Global Positioning System

Transcription

1 Global Positioning System Physics 1010 Term Paper Adrianne Bernardo 2012

2 Global Positioning System (GPS) Have you ever found yourself out in the middle of a marsh, phragmites 10 feet tall all around you and you just can t seem to remember where you parked your dang truck? Today, for some odd reason, you have decided to boat to a small pond that you looked up on the computer. On your way out there it was easy because you knew your general direction and if you made it to that exact spot, wonderful, but if you made it close id didn t really matter, you d be done way before dark that you wouldn t have any problem finding your way back. It s pushing the end of shooting light and it wasn t quite like you thought that it would be. Frustrated you stay there to get those last two birds, despite your want to get back to the parking lot before dark. A half hour passes and you decide it s just time to go home. As you begin back you make a wrong turn because your eyes are playing tricks on you, and you can t see where you are going. What do you do now? (A story of a man who actually got lost and called the police to come and find him, luckily he had his cell phone on him.) As mapping and coordinating began to develop over time it was more of a hinder to use a map and a compass, they were generally a very close approximation rather than an actual location. For hundreds of years that worked but as people and life evolved there had to be an easier way to see a direct route from point A to point B. We now call it a GPS, Global Positioning System. The GPS is a satellite navigation system that provides location and time information on weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites (wikepedia.org). It also makes it possible to pinpoint where

3 you are and show a clear passage to a destination or a destination of your own and a return rout the very direct path that you have traveled. The Global Positioning System was first developed within the US Department of Defense by a man named Ivan Getting. It was originally designed to be able to pinpoint ships out at sea or submarines under water (About.com). It has also been used to measure the highest mountains in the world and also the deepest parts of the ocean. Ivan Getting was born in New York City in 1912 and received his Bachelors of Science degree in 1933 and also achieve a PhD in Astrophysics from Oxford University in 1935 (About.com). He then became the vice president for engineering and research at the Raytheon Corporation in 1951, which is founded as the American Appliance Company as a maker of machinery motors and components open in 1922 ( Man had been trying to figure out for centuries to correctly determine how to travel in one direction for hundreds of miles and be able to return back to the point of origin. Some of the first objects that were used in aid of navigation is the north star which we still use today when trying to figure out what direction we are facing. Another is a technique when a needle or small piece of metal is placed on a leaf in a bowl of water. It becomes magnetized and points to true north because of the pulls of the earth (aero.org navigation). Long before there was ever a name placed people used marker and direction to determine where they are going. These days we have about perfected just that idea without having to do so much work as individuals.

4 When I was younger we used to travel back and forth from Utah to Idaho very often and I always wondered how my mom knew which way to travel. Many things that we use now, thanks to GPS and navigation, make it so we are capable of getting from one place to another because we are able to pre map an area out without actually being there. We are able to do that by satellites (aero.org How GPS works). It is a triangular pattern of waves that bounce from one satellite to another and returns to a receiver with picture images of where on the earth you are trying to locate. The earth is divided up into longitudinal and latitudinal degrees of location and that pattern is then inserted into a computers navigational system. From there we can type in a specific point and receive images, location, weather, plant life, and even triangulate movement on the surface. The triangulating satellites are made up of 24 satellites that orbit the earth at about 11,000 nautical miles, or miles (aero.org what is GPS). There are many uses of GPS that we use in ever day life. They are now installed in cars to give turn by directions to where you are going, where a restaurant is located and any address you wish to go to. It even provides information that connects all the computer clocks in the world with the correct time zones with just one click of the button. In the construction world there have been many uses for GPS and navigational systems. It allows people to select addresses and plot out maps of where homes are going and what you want the area to look like. Can you now see why it would have befitted the hunter in the beginning to have a GPS. He could have looked up where he wanted to travel to hunt, find the GPS locations online, and

5 insert that location onto his GPS. When he got to where he was traveling to he could have pinpointed where he parked and it would take him to the coordinates he found on the computer and then take him directly back to his truck day or night. There are many benefits to owning a GPS system. It could save you a lot of wasted time and effort, it could tell people exactly where you are at if you are lost, and it could give you turn by turn directions if you are no good at reading just an address on a page. Technology has come a very long ways in helping us in every gay life. There is now simple navigation systems built right into cell phones, or very detailed and complex navigation systems built into military intelligence. We all benefit from this product in one way or another; just sometimes it s so normal that that it s not even noticeable.

6 Bibliography "Global Positioning System." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Apr Web. 16 Apr < Bellis, Mary. "History of the Global Positioning System -Â GPS." About.com Inventors. Web. 16 Apr < "Milestones." Raytheon Company:. Web. 16 Apr < "What Is Navigation?" What Is Navigation? 29 Apr Web. 16 Apr < "GPSâ The Most Precise Navigation System Ever Invented." What Is GPS? 03 Mar Web. 16 Apr < "How GPS Works." The Aerospace Corporation. 29 Apr Web. 16 Apr < Watson, Sarah. "Authorities Find Man Who Reported Being Lost in the Dennis Township Marsh for Three Days." PressofAtlanticCity.com. 6 Apr Web. 16 Apr < reported-being-lost-in-the-dennis/article_ fd9-11e1-b54c- 0019bb2963f4.html>.