3G GPS tracker for mobile devices
With dynamic growth and acceptance of mobile devices, many innovative business applications are beginning to emerge. GPS phone and tracing seems to be one of the popular applications which many organisations have initiated, often facilitated by location based services provided by mobile network operators. However, there are many issues associated with the provisioning of this application with current technologies and business models. Small and Medium size Enterprises (SMEs) that make up a significant segment of businesses worldwide do not yet seem able to benefit widely from these services. In this chapter, we initially review current technologies/ applications and the issues associated with them, drawing from research and the experiences of a long term ongoing action research project with SMEs in the trade sector. Subsequently, we explore the opportunities offered by 3G services/business applications to SMEs, and provide a broad critical outlook on future opportunities for SMEs to benefit from 3G GPS services.
In recent years, SMEs with personnel in the field or on demand (for example, plumbers who are called in on demand/ given an assignment on phone based on their locality) are contemplating the introduction of application based on LBS within their organisations. However, the cost of implementing location determination technologies that support LBS is considered expensive by SMEs. The evolution of mobile networks into their third generation or 3G might generate the potential for SMEs to apply LBS — to get an affordable system to track their employees and improve the overall efficiency of the business. With the current technology, tracking and tracing usually requires an additional GPS antenna to determine the precise location, as the position information from the GSM network is too fuzzy to provide accurate location data. Also communication with mobile units is often established by Short Message Service (SMS), with a fixed fee associated with every query.
Wave-based positioning systems use propagation properties of (usually electromagnetic) waves to determine the position of a mobile object. Locations of mobile objects are determined relative to one ore more reference sites. Main criteria for the positioning quality of wave-based systems are accuracy and availability. The accuracy is mainly limited by technical restrictions and additionally by non-technical issues. Technical restrictions will be discussed later. An example for non-technical issue has been the selective availability (SA) in the Global Positioning System (GPS). The SA has been a noise, which interfered with the GPS signal and restricted its accuracy for non-military users. The availability of wave-based positioning systems is limited by an undisturbed reception of the radio waves sent by the reference points.
Practically, several of the given positioning services are combined. The result is a high-value positioning service. Popular navigation systems for example depend on GPS, dead reckoning and map matching: A GPS-antenna is used for the determination of a vehicle’s position and this information is adjusted with the information given by dead reckoning and map matching. Hence, different positioning systems can not be discussed in an isolated manner. Current systems basically depend on basic kinds of positioning technologies as well as valuable combinations of those technologies. Special positioning technologies (like personal tracking device ) and different kinds of network-based positioning services will be discussed in the next sections. We emphasize on basic conceptualizations and conceptual differences.
In recent years, SMEs with personnel in the field or on demand (for example, plumbers who are called in on demand/ given an assignment on phone based on their locality) are contemplating the introduction of application based on LBS within their organisations. However, the cost of implementing location determination technologies that support LBS is considered expensive by SMEs. The evolution of mobile networks into their third generation or 3G might generate the potential for SMEs to apply LBS — to get an affordable system to track their employees and improve the overall efficiency of the business. With the current technology, tracking and tracing usually requires an additional GPS antenna to determine the precise location, as the position information from the GSM network is too fuzzy to provide accurate location data. Also communication with mobile units is often established by Short Message Service (SMS), with a fixed fee associated with every query.
Wave-based positioning systems use propagation properties of (usually electromagnetic) waves to determine the position of a mobile object. Locations of mobile objects are determined relative to one ore more reference sites. Main criteria for the positioning quality of wave-based systems are accuracy and availability. The accuracy is mainly limited by technical restrictions and additionally by non-technical issues. Technical restrictions will be discussed later. An example for non-technical issue has been the selective availability (SA) in the Global Positioning System (GPS). The SA has been a noise, which interfered with the GPS signal and restricted its accuracy for non-military users. The availability of wave-based positioning systems is limited by an undisturbed reception of the radio waves sent by the reference points.
Practically, several of the given positioning services are combined. The result is a high-value positioning service. Popular navigation systems for example depend on GPS, dead reckoning and map matching: A GPS-antenna is used for the determination of a vehicle’s position and this information is adjusted with the information given by dead reckoning and map matching. Hence, different positioning systems can not be discussed in an isolated manner. Current systems basically depend on basic kinds of positioning technologies as well as valuable combinations of those technologies. Special positioning technologies (like personal tracking device ) and different kinds of network-based positioning services will be discussed in the next sections. We emphasize on basic conceptualizations and conceptual differences.
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