Global Positioning System


satellite drawing

What is GPS?

GPS is based on closely monitored satellites that float 20,000 kilometers in the sky above us. These satellites act as stationary reference points whose locations are always monitored and known.

A receiver, like the one that Nomad has, can determine how far it is from any any of the satellites. If the distance from at least 3 satellites is known, the receiver's exact position can be calculated.

Is GPS always accurate?

Actually, things like the earth's atmosphere, clock errors, and reflections off of other objects can affect GPS's findings. To fix errors caused by these factors, we use DGPS , or Differential GPS, a more accurate version of GPS.

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Last Modified on: Thu Jun 12, 1997