Global Positioning System (GPS)

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 Introduction
• The current global positioning system (GPS) is the culmination of
years of research and unknown millions of dollars.
• Navigational systems have been and continue to be developed and
funded by the U.S. government.
• The current system is managed by the U.S Air Force for the
Department of Defense (DOD).
• The current system became fully operational June 26, 1993
when the 24th satellite was lunched.
• While there are millions of civil users of GPS worldwide, the system
was designed for and is operated by the U. S. military.

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 Introduction-History
1 9 73 Deci s io n to develop a satellite navigat ion s ystem ba s ed on the systems T RANSIT,
TIMAT ION un d 6 2 1B o f t he U.S. Air For ce and the U.S. Na vy.1 9 74 - 1 9 7 9 System tests
1 9 77 First rece iver tests are p erf o rmed even before t he first satellites ar e stationed in the
orbit. Tran s mitte rs are installed on t he eart h s s su rface ca lled Ps e ud o lites ( Pse udo
satellites)
1 9 78 - A total of 11 Blo ck I sat e llites are lau nched in t his per iod.
1 9 85
1 9 80 Launch ing o f the f irst Blo ck I satellite car ry ing se nso rs to detect atom ic exp los ions. This
satellite is meant to c o nt ro l the abidance of the agreement of 1 9 63 betw e en the USA
and the S o viet Unio n to refrain fro m any nu clear tests on the earth, subm a rine or in
space.
1 9 79 Deci s io n to expa nd the GPS s ystem. There up o n t he resou rces are co ns ide rably sh o rtened
and the p rogram is rest ru c t ured. At first o nly 1 8 satellites sh ou ld be ope rated.
1 9 88 The number o f satellites is again raised to 2 4 , as the fun ct iona lity is not satis fy ing wit h
o nly 18 satel lites.
1980- The f ina ncial s it uati o n of the project is cr it ical, as the use fulness o f the sy s tem is
1 9 82 q uesti o ned again and ag ain by t he sp o ns o rs.
1 9 83 When a ci vilian a irp lane of the Korean A irline (Flig ht 0 0 7) was shot d own after it had
gone lost over S o viet terri t o ry, it was decided to allow the ci vilian use of t he GPS s ystem.
1 9 86 The ac c ident o f the spa c e shuttle "Cha llenger" means a draw b ack for the GPS p rogram,
as the space shuttles were s up p osed to tran s p o rt Blo ck II GPS satellites to their o rbit.
Fina lly the oper ato rs of t he pro g ram revert to t he Delta rockets inte nded for the
trans p ortat ion in t he firs t place.
http://www.kowoma.de

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 Introduction-History
1 9 89 The f irst Block II satellite was installed and ac ti vated.
1 9 90 - Temp o ral deact ivati o n of the selective availabili t y (SA) d uring the Gulf war . In t his pe rio d
1 9 91 civil receive rs s ho uld be used as not e no ugh milit ary rece ivers were available. On J uly 0 1 ,
1 9 91 SA is act ivated a ga in.
1 9 93 The Ini t ial Operat ional Ca pabili t y (IOC) is ann ounc ed. In the same year it is also def initely
dec ided to aut ho rize the wo rldwide civilian use free of charge.
1 9 94 The last Bl o ck II satellite co m p letes the sa t ellite conste llati o n.
1 9 95 Full Operati o nal Capabili t y (FOC) is ann oun ced.
2 0 00 Final deactivat ion o f the selective availabi lity a nd therefore im p ro vement o f th e ac cu racy
fo r c ivilian users f rom ab o ut 1 0 0 m to 2 0 m .
2 0 04 Launch ing o f the 5 0 st GPS satellite.
2 0 05 Launc h o f the first IIR-M GPS-satel lite. Th is new t ype su p p o rts t he new military M-s ignal
and the seco nd c ivil s ignal L2C.
http://www.kowoma.de

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 Introduction--cont.

• GPS provides specially coded satellite signals that can be processed

with a GPS receiver, enabling the receiver to compute position,
velocity and time.
• A minimum of four GPS satellite signals are required to compute
positions in three dimensions and the time offset in the receiver clock.
• Accuracy and precision of data increases with more satellites.

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 Three Parts

• Space segment

• Control segment

• User segment

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 Space Segment
• The Air force insures that at least 24
satellites are operational at all times.
• There are six orbital planes (with nominally
four space vehicles (SVs) in each), equally
spaced (60 degrees apart), and inclined at
about fifty-five degrees with respect to the
equatorial plane.
– The satellite orbits are controlled so that at
least six should be available, unobstructed
location, at all times.
– Each satellite circles the earth twice a day.
http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/gps/gps_f.html

• Each satellite broadcasts a unique signal that tells the receiver its location
and the exact time.

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 Control Segment
The Master Control facility is located at Schriever Air Force Base
(formerly Falcon AFB) in Colorado.
Originally Schriever AFB
and four other stations
monitored and controlled
satellite positions.
During August and
September 2005, six more
monitor stations of the NGA
(National Geospatial-
Intelligence Agency) were The monitoring stations compute
added to the grid. precise orbital data (ephemeris) and SV
Now, every satellite can be clock corrections for each satellite and
seen from at least two update each satellite.
monitor stations.

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 Control Segment--cont.

• The Master Control station uploads ephemeris and clock data

to the SVs.
• The SVs then send subsets of the orbital ephemeris data to
GPS receivers over radio signals.

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 User Segment
• The primary use of GPS is
navigation.
• Navigation receivers are made for
aircraft, ships, ground vehicles,
surveying, and for hand carrying by
individuals.
• The accuracy of a receiver depends
on the number of channels,
compatibility with other
navigational systems (WAAS,
GLONAS, etc.) and design of the
receiver (cost).
– Most civilian hand held units have an accuracy of 10 meters.
– Survey quality GPS units may be as good as one centimeter.

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 User Segment--cont.
• The GPS User Segment consists of all GPS receivers.
– Surveying
– Recreation
– Navigation
• GPS receivers convert satellite signals into position, velocity, and time
estimates.
• Four satellites are required to compute the four dimensions of X, Y, Z
(position) and Time.

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 User Segment--cont.

• Time and frequency dissemination, based on the precise clocks on

board the SVs and controlled by the monitor stations, is another use
for GPS.
• Astronomical observatories, telecommunications facilities, and
laboratory standards can be set to precise time signals or controlled to
accurate frequencies by special purpose GPS receivers.
• The GPS signals are available to everyone, and there is no limit to the
number and types of applications that use them.

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 Principles
• The GPS system operates on the principles of trilateration,
determining positions from distance measurements.
• This can be explained using the velocity equation.

Distance
Velocity =
Time
• Rearranging the equation for distance:

Distance = Velocity x Time

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• If the system knows the velocity of a signal and the time it takes for
the signal to travel from the sender to the receiver, the distance
between the sender and the receiver can be determined.
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 Trilateration Example
• The signals from the GPS satellites travel at the speed of light--
186,000 feet/second.
• How far apart are the sender and the receiver if the signal travel time
was 0.23 seconds?

Distance (ft) = Velocity (ft/sec) x Time (sec)

ft
= 186,000 x 0.23 sec = 42, 780 ft
sec

• We know that trilateration requires three distances.

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• In the GPS the satellites are at known positions and the receiver
calculates its position by knowing the travel time for the signals from
at least four satellites.

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 Satellite Signals

• Each satellite has its own unique signal.

• It continuously broadcasts its signal and also sends out a time stamp
every time it starts.
• The receiver has a copy of each satellite signal and determines the
distance by recording the time between when the satellite says it starts
its signal and when the signal reaches the receiver.

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 GPS Trilateration
• Each satellite knows its position and
its distance from the center of the
earth.
• Each satellite constantly broadcasts
this information.
• With this information the receiver tries
to calculate its position.
• Just knowing the distance to one
satellite doesn’t provide enough
information.

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 GPS Trilateration--cont.
• When the receiver knows its distance
from only one satellite, its location
could be anywhere on the earths
surface that is an equal distance from
the satellite.
• All the receiver can determine is that
it is some where on the perimeter of a
circle that is an equal distance from
the satellite.
• The receiver must have additional
information.

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 GPS Trilateration--cont.
With signals from two satellites, the
receiver can narrow down its location to
just two points on the earths surface.

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 GPS Trilateration--cont.

• Knowing its distance from three

satellites, the receiver can determine
its location because there is only
two possible combinations and one
of them is out in space.
• In this example, the receiver is
located at b.
• Most receivers actually require four
to insure the receiver has full
information on time, and satellite
positions.
• The more satellite positions that are
used, the greater the potential
accuracy of the position location.

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 Factors Influencing Position Accuracy
The number of satellites (channels) the receiver can track.
– The number of channels a receiver has is part of it’s design.
– The higher the number of channels---the greater the potential accuracy.
– The higher the number of channels---the greater the cost.
The number of satellites that are available at the time.
– Because of the way the satellites orbit, the same number are not available at
all times.
– When planning precise GPS measurements it is important to check for
satellite availability for the location and time of measurement.
– If a larger number of channels are required (6-10), and at the time of
measurement the number available was less than that, the data will be less
accurate.

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 Factors Influencing Position Accuracy--cont.
 The system errors that are occurring during the time the receiver is
operating.
– The GPS system has several errors that have the potential to reduce the
accuracy.
– To achieve high levels of precision, differential GPS must be used.
• Differential GPS uses one unit at a known location and a rover.
– The stationary unit compares its calculated GPS location with the actual
location and computes the error.
– The rover data is adjusted for the error.
• Real Time Kinematic (RTK)
• Post processing

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 Location

Once the GPS receiver has located its position it is usually displayed in
one of two common formats:
– Latitude and longitude
– Universal transverse mercator (UTM).

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 Latitude and Longitude

Latitudes and
longitudes are
angles.

Both use the center of the earth as the vertex, and both utilize the equator,
but they use a different zero reference.

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 Latitude
Latitude gives the location of a place on the
Earth north or south of the Equator.
Latitude is an angular measurement in degrees
(marked with °) ranging from 0° at the Equator
to 90° at the poles (90° N for the North Pole or
90° S for the South Pole)

The earth’s circumference is approximately

24,859.82 miles around the poles.
Miles 24859.82 miles
= = 69.05 miles/degree
Degree 360 degrees

Each degree of latitude ≈ 69 miles

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 Latitude--Equator
 The Equator is an imaginary circle drawn around the planet at a
distance halfway between the poles.
 The equator divides the
planet into a Northern
Hemisphere and a
Southern Hemisphere.
 The latitude of the
equator is, by definition,
0°.

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 Latitude--cont.

Four lines of latitude are named because of the role they play in the
geometrical relationship with the Earth and the Sun.

– Arctic Circle — 66° 33′ 39″ N

– Tropic of Cancer — 23° 26′ 22″ N
– Tropic of Capricorn — 23° 26′ 22″ S
– Antarctic Circle — 66° 33′ 39″ S

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 Longitude
Longitude describes the location of a place
on earth east or west of a north-south line
called the Prime Meridian.
– Longitude is given as an angular
measurement ranging from 0° at the Prime
Meridian to +180° eastward and −180°
westward.
– In 1884, the International Meridian
Conference adopted the Greenwich meridian
as the universal prime meridian or zero
point of longitude.

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 Longitude--cont.

The circumference of the earth at the

equator is approximately 24,901.55
miles.
Miles 24901.55 miles
= = 69.17 Miles Degree
Degree 360 degrees

Each degree of longitude ≈ 69 miles

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A longitude of 134o west would be 9,246 west of the prime meridian.

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Longitude--cont.

• There is an important
difference between latitude and
longitude.
• The circumference of the earth
declines as the latitude increase
away from the equator.
• This means the miles per degree of
longitude changes with the
latitude.
• This makes determining the
distance between two points
identified by longitude more
difficult.

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 Mercator Projection
• A Mercator projection is a
‘pseudocylindrical’ conformal
projection (it preserves shape).
• Points on the earth are transferred,
on an angle from the center of the
earth, to the surface of the cylinder.
• What you often see on poster-size
maps of the world is an equatorial
mercator projection that has
relatively little distortion along the
equator, but quite a bit of distortion
toward the poles.

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 Mercator Projection
• What a transverse mercator
projection does, in effect, is orient
the ‘equator’ north-south (through
the poles), thus providing a north-
south oriented swath of little
distortion.
• By changing slightly the
orientation of the cylinder onto
which the map is projected,
successive swaths of relatively
undistorted regions can be
created.

This system is very accurate for narrow

zones of longitude.

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 UTM Zones

The world is divided into 60 zones

of latitude, each 6o wide at the
equator, that extend from 84o N to
80o s.

These zones begin at 180o longitude and are numbered consecutively

eastward.

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 UTM Zones--cont.

The conterminous United States is

covered by 10 UTM grid zones.
In the Northern Hemisphere each
zone's northing coordinate begins at
the equator as 0,000,000 and is
numbered north in meters.

The easting coordinates are measured from an artificial reference line

drawn perpendicular to the equator and centered in the zone at the equator.

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 UTM--cont.

• The UTM system uses a different grid for the polar regions.
• These areas are covered by a different conformal projection
called the Polar Stereographic.
• Since compass directions have little meaning at the poles, one
direction on the grid is arbitrarily designated "north-south" and the
other "east-west" regardless of the actual compass direction.
• The UTM coordinates are called "false northing" and "false
easting.”

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 Using Location Information
Each system has its advantages and disadvantages.

Latitude and longitude UTM

Advantages Advantages
• With the proper
Best method for determining
instruments, a person can
distances between two points.
determine their position at
the site without using GPS.
• Used by most maps Disadvantages
Not very useful for finding a
Disadvantages
location.
• Difficult to determine
distances between two or
more points.

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 Determining UTM Zone

• Treat west longitude as negative and east as positive.

• Add 180 degrees; this converts the longitude to a number between
zero and 360 degrees.
• Divide by 6 and round up to the next higher number.
• Example:
– The location of the intersection of Hall of Fame and Virginia on OSU
campus is 56 7 23.71 N and 97 05 16.079 W.

-97.088 + 180 = 82.912

82.192
= 13.8 = 14
6

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 Determining a UTM Grid Value
for a Map Point
• The UTM grid is shown on all
quadrangle maps prepared by
the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS).
• On 7.5-minute quadrangle
maps (1:24,000 and 1:25,000
scale) and 15-minute
quadrangle maps (1:50,000,
1:62,500, and standard-
edition 1:63,360 scales), the
UTM grid lines are indicated at
intervals of 1,000 meters,
either by blue ticks in the
margins of the map or with full
grid lines.
• The 1,000-meter value of the
ticks is shown for every tick or
grid line.
http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/factsheets/fs07701.html

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 Determining a UTM Grid Value
for a Map Point--cont.
• To use the UTM grid, you can place
a transparent grid overlay on the
map to subdivide the grid, or you
can draw lines on the map
connecting corresponding ticks on
opposite edges.
• The distances can be measured in
meters at the map scale between
any map point and the nearest grid
lines to the south and west.
• The northing of the point is the
value of the nearest grid line south
of it plus its distance north of that
line; its easting is the value of the
nearest grid line west of it plus its
distance east of that line.

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 Determining Distance Using UTM

• In the illustration the UTM

coordinates for two points are
given.
• The distance can be determined
using Pythagorean Theorem
because UTM is a grid system.

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 UTM Example--cont.
• Subtracting the easting proved the
length of the horizontal side: 208,000
meters.
• Subtracting the northing proves the
length of the vertical side: 535,000
meters.
• The distance between the two points is:

Distance = 535,0002 + 208,0002

= 574011.32... or 574, 000 meters

Note: this is the plane distance. To find surface distance

a curve equation must be used.
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 GPS Errors

• Noise
• Biases
• Blunder
• Clock

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 Noise Error
• Noise errors are the combined effect of code noise (around 1 meter)
and noise within the receiver noise (around 1 meter).

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 Bias Error
• Selective Availability (SA)
– SA is the intentional degradation of the SPS signals by a time varying
bias. SA is controlled by the DOD to limit accuracy for non-U. S. military
and government users.
– Selective availability is turned off.
• Ephemeris data errors: 1 meter
– Satellite orbits are constantly changing. Any error in satellite position
will result in an error for the receiver position.
• SV clock errors uncorrected by Control Segment can result in one
meter errors.
• Tropospheric delays: 1 meter.
– The troposphere is the lower part (ground level to from 8 to 13 km) of the
atmosphere that experiences the changes in temperature, pressure, and
humidity associated with weather changes.
– Complex models of tropospheric delay require estimates or measurements
of these parameters.

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 Bias Error--cont.

• Unmodeled ionosphere delays: 10 meters.

– The ionosphere is the layer of the atmosphere from 50 to 500 km that
consists of ionized air. The transmitted model can only remove about half
of the possible 70 ns of delay leaving a ten meter un-modeled residual.
• Multipath: 0.5 meters.
– Multipath is caused by reflected signals from surfaces near the receiver
that can either interfere with or be mistaken for the signal that follows the
straight line path from the satellite.

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 Blunder

• Blunders can result in errors of hundred of kilometers.

– Control segment mistakes due to computer or human error can cause
errors from one meter to hundreds of kilometers.
• User mistakes, including incorrect geodetic datum selection, can cause
errors from 1 to hundreds of meters.
• Receiver errors from software or hardware failures can cause blunder
errors of any size.

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Questions?

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