Methods for Phone GPS Tracking and Cell Location raise the question: Do you really know where they are?
Methods for Cell Phone Tracking and Mobile Location Raise the Question: Do you really know where they are?
Mobile communications means more than just placing a phone call while on the move. The most up-to-date cell phones have GPS locator functionality to track phone location. These features, along with others such as text messaging, internet access and the ability to utilize other software make cell phones great gadgets. But GPS satellites aren’t always available, for example when the handset is in a building such as an office, shopping center, or even in a car. That doesn’t mean smartphone tracking isn’t available, but it does mean there are other ways of being a locator.
To track a mobile phone involves several primary ways of determining mobile phone location. GPS Global Positioning System-Satellites, Triangulation, and CellID. All these technologies transform cell phones into mobile tracking devices. These systems can be viewed as Network Based, Handset Based or a Hybrid approach. GPS location is Handset based as it needs software programs installed on the smartphone along with GPS hardware. Triangulation and CellID are Network Based as they use the equipment and information from the wireless provider. Hybrid systems combine techniques to make best use of available data and to make location phone tracking faster.
Mobile phone GPS is what people usually think of when looking at tracking mobile phones. GPS (Global Positioning System) using satellites is the most common and more accurate technology of tracking. However GPS requires satellites to be in direct line of site of the cell phone.
Sometimes thick cloud cover and dense trees interferes with signals.
If riding in a car the signals might not reach the cell phone. Some cell phones will retain the last known GPS location, others might not.
Another thing with handset GPS tracking is the potential of battery drain. It is important to be able to remotely adjust the frequency of taking GPS position. Selecting real-time or periodic sampling affects both the accuracy of finding location as well as battery life.
GPS receivers, whether in a smartphone, or a dedicated GPS tracking device, compute position by precisely timing the signals transmitted by GPS satellites. This information includes the time the message was transmitted, precise orbital information (the ephemeris), and the general system health and estimated orbits of all GPS satellites (the almanac). GPS receivers often take a long time to become ready to use after it’s turned on because it must acquire some basic information in addition to finding GPS satellite signals. This delay is sometimes caused when the GPS smartphone has been unused for days or weeks, or has been moved a far distance while turned off for. The GPS must update its almanac and ephemeris data and store it in memory. The GPS almanac is a set of data that every GPS satellite transmits. When a GPS receiver has current almanac data in memory, it can capture satellite signals and calculate initial location faster.
GPS Hot Start is when the GPS enabled mobile phone keeps its last calculated position, the satellites that were in range at the time, the almanac data in memory, and makes an attempt to connect to the same satellites and determine a new position based upon the previous information. This is usually the quickest GPS lock but Hot Start only works if the phone is generally in the same location as when the GPS was last switched off.
GPS Warm Start is when the GPS enabled mobile phone keeps its last calculated location, and almanac used, but not which satellites were in view. It performs a reset and tries to lock onto satellite signals and calculates a new position.
The GPS receiver has a general idea of which satellites toseek because it stored its last known position and the almanac data helps identify which satellites are in range. The Warm Start will take longer than the Hot Start but not as long as a Cold Start.
With GPS Cold Start, the device deletes all the previous data, and attempts to locate satellites and accomplish a GPS lock. This takes longer than other methods because there is no known reference information. The GPS enabled device receiver has to try to lock onto a satellite signal from any available satellites.
In order to have better GPS lock times mobile phone manufacturers and network operators introduced Assisted GPS technology. It downloads the ephemeris and helps triangulate the cell phone general position. GPS Receivers can get a faster lock at the expense of a few kilobytes of data transmission.
A-GPS improves location tracking performance of smartphones (and other connected devices) in a couple of ways:
One method is by helping to obtain a more rapid “time to first fix” (TTFF). A-GPS acquires and storesdata about satellite locationvia the cellular network so the coordinates information does need to be downloaded via the satellite.
Another method is by assisting position mobile phones when GPS signals are weak or not available. As discussed above GPS satellite signals may be impeded by tall buildings, and do not penetrate building interiors well. A-GPS utilizes proximity to cellular towers to estimate location when GPS signals are not available.
If satellite signals are not available, or accuracy is less important than battery life, using Cell-ID is a useful substitute to GPS smartphone tracking. The location of the mobile phone can be estimated by the cellular network cell id, that identifies the cell tower the phone is connected to. By knowing the location of this tower, then you can know approximately where the handset is. But, a tower can cover a huge area, from a few hundred meters, in high density areas, to several kilometers in lower density areas. This is why location CellID accuracy is lower than GPS accuracy. Nevertheless tracking via CellID still provides a very useful substitute.
Another method of determining device position is Triangulation or Mobile Location Services (MLS). Cell Tower Triangulation uses signal analysis data to calculate the time it takes signals to travel from your phone to at least three cell towers to estimate position.
To comply with Federal Communications Commission guidelines, cellular phone companies must be able to provide authorities with cell phone latitude and longitude to an accuracy of 50 to 300 meters. Cell Tower Triangulation doesn’t always meet this requirement. For comparison commercially available GPS modules are able to achieve accuracy down to less than 10 meters. This depends upon many factors, as GPS signals are often very weak and are impacted by many environmental factors. With Mobile Location Services (MLS), the GSM cell network provider utilizes triangulation algorithms to calculate the position of the device, its accuracy is proven to be less than than that of GPS. MLS is also impacted by the same issues as GPS in the sense of the interference affecting signal quality and the density of GSM towers to help in the triangulation calculation. In remote areas location accuracy may be off as much as a mile.
In general it comes down to what location tracking system is available, and the requirements for accuracy. Hybrid methods are emerging that use various techniques in tandem to provide best available location given available resources. Generally the application determines the location with a GPS receiver and transmits the tracking data to a server through a data connection. The data connection to the server is usually made via the Internet. How often GPS samples are taken and how often and by what method the data is sent to the server impact effectiveness and costs.
Consider that there is a basic difference between mobile phone GPS Tracking and Navigation. GPS cell phone tracking is typically related to someone keeping records of either real-time or historical handset location, while Navigation deals with the mobile phone user determining how to get from point A to point B.
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