An Idea: Indoor/Outdoor GPS Tracking

[Statsman]

Would it be possible to use Betty indoors, say in a Mall or Airport, if Betty could communicate with an antenna that might be located in your car, outdoors?

I am not sure if this could be made to be possible but here are some more details.

Maybe Betty could send some sort of signal, like a GPS signal, that the external antenna could pick up. The external antenna could then reradiate the location back to Betty.

Why you might be asking?

Some folks are locationally challenged and get "lost" in large structures, i.e. they can not find their car when they go to leave (someone very close to me has this disability).

Any ideas?

[Curious Cat]

Originally posted by Statsman
Would it be possible to use Betty indoors, say in a Mall or Airport, if Betty could communicate with an antenna that might be located in your car, outdoors?

I am not sure if this could be made to be possible but here are some more details.

Maybe Betty could send some sort of signal, like a GPS signal, that the external antenna could pick up. The external antenna could then reradiate the location back to Betty.

Why you might be asking?

Some folks are locationally challenged and get "lost" in large structures, i.e. they can not find their car when they go to leave (someone very close to me has this disability).

Any ideas?

Wouldn’t it be telling you where your antenna is, not where you are?

[JMckie]

Would be nice but the GPS position reported will be that of the stationary antenna.

I've read of technology where cell phones are used to locate yourself in a mall. For instance as you are passing by a store, it could display any flyers or coupons any items on sale. I don't remember how it works but it wasn't GPS.

[Statsman]

It could tell you both, CC.

If Betty could send her own signal out, then the external antenna could locate both Betty and where ever the antenna is.

This could be useful for both 1) finding your car later, and 2) getting out of the building wherever you came in.

[Statsman]

Originally posted by JMckie
Would be nice but the GPS position reported will be that of the stationary antenna.

I've read of technology where cell phones are used to locate yourself in a mall. For instance as you are passing by a store, it could display any flyers or coupons any items on sale. I don't remember how it works but it wasn't GPS.

OT, but, it would also be nice if restaurants could send their phone number to your cell phone as you pass by them. This way you could call them and see if they have open tables.

[Curious Cat]

Originally posted by Statsman
It could tell you both, CC.

If Betty could send her own signal out, then the external antenna could locate both Betty and where ever the antenna is.

This could be useful for both 1) finding your car later, and 2) getting out of the building wherever you came in.

Even if Betty sends out a signal there would only be one point and nothing to triangulate a position on.

[Statsman]

Originally posted by Curious Cat
Even if Betty sends out a signal there would only be one point and nothing to triangulate a position on.

How stupid of me!:rolleyes:

Maybe Garmin should just put a fiber optic gyro in Betty for dead reckoning whilst Betty is not triangulatable.

[Curious Cat]

BTW, I’m definitely one of those that can get lost in a parking lot. What I do when in a large parking area, is I have a waypoint named “Car” and when I get out, before I shut the antenna, I reset the location for that waypoint to where I am.

[Curious Cat]

Originally posted by Statsman
How stupid of me!:rolleyes:

Maybe Garmin should just put a fiber optic gyro in Betty for dead reckoning whilst Betty is not triangulatable.

The cell phone technology for location should work in your scenario.

[funbob]

CC is right. it would take multiple antennas to establish the position of the iQue. All one antenna could do is establish bearing. It's the same reason why the iQue needs to lock onto multiple satellites to establish a fix. As for finding the car, just mark it as a waypoint before you leave. I do it all the time at malls, concerts, sporting events, etc. and it works great.

[Statsman]

Thanks for the replies, CC. I like the idea about setting a waypoint at the car.

[Curious Cat]

Originally posted by Statsman
Thanks for the replies, CC. I like the idea about setting a waypoint at the car.

This may make you feel better; I’ll tell you about my previous navigation system before the iQue. It consisted of relying upon my wife as the navigator while I was the dumb pilot. When driving alone, if I came to an intersection I would “feel” which way seemed the correct way to go and then, no joke, I would go the other way. This actually worked better then 50% of the time. Now you know why I am such an enthusiastic supporter of this technology.:)

[Statsman]

My spouse always believes that North (or at least the direction that feel like North) is always the way Home (or to the car).

Sometimes this actually works, but more often then not, ... hence, the purchase of Betty.

If only Betty would be a bit more accurate :( in her directions.

[funbob]

Ha, that reminds me of my g/f. What really makes it bad though is the we have some fairly obvious mountains (http://home.earthlink.net/~bdodge/blog/images/albuquerque.jpg) to our east so I laugh everytime she asks which way north is :D

[Curious Cat]

Originally posted by Statsman
My spouse always believes that North (or at least the direction that feel like North) is always the way Home (or to the car).

Sometimes this actually works, but more often then not, ... hence, the purchase of Betty.

If only Betty would be a bit more accurate :( in her directions.

My wife has an uncanny good sense of direction. She has had a few debates with Betty with me being the middleman. Betty almost always wins the “shortest” distance debates (not that my wife would admit defeat) but my wife will often win the “quickest” route debate. I’m useless, reduced to a spectator with no opinion.

[donc13]

Originally posted by funbob
CC is right. it would take multiple antennas to establish the position of the iQue. All one antenna could do is establish bearing. It's the same reason why the iQue needs to lock onto multiple satellites to establish a fix. As for finding the car, just mark it as a waypoint before you leave. I do it all the time at malls, concerts, sporting events, etc. and it works great.

Actually, it wouldn't even establish a bearing, the best it could do would be a range from the antenna unless you used a directional antenna with a mechanism to rotate the antenna to follow your movements.

Also, consider the amount of power required from the iQue to reach what...a half a mile, a mile????, through all the objects in the way...to your car, if you think you've got poor battery life now, wait until you try that trick.

;-)

[Curious Cat]

Originally posted by funbob
Ha, that reminds me of my g/f. What really makes it bad though is the we have some fairly obvious mountains (http://home.earthlink.net/~bdodge/blog/images/albuquerque.jpg) to our east so I laugh everytime she asks which way north is :D

You know I often wondered if growing up in the Miami, Florida area stunted my development of a sense of direction. The ocean was always to the east and virtually all the roads were set out like a grid, all right angles and everything was flat, no hills at all. Then when I moved to Atlanta, I discovered I was in a hilly area in the middle of the state with winding rivers and a map that looks like it could have been a bowl of spaghetti. It doesn’t help that there are like 10 different roads named Peachtree and that many of the roads will stop and start somewhere else.

[Curious Cat]

Originally posted by donc13
Actually, it wouldn't even establish a bearing, the best it could do would be a range from the antenna unless you used a directional antenna with a mechanism to rotate the antenna to follow your movements.

...
;-)

You mean that's not what your avatar is? :D

[rwsmith123]

Originally posted by Curious Cat
This may make you feel better; I’ll tell you about my previous navigation system before the iQue. It consisted of relying upon my wife as the navigator while I was the dumb pilot. When driving alone, if I came to an intersection I would “feel” which way seemed the correct way to go and then, no joke, I would go the other way. This actually worked better then 50% of the time. Now you know why I am such an enthusiastic supporter of this technology.:)

I thought about trying that method before, but never did. It probably would have worked for me as well.

Before I got my gps, if I had written down directions to someplace, I usually didn't have a problem following them, but then when I reversed the route and was going back home, forget about it, I would always make at least one wrong turn.

One time when I was going to a friend's house for the first time, I messed up on the directions and took a wrong turn somewhere, I made the same mistake the second time as well, after that the erroenous route had been ingrained, and that's the way I have to go.

[JMckie]

I did a little digging and came up with one technique of how cell phones can determine your location. In concept it is very similar to how GPS works!

http://www.andrew.com/products/wireless_call_loc/geometrix_e911_tech.aspx


Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA)
The TDOA technique works by measuring the exact time of arrival of a handset radio signal at three or more separate cell sites. Because radio waves travel at a fixed and known rate (the speed of light), by calculating the difference in arrival time at pairs of cell sites, it is possible to calculate hyperbolas on which the transmitting device is located. As seen in the figure, measurements at two pairs of cell sites (e.g. sites 1 & 2, and sites 2 & 3) create two intersecting special hyperbolas indicating the possible location of the transmitting device. Geometrix calculates the intersection of these hyperbolas to determine the caller's location. The TDOA technique uses existing receive antennas already present at cell sites.

[Statsman]

Originally posted by JMckie
I did a little digging and came up with one technique of how cell phones can determine your location. In concept it is very similar to how GPS works!

http://www.andrew.com/products/wireless_call_loc/geometrix_e911_tech.aspx \

Maybe the distances are far too close together, but I would think that there would be a red shift error as well.

Very interesting, though.

[Curious Cat]

Here's a great interactive site. Make sure you click on "Next"

Here (http://www.snaptrack.com/images/demos/tech_1.html)

[JMckie]

CC, thanks for the link. It nicely illustrates assisted GPS. Jonas has been talking about that but I only half-understood it.

The link I found does your location it seems purely from cell stations alone without the benefit of GPS. I wonder what the tradeoffs are. If you are in view of three cell stations, how accurate would your position be and would you still need to get GPS signals?

Hey Jonas are you back yet?

[Curious Cat]

Originally posted by JMckie
CC, thanks for the link. It nicely illustrates assisted GPS. Jonas has been talking about that but I only half-understood it.

The link I found does your location it seems purely from cell stations alone without the benefit of GPS. I wonder what the tradeoffs are. If you are in view of three cell stations, how accurate would your position be and would you still need to get GPS signals?

Hey Jonas are you back yet?

I believe that Jonas was where I got that link from in the first place or at least to that general site. Last I heard Jonas was in Nairobi. The pigmies are probably shrinking his head right now or maybe he’s telling them where to stick their antenna. Hope he didn't tell the canibals about his frying pan.:D

[Statsman]

Nice link, CC.

It looks like the cell towers use the GPS for their location, not for the phone location. But I wonder, wouldn't the cell companies know the exact location of their cell towers?

[Curious Cat]

Originally posted by Statsman
Nice link, CC.

It looks like the cell towers use the GPS for their location, not for the phone location. But I wonder, wouldn't the cell companies know the exact location of their cell towers?

I believe they are using the tower to relay the GPS info to the cell to augment the GPS positioning in a similar way to how WAAS works. I do believe that they already know where their towers are.

[JMckie]

Found in Palminfocenter.com

CPS (Cambridge Positioning Systems Ltd) today announced the launch of their new E-GPS technology (http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=7557)
(Enhanced Global Positioning System) technology – harnessing their Matrix technology to improve satellite-based location performance indoors and in busy city centres.

E-GPS brings together GPS technology, which relies on a location fix from satellites, with CPS’ software-only Matrix solution that uses synchronisation signals from cellular base stations.

This means that the location provided by E-GPS is always based on the best quality signals, from either satellites or base stations in that particular area, resulting in accurate and consistent sub-100 metre performance across all environments.

E-GPS effectively resolves issues that have constantly plagued satellite-based technologies – lack of coverage in indoor and dense urban areas, time delays in returning a location, and cost.


It would be nice to be able to find your car in an indoor parking lot, or to find your way in a mall.

And so the cycle of upgrades continues.

[ykuendig]

What's about this?
http://www.infineon.com/cgi/ecrm.dll/ecrm/scripts/prod_ov.jsp?oid=56435

Yves

[nparker13]

Thought this was pretty interesting...it really works well...

http://www.freewareppc.com/images/products/communication/wififofum.gif

I dont know how it works (wheter it depends on multiple aps, or just one, but it is accurate most of the time even w/o gps enabled.

-nate

PS sorry to bring PPC into this, i just miss my Que so much while its out on RMA

[JMckie]

Originally posted by nparker13
Thought this was pretty interesting...it really works well...

http://www.freewareppc.com/images/products/communication/wififofum.gif

I dont know how it works (wheter it depends on multiple aps, or just one, but it is accurate most of the time even w/o gps enabled.

-nate

PS sorry to bring PPC into this, i just miss my Que so much while its out on RMA

I've tried that software. It knows nothing of your position. It shows nearby wifi access points.

[nparker13]

But its all relative...you can figure out where you are in relation to the aps. plus once the gps 10 comes out, you can use it to calculate the aps position. Anyway, its similar to the aGPS in relation to figuring out signal strength and delay time. I just dont understand how it gets direction.

-nate

[JMckie]

But the problem is to find out your position when indoors. The GPS 10 will not work indoors, therefore you still don't know where you, or the access points are in terms of lat/lon.

It is possible to invent a protocol where the APs, with a known location, can tell the receiver where it is, but range and availability is severely compromised when compared to cell phone signals. Think of all the places you can use your cell phone vs all the places where you are within range of a WAP.