Nirmitee-2003

A PAPER ON GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM

BY, SOHEL AHMED QUADRI, (Email: starq11@live.co.in) JNEC AURANGABAD, BE CIVIL (4/4), JAVAHAR LALNEHRU ENGINEERING COLLEGE AURANGABAD 431001

Global positioning systems

By SOHEL AHMED QUADRI

Abstract
The advent of global positioning systems (GPS) has ushered in a new era in fields such as navigation, defense and agriculture .GPS is a satellite radio navigation system designed to provide information about instantaneous position, velocity and time almost anywhere on the globe at any time, and in any weather. The high precision of GPS systems in determining the positions makes it an impressive tool in many fields where measurement of positions is involved. The GPS system was developed to meet military needs of the department of defense (DOD), but new ways to use its capabilities are continually being found. This paper serves as an informative source of GPS rather than as a normative source. The introduction presents the means by which a GPS satellite locates the position of a receiver on the earth. The process by which the position of the satellite is known and the errors involved in the measurement of ranges are discussed in the latter part. The conclusive part deals with the accuracy standards by which the reliability of a GPS system can be gauged and some of the important applications of GPS.

Introduction

The simple theory that a point in a two dimensional space can be located if its distance from other points whose coordinates are known, has been extended to real life applications involving satellites and state of art technology resulting in the birth of GPS. if the positions of the satellite is known , the position of GPS receiver on earth can be triangulated by knowing its distance from the satellite. As GPS corresponds to 3d space at least 3 satellites are required to determine the position of a receiver on earth. Usually a GPS receiver uses 4 satellites to determine the coordinates of a point on earth. The fourth satellite is usually used to eliminate the errors that may creep in during the measurement of distances. Thus a GPS receiver needs at least 4 satellites with in its range for its operation. The department of defense, USA (DOD), controls all the satellites used for GPS. There are satellites maintained by DOD solely dedicated to the purpose of global positioning. These 24 satellites constitute the GPS constellation .the GPS satellites are positioned in such a way that at least five to eight satellites are accessible at any point on earth and at any time. GPS is based on a system of coordinates called the world geodetic system 1984 (WGS84) the WGS84 system provides a built in frame of reference for all military activities, so units can synchronize their maneuvers.

2.0 positioning with GPS

As already explained the key concept of GPS is the measurement of the distance of the receiver from the satellite whose distance is known . If the distance between the satellite and receiver is found to be 20.000 kilometers, the possible locations that the receiver could be in the whole universe is narrowed down to the surface of the sphere that is centered on this satellite and has a radius of 20000 kilometers. Now the distance of the receiver from another reference satellite is measured. Obviously the receiver should be on the surface of the sphere centered at the second satellite and has a radius equal to the distance of the receiver from that satellite .Now the receiver is on the circle that is formed by the intersection of the two reference satellites Now the distance of the receiver is measured from a third satellite that is orbiting in a different plane .if a sphere is constructed with center at this satellite, having radius equal to this distance, the receiver is on the surface of this sphere also. This intersects the above-formed circle at two points. Finally the position of the receiver on earth is reduced to two points. Usually one of the two points is a ridiculous answer (either too far from earth or moving at an impossible velocity) and can be rejected without a measurement. Thus the position of the receiver on the earth on the earth is determined

3.0 measuring the distance from the satellite

The determination of the position of a receiver on the earth involves the measurement of the satellites from the receiver the distance from the satellite is measured by calculating the time taken for signal to reach the receiver placed on the earth from the satellite. The knowledge of the basic kinematics guides us to the result that the distance between the satellite and the receiver is the product of the time taken by the signal to reach the receiver and the velocity of signal. The signal transmitted by the satellite travels with the velocity of light.

4.0 timing considerations

As the velocity of the signal is very large, an error of even a fraction of a second results in an error of about 200 miles in position. So timing plays a vital role in the global positioning system thus there is a need for a clock that can measure very minute, intervals of time with great precision. Satellites use atomic clocks that are accurate to about a hundred millionth of a second .So the error in the measured distances occurs mainly due to inaccuracy of the clock in the receiver.

5.0 getting perfect timing

The error can be resolved by taking a fourth measurement the key to eliminate the error arises from the fact that all the measured times differ from the actual values by the same factor. Due to the error in the measured distances the spheres constructed with the four satellites as the center do not intersect at a single point. The measured distances are then altered by the same amount until they all coincide at a single point this point gives the position of the receiver on the earth

6.0 pseudo random code (PRC)

The signal transmitted by the satellite is called pseudo random code (PRC). The pseudo random code is a fundamental part of GPS. Physically its just a very complicated digital code .The signal is so complicated that it almost looks like random electrical noise. Hence the name pseudo-random. There are several good reasons for that complexity. First, the complex pattern helps make sure that the receiver doesnt accidentally sine up to some other signal .the patterns are so complex that it is highly unlikely that a stray signal will have exactly the same shape. Since each satellite has its own unique pseudo-random code this complexity also guarantees that the receiver wont accidentally pick up another satellite signal. So all the satellites can use the same frequency without jamming each other and it makes it more difficult for a hostile force to am the system .in fact the pseudo random code gives the DOD a way to control access to the system.

7.0 determination of the position of satellite

To determine the position of the receiver exactly, one must have a prior knowledge of the satellites precise position in space .on the ground all GPS receivers have an almanac programmed into their computers that tells them where in the sky each satellite is, moment by moment. As the GPS satellites are at a very high position, their positions do not vary significantly .the DOD monitors any minor variations in the orbits and the information is updated in the satellite. The pseudo random code transmitted by the satellite contains its position signature. Thus the GPS receiver knows about the position of the satellite in space quite accurately. By getting perfect timing and the exact position of satellites in space the coordinates of receiver on earth can be precisely determined. But in real world phenomenon there are many factors that degrade the accuracy of GPS. To get the most out of the system, a good GPS receiver needs to take a wide variety of possible errors into account.

8.0 errors in GPS

Unfortunately, the distances measured by the GPS are not free from errors. The errors occur due to a multitude of factors some of the errors are described here 1) Atmospheric propagation errors: The assumption that the signals travels with a constant velocity equal to the velocity of light is erroneous the signal travels with a velocity of light in vacuum but as a GPS signal passes through ionosphere and troposphere, it gets slows down a bit and introduces the same kind of error as that introduced through imperfect clocks. 2) Multi path error : a signal transmitted by the satellite has to pass through many obstacles and in this process it gets bounced off various targets .so the signal received by the receiver comes from various directions each one delayed by a small amount from the other this error is called multi path error

3) Position and ephemeris errors: even though the satellites are constantly monitored and the information about their position updated , they cannot be monitored each second . so slight position or ephemeris errors sneak in between monitoring times 4) Geometric dilution of precision(GDOP): there are usually more satellites available that a receiver needs to fix a position , so the receiver picks a few and ignores the rest . if it picks satellites that are close together in the sky the intersecting circles that define a position will cross at very shallow angles . That increases the grey area or error margin around a position. if it picks satellites that are widely separated the circles intersect at almost right angles and that minimizes the error region. The error introduced due to this is called GDOP.

5) Selective availability: the accuracy of GPS is intentionally degrade by its developers so that no hostile force or terrorist group can use GPS to make accurate weapons. this policy of intentional degradation of accuracy is called selective availability. Basically the DOD introduced some noise into the satellites clock data which in turn added noise into position calculations. Together these factors made SA the biggest single source of inaccuracy in the system. Military receivers used a decryption key to remove the SA Errors and so they are much more accurate

9.0 accuracy measures of GPS:

There are many different measures to gauge the accuracy of GPS systems the position of a known point on earth is found out by GPS a large number of times. the GPS systems can be deemed to be accurate if the various s positions calculated by the GPS differ only by a smaller degree . Some of the most common methods to see how divergent the values are, are circular error probability (CEP) and 2d rms.

1) Circular error probability: CEP refers to the radius of the circle in which 50% of the measured values occur, i,e if a CEP of 100 meters is quoted then 50% of absolute horizontal point positions should be written with in 100 meters of the true position . For most offshore positioning applications 50% is rather too small a probability to be useful ad a higher percentage is more valuable , typically 95% is often quoted and the term R95 used is determined by plotting the results from a large number of fixes and by drawing a circle centered on the mean that contains 95% of the results .the radius of the circle would be the r95 value .the disadvantage of using this measure is that it says nothing about the remaining 5% of the data and may hence hide the possibility of there some times being some very large outages.

2) 2drms: 2drms is another measure of accuracy that refers to twice the root mean square distance .in this method the radial errors are calculated and their root mean square is computed. it can be predicted using covariance analysis by multiplying the horizontal dop, a measure of the satellite geometry by the standard deviation of the observed pseudo random ranges and it is largely this predictability that makes it a much more convenient measure in practice .a disadvantage of the 2drms measure is that it doesnt have a constant probability attached to it

3) 10.0 applications of GPS

1) GPS navigation land sea and air: GPS being used for emergency response ,search and rescue , fleet management and for automobile guidance systems .assisted steering risk assessment and hazard warning systems for marine navigation are being developed using GPS .

2) Military uses for GPS: fighting in deserts and other hostile locations would almost be impossible without a reliable position tracking system such as GPS. Using GPS the military units can know their position accurately and perform their operations with ease. 3) Mapping and surveying: GPS is used to aid in damage assessment after natural disasters such as fires floods and earthquakes .GPS is also used to map archaeological sites and for infrastructure mapping. 4) Other GPS applications: other uses of GPS include real estate valuation and taxation assessment, air quality studies, environmental protection, demographic analysis including marketing studies, atmospheric studies, oil and gas exploration. There is much additional current and a possible use for GPS .any application where location information is needed is a possible candidate for GPS.

11.0 conclusion
The global positioning system is soon becoming an inevitable tool in navigation, defense, and mobile communications. New methods are being developed regularly to minimize the errors in the positioning. The differential GPS is one of the outcomes of the incessant efforts in which the errors introduced due to selective availability can be reduced to a great extent. An interested reader may find extensive literature on differential GPS and ways to minimize error in GPS applications of GPS in mobile communications can serve as a further reading.

References:
1) Trimble navigation limited all about GPS http: / /www. Trimble .com/gps/howgps/GPS frame.htm. 2) Mercat GPS systems GPS tutor, http://www. Mercat.com/quest 3) The introduction to GPS applications archive, http://www.he. Nt/~beadles/gps/applications/mapping /list.htp The aerospace corporation GPS primer, http://www.aero.org/publications/gpsprimer/index.html