Global Positioning
    System
 The System
 The Position Solution
 Hardware
 Ionospheric And
    Atmospheric Delays
 The Signals
 Dynamic Positioning
 Static Positioning
 Coordinate Systems
 Conclusions

Conclusions

The Global Positioning System offers navigational positioning in all weather 24 hours per day. This facility offers people from a wide variety of non-technical backgrounds access to navigation facilities impossible even 10 years ago, ensuring increased safety and surety in travelling from one location of another. Anybody can stand in an open space, push a button and determine their location to 50m or so within minutes.

The full impact of this technology in the geomatics industries is still to be felt. Units like the Leica System 300 enable tasks like field-to-office topographic surveys to be performed using GPS instead of electronic theodolites and EDM, practically eliminating the need for control surveys and traverses. It is possible to achieve 0.1m positional accuracy at speeds of 100kmh^-1, enabling the mapping of facilities and resources in a fraction of the time taken even over only 4 years ago. If synchronised video cameras are coupled with kinematic GPS it is possible to map the position of road furniture simply by driving along the road. Ground control for mapping can be coordinated in a matter of days instead of months, and maps can be produced almost as fast as conditions change in the real world.

Further applications and implications of GPS positioning will be presented in the later years of the geomatics course. The technology and methodology is changing so rapidly that even the most current reference material is almost out of date by the time it is published.

References

M. Elfick, J. Fryer, R. Brinker & P. Wolf 1995
Elementary Surveying, S.I. Edition
Harper Collins. pp 321-344

A. Bannister, S. Raymond & R. Baker
Surveying, 6th Edition
Longman Scientific and Technical. pp 232-235
Available in the Engineering Library, Call No: 526.9 BANN

If you would like to find out more about the Global Positioning System, visit this site:

wwwhost.cc.utexas.edu/ftp/pub/grg/gcraft/notes/gps/gps.html 

This site is suggested for extra interest only - it is not part of the course material!

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