GPS Land Surveyors

By Krish Rock


One of the real advantages of having a GPS tracker installed on your mobile phone is that you can always know where you have left it. Whether you happen to lose or mislay it or have the misfortune to have it stolen. There are a number of mobile phone tracking software programs that allow you to accurately pinpoint where your phone is currently located and allow you to take action if it turns out to have been stolen.

The basis of the world's current GPS system relied on a receiver being able to make contact with at least four satellites at any one time and by 1994 the US Department of Defence had established 24 satellites in orbit to achieve this aim. The Russian Military had its own "Global Navigation Satellite System", which became available to civilians in 2007, and there is also the European "Galileo Positioning System" and the Chinese "Compass Navigation System."

Another definition for land surveyors is supplied by the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (also known as ACSM). Here it is described as the science or art of making the measurements needed to determine relative positions of points and cultural details on the surface or below the surface of the Earth, and the ability to depict them in a readable format. In other words then surveyors are used to create all kinds of maps and information regarding a piece of land in three dimensions for access by a range of different services.

GPS land surveying is essentially this process but using GPS in order to achieve the end. GPS stands for 'Global Positioning System' and you are no doubt aware already of this system as it is used crudely in a range of every day applications now - from navigation systems in cars, to maps and directions on smart phones. Most likely you have at some point used GPS to perform what is essentially a form of surveying in order to retrieve information mapped by other surveyors.

GPS works using satellites. These satellites move around the Earth in geosynchronous orbit meaning that they stay in the same position relative to the Earth - moving in accordance with the Earth's natural rotation. The system you carry on the ground then works by sending a message up to those satellites, and when the satellite receives them, they send them back down for your device to receive. Your device then uses the amount of time that the exchange took in order to calculate the distance from that satellite.

By 1993 the last of the 24 modern satellites were in orbit and the GPS tracking system was fully operational. Initially the system was a two-step one, with more accurate positioning of up to 20 metres available for military use, while the civilian GPS system was only accurate for up to 100 meters. In 2000 the limiting "selective availability" capability was switched off, giving everyone access to the more accurate GPS facility.

Triangulation is in fact a method that has previously been used in surveying, but thanks to GPS surveying it is now incredibly easy and has been made largely obsolete. Of course GPS can make many aspects of surveying much easier, but likewise it is surveying that makes GPS possible.




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