Different Approaches to Being a GPS Phone Tracker Raise the Question: Do you really know where they are?
Mobile communications means more than just making a phone call while on the move. The latest mobiles include GPS position functionality to track phone location. These features, and others such as SMS message, internet access and the ability to use other applications make mobiles great gadgets. However GPS satellites aren’t always available, for example when the phone is in a building such as an office, mall, or even in a car. That doesn’t mean cell phone tracking isn’t possible, but it does mean there are other methods of being a locator.
To track a mobile phone involves several primary ways of calculating mobile phone location. GPS Global Positioning System-Satellites, Triangulation, and CellID. All these technologies convert mobile phones into mobile tracking systems. These systems can be viewed as Network Based, Handset Based or a Hybrid approach. GPS location is Handset based as it needs software programs installed on the cell phone along with GPS hardware. Triangulation and CellID are Network Based as they use the equipment and data from the wireless provider. Hybrid systems combine methods to make best use of available information and to make location cell phone tracking faster.
GPS on cell phones is what people commonly think of when looking at tracking smartphones. GPS (Global Positioning System) using satellites is the most popular and more accurate technology of tracking. But GPS needs satellites to be in direct line of site of the handset.
It doesn’t work particularly well indoors or in dense cities.
If riding in a car the signals might not reach the cell phone. Some smartphones will retain the last known GPS location, others might not.
Another issue with cell phone GPS tracking is the possibility of wasting the battery. It is important to be able to remotely adjust how often of taking GPS position. Selecting real-time or periodic sampling affects both the resolution of finding position as well as battery life.
GPS receivers, whether in a mobile phone, or a dedicated GPS tracking device, compute location by precisely timing the signals transmitted by GPS satellites. This information includes the time the message was transmitted, precise orbital information (the ephemeris), and the general system condition and rough orbits of all GPS satellites (the almanac). GPS receivers sometimes take longer to become ready to use after being turned on because it must acquire some basic information in addition to finding GPS satellite signals. This slow start can be caused when the GPS device has been unused for days or weeks, or has been transported a far distance while unused for. The GPS must update its almanac and ephemeris data and store it in memory. The GPS almanac is a set of data that every GPS satellite transmits. When a GPS receiver has current almanac data in memory, it can acquire satellite signals and find initial location more quickly.
GPS Hot Start is when the GPS enabled mobile phone keeps its last known position, the satellites that were in range at the time, the almanac information in memory, and makes an attempt to lock onto the same satellites and compute a new position based upon the previous data. This is almost always the quickest GPS lock but Hot Start only works if the phone is generally in the same location as when the GPS was last turned off.
GPS Warm Start is when the GPS enabled device keeps its last calculated position, and almanac used, but not which satellites were in range. It resets and tries to find satellite signals and computes a new position.
The GPS receiver narrows the choice of which satellites toseek because it stored its last known position and the almanac data helps identify which satellites are in range. The Warm Start will take more time than the Hot Start but not as long as a Cold Start.
With GPS Cold Start, the device deletes all the previous information, and attempts to locate satellites and accomplish a GPS lock. This takes longer than other methods because there is no known reference information. The GPS enabled handset receiver has to try to lock onto a satellite signal from any available satellites.
Assisted GPS, also known as A-GPS or AGPS, enhances the performance of standard GPS in devices connected to the cell network. It downloads the ephemeris and helps triangulate the device general position. GPS Receivers can get a faster lock at the expense of a few kilobytes of data transmission.
A-GPS assists location tracking performance of cell phones (and other connected devices) in a couple of ways:
The first way is by assisting to obtain a more rapid “time to first fix” (TTFF). Assisted GPS acquires and storesinformation about satellite positionusing the cellular network so the position information does require to be downloaded from the the satellite.
The second way is by assisting locate smartphones when GPS signals are weak or blocked. As mentioned before GPS satellite signals may be interfered with by tall buildings, and do not penetrate building interiors well. A-GPS utilizes proximity to cellular towers to compute location when GPS signals are not available.
If satellite signals are not available, or accuracy is less important than battery life, using Cell-ID is a viable substitute to GPS cell phone tracking. The position of the device can be computed by the cellular network cell id, that identifies the cell tower the phone is connected to. By knowing the position of this tower, then you can know approximately where the mobile phone is. But, a tower can cover a huge area, from a few hundred meters, in high density areas, to several miles in lower density areas. This is why location CellID precision is less than than GPS accuracy. Nonetheless location from CellID still provides a very good alternative.
Another way of determining cell phone location is Triangulation or Mobile Location Services (MLS). Cell Tower Triangulation uses signal analysis data to calculate the time it takes signals to travel from your phone to at least three cell towers to determine position.
To comply with Federal Communications Commission guidelines, cellular phone companies must be able to provide authorities with mobile phone latitude and longitude to an accuracy of 50 to 300 meters. Cell Tower Triangulation doesn’t always meet this requirement. By way of comparison commercially available GPS systems can achieve accuracy down to less than 10 meters. This depends upon many factors, as GPS signals are often very weak and are impacted by many variables. With Mobile Location Services (MLS), the GSM cell network provider utilizes triangulation techniques to compute the location of the smartphone, its accuracy is proven to be less than than that of GPS. MLS is also impacted by the same issues as GPS in the sense of the interference impeding signal quality and the density of GSM towers to assist in the triangulation effort. In rural areas position accuracy may be off as much as a mile.
In general it is a matter of what location tracking system is available, and the requirements for accuracy. Hybrid methods are emerging that use various techniques in tandem to provide best available location given available resources. Generally the application determines the location with a GPS receiver and transmits the tracking data to a server through a data connection. The data connection to the server is usually made via the Internet. How often GPS samples are taken and how often and by what method the information is sent to the server impact effectiveness and costs.
Keep in mind that there is a fundamental difference between smartphone GPS Tracking and Navigation. GPS cell phone tracking is usually related to someone maintaining records of either real-time or historical mobile phone position, while Navigation deals with the mobile phone user figuring out how to get from point A to point B.
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