Since the introduction of Global Positioning Systems and the GPS being fully operational they aid worldwide navigation, land surveying and vehicle tracking. GPS has become central to transportation systems on a global scale, used widely in aviation, maritime and land navigation systems. GPS provides accurate timing and locality and has become an essential tool in many commercial and agricultural industries too.

Offering a wide variety of functionality GPS Systems are becoming more and more popular in the worldwide transport industry and penetrating into the domestic markets with hand held models and car sat nav systems growing in unit sales year on year.

The most common types of satellite navigation equipment are:-

• Portable Satellite Navigation Systems for cars
• Handheld GPS systems
• Mobile phone GPS
• Built – in Satellite Navigation Systems for cars

GPS Systems or Global Positioning Systems to give them their full name are one of the worlds most widely utilised communication, positioning and time reference technologies, expanding into homes, transportation, recreation and cellular phone arenas. Increasingly Satellite technology is becoming a part of our every day lives.

When coded reference points are received from the satellite sytems which circle the earth the GPS system is then able to pin point the exact point and location requested.Producing reference points in longitude and lattitude giving detailed information dowm to minutes and seconds.

13°19'43" N is an example of a lattitude translated it reads 13 degress 19 minutes and 43 seconds North.  The following are gps system results for well known global reference points:-

• Arctic Circle: 66° 33′ 39″ N
• Tropic of Cancer: 23° 26′ 21″ N
• Tropic of Capricorn: 23° 26′ 21″ S
• Antarctic Circle: 66° 33′ 39″ S

Whether you are on foot, in a car, on a bike…At some point throughout your lifetime you will probably use a Satellite Navigation System.

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GPS Devices