherever on Earth. The development and capabilities of the GPS technology have rendered obsolete and impractical, other traditional positioning and well-known navigation systems and technologies such as magnetic compasses, radio-based devices, and chronometers among others. Global Positioning System consists of 24 satellites, 21 of which are active while three (3) are spares and are located at an altitude of 10600 miles above the surface of the earth (El-Rabbany, 2002). GPS receivers on the ground is fitted with computers that are capable of triangulating its own sense after obtaining bearings from the other three (4) of the four (4) GPS satellites located in the same horizon. GPS segments are categorized into three distinct segments that include space segment, control segment, and user segment. Global Positioning systems perform an array of functions on land, in air, or at sea. There are specific features that make GPS systems be attractive. These includes the ability to provide high positioning accuracies, the capability to determine accurate time and velocity accuracies, readily available signals in any part of the world, the free services at no charge, and all all-weather service delivery system (Andrews, Weill, and Grewal, 2007). Despite the above advantages, a number of challenges that still impede the transmission of signals still exist within the limits of GPS technologies.