GPS Coordinates from within a Building Q

1916

Is it possible to get a GPS 'read' from within buildings? Lots of devices these days have GPS inbuilt, but how could you get coordinates if your within a building. Obviously the device has to 'see' satellites, but is there some way to 'broadcast' the coordinates of a building to all devices that may seek a read from within its 4 walls.

Hope above makes sense

Saggitarius

1916 wrote: »

Is it possible to get a GPS 'read' from within buildings? Lots of devices these days have GPS inbuilt, but how could you get coordinates if your within a building. Obviously the device has to 'see' satellites, but is there some way to 'broadcast' the coordinates of a building to all devices that may seek a read from within its 4 walls.

Hope above makes sense

As far as I know you can't receive any signal within buildings. It's working in same system as Sat TV, also your receiver have to "see" the satellite(s)

Webmonkey

Saggitarius wrote: »

As far as I know you can't receive any signal within buildings. It's working in same system as Sat TV, also your receiver have to "see" the satellite(s)

No not generally, due to multi path effects, timings go wrong, reflections etc. That's even if you do get a signal from a good few satellites.

What are you trying to achieve? - I work with Indoor Localisation using WiFi if that's any interest to you.

Alun

It depends on the building somewhat. In some older domestic houses you can get a pretty good stable fix, but if there's anything blocking the signal you're out of luck. Foil covered insulation in the loft for example will block pretty much everything. It'll depend a lot on the sensitivity of the receiver too, some of the latest GPS receiver modules can perform well even under bad reception conditions, but you run the danger of multipath interference causing problems. In the average, concrete built, multi floor office building you'd be right out of luck probably.

As Webmonkey points out there are solutions out there that can perform localisation using (amongst other things) WiFi access points, such as the offerings from Ekahau (which I've worked with) or AeroScout, but these might be too expensive or complex for your particular application, depending on what it is exactly you want to do

Rovi

Sounds like you're looking for a 'GPS Repeater'.

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