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Global Positioning Systems and The Future
Nicole Loeffler
ITT Technical Institute
GS1140, Problem Solving Theory
Mr.Shofner
September 27, 2014

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Global Positioning Systems and The Future
Since 1960, Global Positioning Systems have come from a U.S. Air Force secret to a cellular phone requirement for personal safety in 1999. Today many civilian GPS users have come to conflicting arguments as to whether or not GPS is here to help or hinder us. Between foreign nations such as China working to have successfully launched 35 satellites by 2020, and Superior court trials arguing violation of privacy… Has GPS found a competitor?
What GPS does for us
GPS is used daily for coordinating airliners (NextGen), city transit, package delivery, keeping track of our children as well as felons under adult supervision by ankle monitor. In many search and rescue situations, natural disaster and criminal monitoring or investigating, time is as critical as life or death. On August 6, Fox News published a story on Precise Innovations kidsport GPS band developed by a concerned parent Brian Sullivan. A device that will give parents there child’s direct location to a partner app on the parent’s cellphone within 10 feet of the child. This device has a panic button to notify the parent if the child wonders outside the “geo-fence” (the perimeter the parent sets). In 2005 GPS was used with GIS (Geographic Information Systems) by giving precise location of landmarks, streets, and buildings. Precision agriculture or site-specific farming has been made possible by the use of GPS, GIS and remote sensing to locate and map field boundaries, roads, irrigation systems and problems such as weeds or disease soil.
What GPS has done to usNow that I’ve given some great examples of what GPS does to help the world, here are some reasons many people feel the odds are not weighing out. A web site called Pleaserobme.com was created in the end of 2009 to attract the attention of people using Twitter and other social media networks. One of the major points is a lot more people are becoming so loose with their personal information and specific whereabouts. Pleaserobme.com is sponsored by a 501I (3) company called CDT (Center for Democracy and Technology). Under section 501I (3) of the Internal Revenue Code, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not
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attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidate (IRS.gov, Last Reviewed or Updated: 13-Mar-2014). Is that it? GPS locator applications such as Google Maps, Cellular navigation and devices like Tom Tom are have been found to be more and more inaccurate due to the amount of time it takes the users moving location to hit 3-4 GPS satellites bounce to the nearest specific cell tower the users device works with and back to the user. One of the most common past-times today for residence as well as travelers is to shop. GPS alone is incapable of giving the location of a store inside of a building or indoor mall. This is bad for business and in some small way contributes lack of job availability in or economy.
Concluding where GPS is going
Locata, the GPS competitor, can work side by side with GPS but generally uses ground-based equipment to project a radio signal over a localized area that is a million times stronger on arrival than GPS. Locata fills satellite availability holes in obstructed environments. Some time around December 2012, the U.S. Military signed a contract to approve large-scale testing at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. There is also on going testing taking place as of Q3, 2013 (third quarter 2013) by a group of student environmental engineers from the University of New South Wales. They have conducted a series of tests with Vray Orb 80 antennas to measure the accuracy of Locata inside