Cell tracking, cell phone GPS and cell phone track software applications are undoubtedly getting a lot of notice from individuals, mobile phone companies and application makers. The most popular mobiles include GPS locator functions to track mobile phone position.
GPS receivers, whether inside of a phone, or perhaps a dedicated Gps tracking device, calculate location by way of accurately timing the signals transferred by GPS satellites. This data provides the moment the message was transmitted, exact orbital information (formally referenced as the ephemeris), as well as the basic system condition and calculated orbits of all GPS satellites (technically called the almanac). GPS receivers sometimes take longer 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 can be caused if the GPS device has been unused for days or weeks, or has been moved a significant distance while unused 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 acquire signals and determine initial location faster.
GPS Hot Start is when the GPS enabled cell phone keeps its last known location, the satellites which were in range before, as well as the almanac data in memory, and tries to obtain the same satellites and determine a brand new location based upon the previous information. This is generally the quickest GPS lock but Hot Start only works if the phone is in the same general area as when the GPS was last turned off. GPS Warm Start is whenever the GPS enabled handset keeps its last calculated position, and almanac used, but not which satellites were in range. It performs a reset and tries to lock onto satellite signals and computes the latest location. The GPS receiver has a general idea of which satellites toseek since it saved its last known position and the almanac data helps determine which satellites are in range. The Warm Start is going to take more time compared to Hot Start but not as much as a Cold Start. With GPS Cold Start, the device deletes all the previous data, and tries to locate satellites and achieve a GPS lock. This takes more time because there is no known reference information. The GPS enabled device receiver must try to lock onto a satellite transmission from any accessible satellites.
So that you can have improved GPS lock times cellphone manufacturers and wireless providers designed Assisted GPS technology. This downloads the ephemeris and helps triangulate the smartphone general location. GPS Receivers will get a quicker lock in exchange for a few kilobytes of data transmission. Assisted GPS, also known as A-GPS or AGPS, increases the performance of normal GPS in devices connected to the cell network. In the US Sprint, Nextel, Verizon Wireless, and Alltel all use Assisted GPS. Which is a method of using the cell network to accelerate acquisition of GPS satellites.
A-GPS improves location tracking functions of mobile phones (and also other related devices) in two ways:
One way will be helping to acquire a more rapid “time to first fix” (TTFF). A-GPS acquires and archives information concerning the location of satellites utilizing the cell network so the coordinates information does not require to be downloaded via the satellite.
The next way is by helping locate cell phones when GPS signals are weak or impeded. Since GPS satellite signals may be interfered with by tall structures, and do not go through building interiors well Assisted GPS uses proximity to cellular towers to compute position when GPS signals are not readily available.
In the event that satellite signals are not readily available, or accuracy and precision is less important than life of the battery, employing Cell-ID is a useful alternative to GPS mobile phone location. The location of the mobile phone can be estimated by the cellular network cell id, that identifies the cell tower the smartphone is connected to. By knowing the location of this tower, you’ll be able to know roughly the location where the cell phone will be. Still, a tower can cover a large area, from a couple of hundred meters, in higher populationdensity areas, to a few kilometers in lower density areas. This is the reason location CellID accuracy is lower than GPS accuracy. Even so location via CellID still delivers a very helpful substitute.
Another method of determining smartphone location is Triangulation or Mobile Location Services (MLS). Cell Tower Triangulation uses signal analysis data to determine the time it takes signals to travel from the cell phone to a minimum of three cell towers to estimate location.