Articles Tagged: gps tracking

GPS receiver

GPS receiver

basic1-125_information A GPS signal receiver chip is an essential part of any tracking device.
basic2-117_open_reading_book The Global Positioning System (GPS) is used to pinpoint a device’s location anywhere on earth.

The basic concept is that GPS satellites send signals to the earth, containing their position and the time the signal was sent. The receiver chip, which is a part of the tracker, takes this signal and analyses it.

Once the device has received a clear signal from at least four satellites, it can calculate its position.

 

Note: receiving GPS signals only permits the device’s owner to tell its location. Tracking requires the device to send its calculated position to an additional endpoint, such as a server.

In the case of IneTrack, this data is sent using the mobile network (cellular network), therefore all devices have a mobile data connection (which is enabled by a SIM card).

If this connection is temporarily lost, the device can cache its data, and may send it once the connection is re-established, so no data loss may occur.

Read More →

How tracking works

How tracking works at IneTrack

How tracking works

IneTrack is a GPS-based system, which determines the location of your vehicles and employees.

In order to use our tracking service, you need a device called tracker. The tracker records position data using GPS satellite signals. This data is later transmitted to our servers through the GSM network. The device needs to be capable of sending data through a mobile network (or equivalent).

The time intervals of position recording may vary depending on changes in your speed and direction (e.g. driving on the motorway with a constant speed will result in a fewer number of positions recorded than a downtown drive with frequent and possibly sudden changes of direction and speed).

The server that the tracker sends the position data is effectively a cloud storage, which collects the data received into a database. The data can later be retrieved and displayed using our web interface.

The tracking process can be broken down to the following three steps:

  1. The device receives signals emitted from the GPS satellites.
  2. The device analyses the given signals, and sends it to IneTrack’s server.
  3. The server processes the incoming data, making it accessible for the user, via the web interface.

While the precision of the location tracking is solely dependent on the device’s ability to receive a clear signal from the GPS satellites, the thoroughness of the tracking service can be refined on the server side.

Note: the devices in themselves do not track. They simply send their current data to a server continuously, which creates a database of locations and events. This data is then ordered chronologically and used for tracking purposes.

Read More →