<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  TOM SANDERS CAN enable jets to land on runways and aircraft carriers scattered through a fogbound night, but things get tougher when he goes to dinner on a business trip. That&amp;#039;s when the engineer is confronted by mankind&amp;#039;s greatest navigational challenge: finding a rental car in an oversize parking lot. But Sanders has a secret weapon, based on the constellation of military satellites that he employs at work. He pulls out a $200 handheld GPS unit and locates his econo-ride in seconds. More and more, the industrial-strength technology that guides missiles and ships is finding its way into everyday use. Applications on the market or coming down the pike include maps that provide real-time traffic data, computer files that can be opened only at the right coordinates and cellphones that beep when a buddy comes near. &amp;quot;All the products out there get basically the same information from the satellites,&amp;quot; says Christian Bubenheim, general manager of Thales Navigation&amp;#039;s Magellan division, which makes consumer GPS products. &amp;quot;So the real innovation is imagination--what applications we can design to interpret that data.&amp;quot; The NAVSTAR Global Positioning System has long promised to become every bit as transformative a technology as the cellphone, or even the Internet. The question was when. Well, thanks to a confluence of low prices, miniaturization and advances in wireless communication, 2006 is looking to be GPS&amp;#039;s big year. \u2022 For background information on how GPS receivers work, click here.  On the Launch Pad: Super Satellites Illustration by Flying-Chilli.com In October 2005, SVN-15, the oldest working GPS satellite, will mark its 15th year in orbit--twice its design life. At least 10 more GPS satellites are past retirement age, and they&amp;#039;ll be joined by 12 more within a few years. The Air Force has spent billions developing replacements. They are now making their way to orbit--and they have some new tricks. While civilian GPS units receive a single signal from each satellite, military GPS units also use a second, encrypted signal to boost accuracy. Most new consumer units provide results nearly as precise by adding data from two geosynchronous FAA satellites called the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). But that costs battery life, and it works only in North America. The new satellites will supplant WAAS by providing multiple civilian frequencies, giving commercial receivers near-military accuracy anywhere in the world. The military has its own plans for the system. Signals from today&amp;#039;s GPS satellites are relatively weak, making them susceptible to cheap, cigarette-size jammers that can confuse GPS-guided smart bombs from several miles away. There are unconfirmed reports that such jammers were used against American airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Planned satellites will be able to &amp;quot;spot-beam&amp;quot; to war zones GPS signals that are 500 times more powerful than current transmissions--enough to defeat the most robust jamming system.--Benjamin Chertoff  Where to Land at Sea DEVELOPED FOR MILITARY USE over a period of decades, GPS is pretty simple in concept. The system consists of 24 satellites (plus several orbiting in reserve) that carry atomic clocks and send out a stream of data that, at its heart, is simply a time stamp. Back here on Earth, the signals are picked up by receivers armed with their own clocks and a schedule of each satellite&amp;#039;s movement. By measuring how long the signal takes to arrive, a GPS receiver can derive the distance to the satellite; data from four transmitters is enough to pinpoint the receiver&amp;#039;s location. The system has been open to civilians since the 1980s, but the Pentagon remains one of GPS&amp;#039;s chief innovators. Sanders, the director of Air Traffic Control and Landing Systems at ARINC, an Annapolis, Md.-based company, is developing a way to auto-land Navy jets on carrier decks. For pilots, these landings are dangerous and difficult, especially at night: The process has been likened to driving 150 mph down a dark road, into a one-car garage lit by a single bulb (except that garages don&amp;#039;t move). The ARINC system successfully landed an F/A-18 in 2001; the system will be tested with other planes next year. Such applications require precision. GPS used to have an accuracy of about 3 ft. at best -- not bad for a system relying on satellites flying 11,000 miles overhead. But some new receivers have a margin of error of just inches. That&amp;#039;s important for many industrial and transportation applications. Air traffic control. Pilots on long flights currently follow a zigzagging route, connecting the dots from one ground-based radio beacon to the next. A system of satellite guidance now being rolled out allows air traffic controllers to route flights directly to their destinations. It saves time and fuel, while also making instrument-guided landings safer. Infrastructure repair. Highway paving operations were traditionally guided by a laborious system of string and mechanical levels. Faster GPS-assisted equipment can guide itself through complex curves and grades. GPS technology also can be used to measure the height of the paved surface, ensuring that asphalt is laid to the correct thickness. Where the Traffic Isn&amp;#039;t DRIVERS HAVE BEEN QUICK to trade in origami-esque paper road maps for in-car navigation systems. Further innovations are on the way--notably, customized traffic reporting through products such as the Avic N2, introduced by Pioneer this year. Like installed systems on some GM and Honda cars, the N2 locates itself using GPS, then pulls down real-time traffic information through the XM Satellite Radio network. The device uses the data, which is available for 22 U.S. metropolitan areas, to route the driver around bottlenecks. Competitive aftermarket systems, from Garmin and TomTomGo, are on the market or coming soon. The XM data is supplied by a company called Navteq, which collects it from sources such as police scanners and built-in road sensors. Within three years, the company hopes to improve its product by tapping into a more comprehensive source of information -- one that could give pause to privacy-minded drivers. It will track its subscribers&amp;#039; cars using GPS-enabled cellphones or &amp;quot;probe&amp;quot; devices. In exchange for participating, subscribers will get beefed-up traffic information. Here are two more ways that GPS is affecting the roads. Ticket avoidance. A number of courier companies use GPS devices that beep a warning to the driver if his vehicle is approaching a known speed trap while traveling too fast. Toll collection. Germany is experimenting with GPS-based electronic tolls. Similar systems in the United States require sensors at a tollbooth to read an RFID transponder attached to the car. The GPS system can eliminate tollbooths altogether. As a side benefit, the data could then be pooled to provide real-time traffic information -- which would then be made available to in-car navigation systems.  Making It Work Indoors Illustration by Flying-Chilli.com GPS receivers have a tough time indoors, where few satellite signals penetrate. One solution is Assisted GPS, which uses data collected from cellular towers to help determine location. The towers relay satellite data; some also provide their own signals, which can be used for rough triangulation. Where the Kids Are CARS HAVE A HEAD START in the world of GPS, but the most exciting developments will come in handheld gadgets such as PDAs, gaming devices and--above all--cellphones. When the wireless revolution began, the new phones posed a challenge because they didn&amp;#039;t provide 911 dispatchers with a caller&amp;#039;s location, as landlines did. In 1996, the Federal Communications Commission mandated that the industry solve the problem. The result: Cellphones became the dominant GPS application, with an estimated 50 million GPS-enabled units now in circulation in the United States alone. &amp;quot;The technology has shrunk from an 8 x 10-in. board in a stand-alone device to a single, integrated 7 x 10mm chip,&amp;quot; says Ashu Pande, vice president of marketing at SiRF, the largest producer of GPS chipsets. As the chips have become smaller and cheaper, they&amp;#039;ve also become more precise, helping GPS function indoors for the first time. &amp;quot;Now, GPS is just another sensor,&amp;quot; Pande says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s one of many functions of a device, not the device itself.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Friend finder&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;geofencing&amp;quot; are examples of how GPS is moving beyond navigation to help users keep track of possessions, friends and family. Wherify Wireless, a company in Redwood Springs, Calif., enables parents to follow their kids through a child-size cellphone. The parent can use the friend-finder feature to determine the Wherifone&amp;#039;s location from a computer or from his own cellphone. A geofencing function to be added will alert the parent if his child leaves a GPS-defined -- or &amp;quot;fenced&amp;quot; -- area (such as home or school). Many adults might also enjoy being alerted when a friend happens to enter the same mall or golf course. Yet most of us probably would have qualms about making our own location data too widely available. Programmers are at work devising privacy protections for general-use friend-finder services. Where to Play ONE OF THE MOST talked-about GPS products of the past two years was the Suunto X9, a $769 watch used by runners and cyclists for monitoring their workouts. GPS watches such as the company&amp;#039;s new X9i and models from Timex, Garmin and others are now on the market at lower prices, as are specialized watches for sports such as golf and sailing. Suunto uses data generated by the X9 to create &amp;quot;shadow runs,&amp;quot; where a participant uploads results for a specific course, allowing local athletes to compare performances. The company&amp;#039;s chief software architect, Jan Storg\u00E5rd, has called the notion a &amp;quot;reality-enhanced gaming experience.&amp;quot; Other GPS-based recreation is more akin to video gaming. In Raygun, players encounter location-specific virtual ghosts that appear on their cellphone screens. The players walk or even run around, zapping the ghosts (presumably while avoiding collisions with real-life passersby). Other games require players to find or avoid each other; many variations are created not by commercial ventures, but by individuals. GPS even aids canine athletes. Mushers in Alaska&amp;#039;s Iditarod dog-sledding race use GPS to track their speed, helping them monitor how many calories their teams are burning. It&amp;#039;s like a digital fuel gauge for dogs. Where We&amp;#039;re Going &amp;quot;THERE&amp;#039;S A CONSTANT &amp;#039;why didn&amp;#039;t I think of that&amp;#039; when you hear about what people are coming up with,&amp;quot; says Bubenheim. Nextel has opened its phone system to independent software developers, who have created dozens of location-based applications, including friend-finder services. GPS is now being introduced to help officials track fire and police personnel in dangerous environments. And it&amp;#039;s not just people who can be monitored. GPS equipment maker Trimble sells a small device for tracking vehicles that individuals have started packing in highly valuable shipments. It provides a level of detail about a package&amp;#039;s whereabouts that even a courier service can&amp;#039;t match. Hardware is advancing, too. SiRF and computer chip makers are working to build GPS capability into all sorts of chips -- within three years every new computer may know its own location, all the time. One result, says Pande, will be a new form of security in which sensitive files can be read only by PCs at the right location. Such possibilities are exciting, but you don&amp;#039;t need to be a Luddite to see potential downsides to GPS. While technologies from ATMs to electronic tolls provide convenience, they also erode privacy--and few inventions compare to GPS when it comes to Big Brother scenarios. More subtly, GPS will undermine traditional ways of doing things. Street addresses--used since antiquity everywhere from Rome to Caracol, a Mayan city in the jungles of Belize--may decay into mere historical relics. For the individual adventurer, how much will the ability to easily find everything reduce the sense of discovery? Exploration, of course, will go on. Fittingly, for an heir to the compass and sextant, GPS may someday help ships probe the farthest untouched shores. Plans are being devised to reproduce the system in orbit around Mars to guide future probes and -- eventually -- a manned mission. What&amp;#039;s clear already is that GPS will change our perception of space, just as trains, cars and airplanes once did. As Tom Sanders puts it, GPS isn&amp;#039;t just changing our way of life, it is becoming part of our way of life--whatever we do and, especially, wherever we go. PLACE-BASED GEAR  PDAs now include GPS chips. Click on &amp;quot;Dad&amp;quot; in the Garmin iQue M5 ($750; www.gar min.com) and you get directions to his house, plus data such as phone numbers.  Sports watches that incorporate GPS can track distance and speed precisely. The Timex Bodylink Trail Runner ($350; www.timex.com) integrates downloadable heart-rate data with location-based info.  Friend-finder services can be used to track children. The Wherifone ($150 plus fees; www.wherify.com) monitors kids; preset buttons help a child call parents or 911.  In-car navigation systems are starting to automatically reroute drivers around traffic snarls. The TomTomGo 700 ($900; www.tomtomgo.com) comes with the entire nation&amp;#039;s road system on its hard drive. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a309/1793762/>