Understanding modern navigation technologies

In order to understand how advanced navigation technologies can help you in your quest for direction, it is important to understand where they came from. For example, we always need to know in what direction we are heading in order to able to know whether it is the correct way with respect to where we want to go. Even the simplest of the old navigation technologies uses this basic premise.

In order to know whether you are going in the right direction you also need to know where you are and where it is that you want to go, and the earliest navigation technologies that helped with this were maps and compasses. With a compass, it is possible to measure bearings to features which you can see in the real world, and also find on your map. With this information it is possible to work out where you are on the map, and hence where to go to get where you want to be.

Modern navigation technologies take this one step further by being able to figure out where you are with reference to a series of 12 satellites. Called GPS (Global Position System) it enables navigation to within extremely tight accuracy. This accuracy is only constrained by the number of satellites that the unit currently has in focus ; usually between 5 and 12.

Added to this, new navigation technologies such as Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) enable the signals to be combined with terrestrial triangulation to get an accuracy to within 3 meters.

For more information on related products and services, please choose from the following menu of items.

GPS
Maps / Software
Tracking

About The Author:

Guy Lecky-Thompson is a successful author and publisher at www.1st-at-gps-tracking.com. Recommending gps equipment and associated products
25-06-04