Gps

gpsstudent

Hi i'm a university student in the early processes of
researching GPS(very early).

I am thinking of doing a project on this subject but am first
checking out the various costs involved.

My idea is to use it to track say 3 vehicles.

What i need to know is
1.What is the best tracking device available?
2.What would the equipment end up costing per car?
3.The signals are generally sent over a gsm network.
Is there any other way
4.When the information is relayed back to the base station is there
another device needed to interpret the information?
5.Is there maping technology for Ireland?


Thanks in advance for any help

Adeptus Titanicus

I'm not trying to be smart or anything, but your questions have a massive scope, and it'd be difficult to give a "silver bullet" answer to all/any of them.

1.
It depends on what you want it to do. There are many in-car navigation systems with multiple functions. Do you want on-screen mapping, voice activation, waypoints etc, or just a simple receiver to broadcast inofrmation back to a base station? What sort of accuracy tdo you require? Most single band stand alone units will be good to 15m in an urban context (signals get blocked by buildings etc), but they can be augmented by an ancillary receiver that can get a corection signal on the fly to bring you to, say, a 1m accuracy. This could be via GSM, FM radio etc. You ould also just store all the data and post process it back at base, but then it isn't real time. Have a think about what you want it to do. DO you offer the driver any tools?

2.
See above. Cost will vary considerably!

3.
I assume you mean sending signals back to a base? GSM would be very costly to maintain. Radio would have an initial hit, but better in the long term.

4.
Depends on what is sent back. If it is straight-forward National Grid or ITM coordinates, they could be streamed into an appropriate application/database for real-time tracking, and recorded for later modelling. This is the most likely scenario.

5.
Depends what you mean by mapping technology. For base mapping Ordnance Survey and Mapflow would be the big names in data supply. For software, Geographic Information Systems are built for this type of thing so could easily incorporate a tracking feed and accomodate base mapping and analytical tools. ESRI's ArcGIS ArcView is a good example, though not cheap (Your Uni probably has it via the Chest fund).

Narrow down your focus a bit and google for reviews of handheld/automotive GPS navigation units and that should tune your ideas.

Hope this helps a bit!

gpsstudent

Its actually quite difficult to find decent information from an irish perspective on this subject.

It would be a simple car tracker that would transfer its location in real time!

Accuracy wouldn't be a huge issue as 15m seems a reasonable margin to me.

Would be interested in the cheaper option that of radio but whats involved in that?

What would be the differences between that and gsm?

Are there licences involved for using the radio?
What do you think a unit to transfer data would cost?

Depends on what is sent back. If it is straight-forward National Grid or ITM coordinates, they could be streamed into an appropriate application/database for real-time tracking, and recorded for later modelling

What about live modeling?

What are the chances do you think that i would be able to make my own map, it being a small area!

Adeptus Titanicus

Well, the Irish bit only really comes into it in relation to base mapping and the coordinate systems used, as the rest is generic technology with a few tweaks. A I mentioned, this has been done for the cross-border ambulance services as far as I recall, and some taxi companies use similar methods. Have a look at http://uk.dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Business_to_Business/Navigation/Global_Positioning_Systems/Tracking_Systems/ for a sample list of companies doing this type of thing. I know they mostly aren't Irish, but there are companies here providing this type of solution.
http://www.surveysupplies.co.uk/ operate out of here. Look in the GOlden pages online for survey companies, or go into Great Outdoors type shops to look at the handheld units.

If you're just looking for sensors, you could think about OEM units like these http://www.garmin.com/oem/ although you'd have to come up with software to use the things. I think you'd be better off going for retail solutions, but I couldn't tell you off the top of my head which ones support streaming off via a GSM/Radio link.

I agree, 15m is plenty for most nav/tracking applications.

When I mentioned radio transmissions, I meant it would be a cheaper long-term solution. You'd need a license (at least you used to), transceivers and a heap of gear. If it's a short term project, GSM would do I think. With radio it's a once off cost, and it's always on. GSM you'll be paying by the minute.

Also, when I mentioned "later modelling", I meant you could track in real time, but store a history of the vehicles position, with a timestamp, for reconstructing journeys and that type of thing. I think the Dept of Transport were going to do something similar for recording journey times through Dublin at different times to model traffic flow etc.

Regarding making your own map, that depends on the detai/area required. I wouldn't bother if I was you. You can get Educational licenses from OSI for most of their products. Again, your Uni should be able to help here. I'd suggest the 1:50,000 and perhaps the DIgiCity (Streetguide) maps. If you weren't concerned with copyright you'd scan them and georeference them, but that would be... ummm... the wrong thing to do.


I think this would all be a major investment just for a project. If I got this landed on my desk to scope a project for a client, I'd be researching for a few days to pull the bits together. Or are you just going to do some case studies? Out of interest, can I ask what the course is on?

Pataman

Contact aircoach they use the system

Rabies

1.What is the best tracking device available?

Garmin make good GPS devices.

I used one of these on project i did



4.When the information is relayed back to the base station is there another device needed to interpret the information?

The GPS device receives an NMEA sentence. This can be parsed to get get your current latitude and longitude along with speed and other info. If the GPS receiver is hooked up to an handheld PC an application can break down the sentence and maybe send it to a bluetooth enabled device to send to where ever it is supposed to go.

5.Is there maping technology for Ireland?

Ireland is only recently fully mapped. I'm not sure if anything commerical is released yet. Ask OSI


Acurracy can depend on the weather and if the GPS receiver is used in built up area. I have seen acurracy of 5 meters up to 30 meters. It depends on the amount of satellites in view at anyone time

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by Rabies

Ireland is only recently fully mapped. I'm not sure if anything commerical is released yet. Ask OSI

Actually, Ireland has been fully mapped since the 1830's, the first country to be fully mapped at a scale of 6" to 1 mile . (what have the British ever done for us?! ) Very nice maps, almost art at the first edition.

Digitally speaking, OSI have the 1:50,000 (Discovery Series) full national coverage available in raster and vector formats, plus detailed maps at a plot scale of 1:1000, 1:2500 and 1:5000 for urban, sub-urban and rural areas (again available in raster and vector formats). These are the ones normally used for planning applications and the like. They also supply aerial photography (2000 being the most recent) as a digital dataset, although Mapflows is better, but only available for urban areas.

The main problem with OSI is that they haven't released mapping information to other companies, or produced their own map base, suitable solely for navigation systems. You could use the 50,000, but a scalable vector dataset would make far more sense. They just aren't ready for this type of thing...

Edit:
Forgot to mention, they aren't finished the 1:5,000 yet, but were flying the photography for the last bits last summer AFAIK. They use the 25" to 1 mile for the bits remaining at the moment.

Rabies

Originally posted by Adeptus Titanicus
Actually, Ireland has been fully mapped since the 1830's, the first country to be fully mapped at a scale of 6" to 1 mile .

Smart ass
I should have phrased my answer better.

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by Rabies
Smart ass
I should have phrased my answer better.

lol, sorry! You were right in some regards of course, they aren't keeping up with users requirements. Pity really...

gpsstudent

I'm doing computer science

I liked your idea about the radio but have a couple of questions

How much would the equipment be?

Where would you get it?

I think i found something on the licences saying that they are about 1500 - 2000 Euro? Do you think thats correct?

I dont understand how something like what you are saying would actually physically work. Would it just give the distance from the base station like a navigation unit or is it gps enabled whereby it transports back the waypoints?

Anything would be helpful

Paulw

Eircom PhoneWatch did a vehical tracking system, using GPS and SMS. It worked very well, and had many features. It was also combined with a vehicle alarm system (from CEL).

PM me if you want more details.

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by gpsstudent
I liked your idea about the radio but have a couple of questions

How much would the equipment be?

Where would you get it?

I think i found something on the licences saying that they are about 1500 - 2000 Euro? Do you think thats correct?

TBH I've no idea what the cost's of a full tranceiver system would be these days, but if you take a scan through the Golden Pages and stick in "Radio Equipment" and your location, you'll get a list of suppliers. You caould call them or look at their websites for some idea of cost. But I'd say very expensive. Not worth it for a demo project!

License-wise, that cost wouldn't suprise me. Again, it's been some time since I had to get a radio license, and that was for walkie-talkies! Sorry. Someone else may have more info here.

I dont understand how something like what you are saying would actually physically work. Would it just give the distance from the base station like a navigation unit or is it gps enabled whereby it transports back the waypoints?

Well, GPS will record the absolute position of something in relation to a defined coordinate system. In our case, it could be Irish (National) Grid, although it will transform between a few coordinate systems to get there, but you generally don't have to worry about that. So if your background mapping is in this reference system, then when you supply an X,Y coordinate you can pinpoint that location on the map. If you transmit a coordinate position from a vehicle back to the base every few seconds, it will basically show real-time positioning of the vehicle. Things like a unique ID tag would have to be sent too, so the system could identify what vehicle was what.

In-car navigation, or handheld systems work in the same way. It records your absolute position against a background reference system. If you have keyed in waypoints, you would have keyed them in in the same coordinate system, so the unit can do some coordinate geometry to work out how far you are from it, and in what direction. Add in a road network, and it can (if hte data allows) calculate what the shortest route would be. There are many options here.