“It’s a ubiquitous utility that everyone takes for granted now” said Bradford W. Parkinson. Some 30 years ago he led a Pentagon team that came up with GPS at a military base in California. Today experts working at the same base are improving an upgrading the system. They want to increase the accuracy, the variety of uses and make it more reliable.

The accuracy goal is to enable positioning within about an arms length or a couple of feet. Currently accuracy is good to about 10 to 20 feet so the improvement is significant. Other improvements will result in capability we have not seen yet.

There are 24 satellites in orbit and these will need to be replaced with new ones for the goal to be met. Replacement is scheduled to be done one at a time and will take about 10 years to complete. The upgrade is being headed by the air force in El Segundo, CA where Parkinson and friends developed the current GPS.

Partial credit for the current system goes to the launching of Sputnik by the Russians in 1957. Following that launch US scientists immediately wanted to track its position and found that they could track it by monitoring the radio waves it produced. They soon realized the opposite would be possible as well; radio waves from a satellite could be used to track the position of something on the ground. That something would ultimately be the receiver.

Naturally the Government and military were very interested in developing a system to help with National Security concerns. Specifically they needed help guiding submarines and warheads. Initial accuracy was only about 100 feet, not good enough for military use. Parkinson entered the scene and was charged with developing the system and improving accuracy. He said; “I was told that the system was useless and had no future. I guess we proved them wrong” Now 75 Parkinson is still involved and leading the team with its effort.

The Pentagon operates the GPS system which is now used in every country around the world. You may recall the days when they intentionally degraded the signal for civilian receivers. Once they stopped degrading the signal the commercial uses for GPS really took off. It is expected that in 2010 the number of users relying on the satellites is measured in hundreds of millions worldwide.

Reports are that the Chinese, Russians and Europeans are developing there own systems for fear the US Government could shut down their access or manipulate their signals.

The upgrade is reported to cost about $8 billion and will take the better part of a decade. Boeing will build 12 satellites while Lockheed Martin will build the other 18. Of the 30 new satellites 6 will be kept for spares in support of the other 24 which are in continuous orbit.

The system upgrade comes some 30 years after the original development and should take us another 30 years into the future.

Over the years the accuracy of all GPS devices has improved to the point (within a couple meters) of being almost mind boggling. Fortunately, for all of us, the cost of the technology has steadily decreased, even while the performance and reliability has improved. Only a few years ago the thought of buying a well made GPS device for under $100 would have seemed impossible, yet today, it is a fact. With the reduction in cost, the popularity of these devices has almost literally, exploded.

The GPS evolution has also meant a drastic reduction in the size of the units. This breakthrough may have allowed the popularity to increase even more than the reduction in price. Who would want a device the size of a shoebox mounted on the dash board of a car or strapped to ones arm? Clearly, a GPS watch would never have become practical without the reduction in size. I still have a “handheld marine unit” from the early 1990’s that makes me laugh at the size, whenever I see it, which admittedly, isn’t often. Thankfully those days are long gone.
GPS tracking devices, receive signals from orbiting satellites to determine the user’s latitude and longitude usually within a couple meters. This makes its simple to track your current location, speed, direction of travel, distance to go, exact time and many other functions. For the serious running/walking enthusiasts using a GPS watch a heart rate monitor adds the ability to tailor the exercise to personal targets and monitor them along the way.
The biggest challenge may be the decision of which GPS tracking watch is best for you, that’s where we will help.