GPS – From Military Equipment To Your Dashboard
Man has always developed tools to help him deal with conditions on this planet. Hundreds of thousands of years have passed while Man has gone on to create tools to not only help him hunt but build homes (and even the Great Wall Of China). That same zest for creation that lead to building ships that could cross the oceans has now given us Global Positioning System, or GPS.
Millions of people around the world have adopted the use of GPS to the point that it is fast becoming a house hold accessory. GPS allows them to help plan their trips, keep tabs on their children and keep track of their vehicles. It helps though to understand the technology that makes this all possible.
As you may already know, GPS is used around the world in navigating land and sea. This is accomplished via a constant connection to satellites in geo-synchronous orbit above the Earth. The satellites send signals to the GPS units and the receivers in the units take this signal and the information is relayed back to the satellite. The information that is decoded and translated is then used to determine the units exact position on the Earth.
While the original GPS system of satellites was only used by the United States military in the 1970s and 1980s, the technology has been made available to everyday people since the 1990s. The limited release in the early years meant that the price of GPS units was very high. Now that GPS has become more widespread, you can get a good unit for less than $200.
Since the price is inexpensive, this means that GPS is affordable for pretty much every socio-economic class of people. Given the availability and low cost, GPS units are pretty much found in every vehicle on the road. This is to be expected because these units help you keep from getting lost and save you peace of mind.
You can purchase a GPS unit in one of two ways. You can buy a unit for your dashboard and remove it each time you leave the vehicle alone. Or you can get the GPS unit installed into your dashboard as an option when you purchase the vehicle.
GPS has made the time honored journey of a piece of technology that benefits people in peacetime that was originally developed for warfare.
