Rocky Mountain Tracking

Daily GPS News

GPS and Field Hockey in North Carolina

November 20th, 2012

Each and every day, GPS devices are being used in new and innovative ways in the world of sports. We’ve reported on many, such as England’s rugby team wearing jerseys with built-in GPS devices that track their stats such as heart rate and speed, or Tour de France racers wearing GPS watches. Now, the University of North Carolina field hockey team is putting GPS to use on the field.

In August, 10 new GPS devices were purchased from Catapult Sports for $1,000 per device using money from the sports medicine program, women’s soccer program, and strength and conditioning program. The GPS devices track a host of statistics for the field hockey team, and will also be used for the men’s and women’s soccer teams.

“We hope this pilot program will help us get an idea of how useful these (devices) can be for our teams and of the ways we can use them to enhance our athletes’ training and overall fitness,” said the director of strength and conditioning, Greg Gatz.

Gatz brought the devices to UNC to measure velocity, movement of players, and distance during preseason games and practices. The GPS devices will also calculate the time players spend in different velocity zones – jogging, walking, and sprinting. This will aid field hockey coach Karen Shelton get the most out of practices by pointing out game-specific needs.

The GPS devices will also show where the players are running on the field during games. “We can kind of see if we’re overplaying one side over the other, where are the high velocity bands picked up or occurring,” said Shelton.

These GPS devices are also used often in games and in training to measure player load. Player load is a calculation patented by Catapult and combines acceleration, velocity, distance run, and other attributes. The number calculated shows the amount of stress a player is put under in a given period, whether game or practice.

For example, the field hockey team played a weekend of back-to-back games against VCU and Wake Forest, and one player suffered from calf tightness and soreness from a prior condition in the first game. Her player load was calculated at 830. The very next day, this same player wasn’t worked as hard and her player load was calculated at 600. She didn’t experience any soreness after this second game.

“It’s a good indication because we get into a playoff situation and we know that we need to have her in back-to-back games,” said the assistant strength and conditioning coach Steve Gisselman. “We maybe take some of the load off her so that her shins don’t get to the point where it’s too much of an issue long term.”

The devices will also be handy during the rehabilitation and recovery period. “It could definitely be used for rehabilitation purposes,” said Gisselman. “(Measuring) return to play would be ideal because as they return to play you can see their speeds, their ability to cut, their acceleration – their deceleration is a big one – and all of those parameters you can look at as they’re getting better. It’s one of those things that we just got in August so we’re slowly learning all of the intricacies.”

Boeing Upgrades Navy’s HIGPS Receivers

November 19th, 2012

Boeing’s Defense, Space, & Security department in Huntington Beach, CA was awarded a $40 million sole-source contract by officials with the Naval Research Laboratory in order to optimize GPS receivers for the Navy High Integrity GPS (HIGPS) program. The goal: keep the GPS devices operational despite interference and electronic jamming by using the Global Positioning System (GPS) alongside the Iridium commercial satellite system.

HIGPS is a local GPS enhancement that relies on the Iridium low Earth orbit constellation of 66 satellites, which improve navigation performance even when the GPS satellite becomes unavailable because of electronic jamming.

Four years ago, Boeing was awarded a $153.5 million contract to begin the initial phase of the program, which involved researching enhanced satellite navigation and timing technologies. This first phase wrapped up last year.

Back in 2009, Boeing announced their engineers had successfully finished the Enhanced Narrowband sofware modification to the computers onboard Iridium satellites to allow Iridium spacecraft to emit second-generation GPS-aiding signals. This enables more accurate, quicker GPS position fixes no matter where in the world you are.

These GPS-aiding signals allow only those GPS devices that are properly equipped to quickly lock on to a GPS signal, even if the device is operating in places such as forests, mountains, cities, and canyons, or any environment that normally makes it next to impossible to lock on to a GPS signal. It will also work despite enemy attempts to jam the signal, and despite any battlefield RF noise, according to Boeing officials. Boeing demonstrated how to acquire GPS signal while moving with jamming conditions in the program’s initial phase.

HIGPS capability relies both on the signals from Iridium satellites and US Air Force-operated GPS mid-Earth-orbit navigational satellites. Iridium offers a powerful signal along with changing ground track quickly to speed up the initial position fix. The GPS system is needed to provide navigational data such as time, location, and velocity. This gives the HIGPS receivers better navigational abilities, a safer signal, precise accuracy, and better protection against jamming. The HIGPS system also offers the potential to provide centimeter-level location data, which is much better than the current GPS devices relied on, which offer location within meters, according to Boeing officials.

The program is included in the Navy’s research budget for Common Picture Advanced Technology, which shows the capabilities of Iridium satellites to improve the navigation and timing capabilities of GPS as we know it today. Experts at the Boeing Phantom Works Advanced Network and Space Systems segment in St. Louis traveled to work with the engineers in Huntington Beach. Also working on this first phase: Iridium Communications Inc.; Rockwell Collins; and Coherent Navigation.

This new contract is for a two-year program to optimize the HIGPS technology developed in the first phase of the program. The Navy says they will be working to make the system fully operational.

“Indoor GPS” Field Expands to More Indoor Areas

November 15th, 2012

Maybe you’ve heard the term “indoor GPS” and been caught by surprise. If you know how GPS works, you know that it isn’t yet capable of working indoors; the signals from satellites can’t make it through solid objects to your smartphone or tablet to give you a location. It’s the same reason navigating through urban areas with tall buildings is tricky, and why you temporarily lose your directions when you drive through a tunnel.

All the same, one of the hottest navigational topics today is “indoor GPS.” Although the term is misleading, it has gained traction, and in fact the term GPS has already gained a place in our language as a representation of reliable direction. Basically, people enjoy the advantages of real GPS so much that they are disappointed when they enter a large shopping mall and have to find their way on their own. With today’s advances in technology, why can’t we get the same kind of navigation indoors?

As enterprising as humans are, it was inevitable that they would find a way to satisfy this demand. The first indoor navigation systems function, not by looking to a satellite as a reference point, but by using IP addresses, wireless network hubs, and other stationary signal-producing objects inside the building. The results are not quite as reliable or accurate as GPS tracking devices, but they are quickly improving.

Meridian, a leader in the indoor GPS field, has created a powerful tool that will allow businesses to create applications using their sophisticated navigational software. For example, if you visit an airport, you could download the corresponding application and find a fully navigable map of the floor plan. Just as if you were using a real GPS device, you can enter your destination and enjoy turn-by-turn instructions for reaching it.

Testing of this newly released software has focused on three types of buildings that are some of the most difficult to map and navigate: a hospital, an airport, and a giant department store in New York City. The success of the testing has Meridian and potential developers excited about giving visitors what they want: the same easy, reliable navigation that they enjoy via real GPS when they are outdoors.

GPS Data Drives Renovation Plans Forward

November 14th, 2012

Every city has at least one, and many have several: a street that has become a major route for people driving through town, but wasn’t designed to handle the kind of volume that it sees today. Stop lights every few hundred yards keep drivers at a standstill during busy times of day, and there aren’t enough lanes to accommodate everyone.

The presence of businesses along these routes makes it even more difficult for officials to come up with workable plans for making improvements. Retail businesses balk at the thought of lengthy construction that would cut off access to their stores, and worry about visibility after the project is complete. Sometimes, it takes a dramatic proof that a giant problem exists before the wheels of progress begin to turn.

In Tennessee, one professor has used GPS data as just such a dramatic proof. All you have to do is try to drive down Lamar Avenue in Memphis to see that it could use some improvement. But the professor was able to come up with a quantitative version of just how bad the traffic problem is on this street using GPS.

The information in the study comes from fleet GPS devices mounted on tractor trailers—the vehicles most adversely affected by Lamar Avenue’s congestion problems. According to the “crowdsourced” data from many trucks, the highest average speed on Lamar Avenue is a dismal 30 miles per hour.

These tractor trailer drivers would love for that number to be closer to that of a major highway, which would be twice as fast. Thanks to the professor’s work, this dream might become reality, although it would certainly be many years in the future. It takes a huge amount of time and money to negotiate land acquisition from existing owners; plan the road improvements themselves; and actually execute the project. But the process has to start somewhere, and in this case GPS data appears to be a major driving force as it shows officials the exact scope of the problem.

Using GPS data to analyze traffic patterns is an obvious, if unplanned, benefit of fleet GPS tracking. Some popular individual-user navigation apps already use “crowdsourcing,” gathering data from other drivers’ activity to determine how traffic is moving in given areas. On a larger scale, the approach could make it easier for researchers to identify problems without conducting expensive, time-consuming studies on the ground.

Tennessee Considers GPS for School Buses

November 12th, 2012

When you think about it, school bus drivers are key players when it comes to the safety of our children. Once or twice every weekday, they take kids on the road to and from school in a large vehicle that is surprisingly difficult to operate safely. In Tennessee, buses are not required to have seat belts, so if an accident does occur, the danger to children is much higher than if they had been in a family vehicle. A recent crash in Washington County, Tennessee has officials looking into the possibility of using GPS devices to reduce the chances of similar disasters in the future.

A thorough investigation showed that the bus was working properly, ruling out mechanical problems as a cause of the crash. It appears that the driver was simply practicing unsafe driving habits, leading to an accident that injured 27 young people. Of course, it is impossible to know whether seat belts would have been able to prevent some of those injuries, but it is unlikely, since the bus rolled after it swerved off the road. A better prevention measure would have been the ability to spot the driver’s bad driving and address it before an accident could happen. That’s just the kind of alert that GPS monitoring can provide.

Commercial fleet operators use GPS monitoring to send back alarms when their drivers exceed speed limits, brake too hard and too often, and veer off their established routes. This is just what supervisors would like to find out about their school bus drivers in order to make sure that they are driving carefully with kids on board. If a driver knows that someone other than the children on the bus is keeping an eye on them, he or she will be less likely to take chances.

As the county looks into its options, GPS monitoring offers a lot of benefits that would not come with other solutions like seat belts. Supervisors of school bus fleets are currently in a tricky situation: the only witnesses to poor driving are usually children who don’t know how to drive, and if a complaint does arise from them, it is extremely difficult to prove. GPS may be the key to keeping drivers accountable the entire time they’re on the road.

Safer County Drivers in Pima County, Arizona Thanks to GPS

November 5th, 2012

Pima County is the latest to realize the benefits of installing GPS devices in fleet vehicles, placing the devices on approximately 800 of their vehicles including 97 pieces of heavy equipment. This will aid the County in encouraging safe driving among their employees, while at the same time giving them the power to find any of these vehicles at any time.

The county can now check in on each vehicle and determine its location and speed, as well as monitoring the fleet for engine idle time, harsh accelerating or braking, harsh turn, and whether or not the employees are wearing their seat belts. They can use the information collected from the GPS devices to weed out the problem drivers and help them correct the problem.

When a problem arises and the County notices unusual travel patterns or unsafe driving behaviors, a GPS incident report is sent to the driver’s manager. At this point, the manager brings the concern to the driver, pointing out the poor driving behavior in the hopes of correcting it.

GPS tracking is yet another check and balance, and goes hand-in-hand with the “How’s My Driving?” hotline sticker located on the rear of each County vehicle. If a citizen calls in a complaint about one of their drivers, the information collected from the GPS device will either confirm the complaint or disprove it altogether, as it did in a recent case. A resident called to inform the County about “Ten Pima County employees sitting around all day and five trucks parked in Amado,” according to County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry. After reviewing the GPS data, however, it was discovered no DOT vehicles were ever in the area. All other county vehicles were also checked just in case, but none were found to be in that specific area at any point that day, either.

The County knows that the GPS devices also ensure safety of the employees as well. As an example, the Health Department sends its inspectors out each day, a fleet of 20 vehicles in all, to inspect motels, hotels, restaurants, swimming pools, mobile home parks, and to investigate complaints about mosquitoes and rodents. “We have inspectors out in remote areas. Using GPS, we can make sure they’re safe, and that they’re on their way back to the office after the inspection,” said Program Manager with Consumer Health and Food Safety, Jeff Terrell.

Huckleberry sums up the reasons to include GPS devices as part of your fleet: “Because of GPS, we know where our vehicles are 24/7. It’s all about efficiency, management, control, and safety.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Yelp Weighs in on GPS vs. Wi-Fi Positioning

October 16th, 2012

When it comes to accurate positioning when on your smartphone, which is better: Wi-Fi positioning, using wireless access points to determine position, or GPS, relying on the GPS satellites to calculate position? Yelp recently gave their two cents on the subject, and then some, in a report recently released. Who better than the company with millions upon millions of check-in location data to sift through? The verdict: GPS wins.

Never heard of Yelp? It’s an app you can use on either iPhone, Android, or BlackBerry platform to see which services and businesses are frequented by those in your community, find events in your area, leave a review for a business you frequent, or chat with fellow Yelpers. In Q2 of 2012 alone, Yelp had a whopping average of 78 million monthly unique visitors. The company’s purpose, as stated on their website: “To connect people with great local businesses.”

How They Did It

They started by gathering and analyzing all check-in data from June 2012, and then further broke it down by type of device being located. As Yelp can also be installed on an iPod, this is important. Android and iPhone rely on GPS, cell tower triangulation, and Wi-Fi positioning to calculate precise location data, while the iPod can only use Wi-Fi positioning. They figured the best way to go about choosing the best method for location was to compare iPods to Androids and iPhones.

The data was compiled and analyzed, and it was determined first that iPhones do the best job in terms of check-in location vs. actual distance, with about 58 percent of check-ins being less than 0.1 miles from the actual business location. Androids provide location within 0.1 mile or less 40 percent of the time, and iPods about 30 percent.

After Adjusting for Accuracy

The Yelp app adjusts for accuracy, meaning when it displays the little blue dot representing your location, a bigger blue area confined by a circle is present. This circle is the “inaccuracy.” This way, if your location comes up as inaccurate, you can see nearby places to choose from (included within this circle) which allows you to check-in. It was shown that Android users should probably be thankful for this service, as they needed it to change their physical location, sometimes up to 2 miles off, most often. iPhone seemed yet again to do the best, while iPod fared the worst, giving an incorrect accuracy radius altogether (although the study concluded that 79 percent of iPod check-ins were accurate to within a mile from the actual location of the business.)

What It All Means

After the data was collected, it was determined that GPS provides the best location data, allowing users to share their favorite places in their community for fellow users to make decisions as to where to eat or get their hair cut. However, don’t expect Wi-Fi positioning to be done away with anytime soon. It still remains the easiest way to locate someone within a building, like a hospital or mall, where GPS signal may not be received by all devices.

Not Perfect Yet!

October 7th, 2012

Using GPS devices to find your way around town or across the country is fun. This revolutionary technology has eliminated the need for us to scribble step-by-step directions while talking over the phone; print ink-consuming maps on our printers before leaving the house; or purchase fold-out road maps at gas stations, which we would hardly ever use again. But it is easy for people to fall into the trap of assuming that GPS is always right.

Many of those that have been using GPS in their cars for a while now have learned by experience that it’s a mistake to blindly follow the pleasant voice telling them where to drive. It can leave you searching for your friend’s house in an empty parking lot, on an old country road, or somewhere even more unlikely. When a popular destination is incorrectly logged on GPS device maps, the unfortunate property owners who live at the posted location often resort to putting up signs for misled drivers. They read something like this: “Your GPS was wrong. This is not (wherever you were going).”

If you try using GPS in an area that you are already familiar with, you are almost certain to spot errors right away. It might claim that your favorite restaurant is up the street from its actual location, or show a dead-end street that was bulldozed long ago. In complex urban areas, these small errors can add up to very frustrated drivers.

The solution? It depends on how tech-savvy you are. If you own both a smartphone and a stand-alone GPS, you can check one device’s navigator against the other. The GPS signals used by the devices might be the same, but the actual maps are developed independently. Often, an error on one map is corrected on another. If you are more traditional in your tastes, of course, you can resort to the tried-and-true methods of stopping for directions.

It’s easy to forget that just a few years ago most of us didn’t even have cell phones. Today, if your GPS unit strands you in the woods, you can call your destination and get help. Until GPS is more reliable, it’s a good idea to ensure that you have a backup device or at least a good contact number before leaving home.

Magellan Adds Even More Safety Features to Its GPS Devices

October 5th, 2012

Magellan, known for its GPS-enabled navigational tools, is adding even more safety options to its RoadMate series. Slated to be released in September 2012, all new devices will feature Magellan’s full slate of options, including the three most recent additions that come standard with the new RoadMate RM2255T-LMB and the RoadMate 526ST-LMB GPS models.

Bluetooth “Safe Texting”

The Bluetooth Safe Texting feature allows a driver to send a pre-written text message to a caller stating that the contact person is driving and will call back at a later time or giving the vehicle’s GPS location and its estimated time of arrival. When paired with a Bluetooth cell phone, this unique safety feature provides the driver with hands-free talking.

Wireless Back-up Camera

The award-winning back-up camera that comes with Magellan’s newest GPS devices offers drivers a rear-view monitor by switching automatically from navigational mode to rear-view mode whenever the vehicle is put in reverse. Drivers can avoid toys, pets, and most importantly children that may have moved behind a vehicle. The option also helps drivers back into a tight parking space safely.

Portrait Mode

Most GPS navigation tools come with a landscape orientation. Magellan offers the driver the ability to switch from landscape view to portrait view depending on his location and the information that would be most helpful. The portrait mode provides more extended details out in front, making it ideal for long road trips. The landscape view provides closer-in details for city driving.

Other Features

Magellan offers a host of navigational features to make the driving experience safe and enjoyable. The RoadMate series also offers Landmark Guidance for those who prefer to navigate by landmarks rather than street names. Junction View helps drivers merge safely with traffic in order to catch an exit, and OneTouch allows drivers to bookmark their favorite spots for quick access. RoadMate even has Traffic Camera Alerts to let drivers know of upcoming speed and red light cameras located on route. Then there is the AAA TourBook that provides detailed information on restaurants, hotels, shopping, and more. And with a link to BestParking.com, the RoadMate will get you parked without having to roam the streets.

Magellan’s focus on driver safety make its GPS devices top of the line. And at less than $200, they are more than affordable.

Unnecessary Rescues Due to Technology?

October 1st, 2012

Use of smartphones, GPS devices, emergency locator devices, and other technological devices like it have led to a rise in backcountry rescues where the caller doesn’t truly need assistance, putting the lives of rescuers in jeopardy.

Search-and-rescue teams say that the rise of the use of these types of devices have folks sending out false alerts, as well as people who take a route they probably aren’t experienced enough to take, feeling that the device they are carrying protects them from any harm. There is a rise in people carrying PLBs, or personal locator beacons, out into the woods where with a press of a button, emergency is summoned giving the GPS coordinates of the person in distress. However, emergency crews have no way of knowing exactly why this distress signal is sent out.

Search and rescue coordinator for the California Emergency Management Agency, Matt Scharper, refers to these PLBs as “yuppie 911′s.” He said, “You send a message to a satellite and the government pulls your butt out of something you shouldn’t have been in in the first place.” Nick Parker, Alaskan wilderness rescue veteran of 45 years, agrees: “The real issue is one of training (or lack thereof), and our dependence on gizmos to save us. People expect a rescue in the same way they expect a fire engine or ambulance to come when they dial 911.”

Here’s an example: back in 2009, four hikers carrying a SPOT satellite tracking device while hiking in a remote part of the Grand Canyon pushed the help button. Rangers responded the next day by helicopter, finding the hikers did not need to be evacuated at all. Rather, they were fearful they would run short of water. They pushed the button again the next day, prompting another visit by helicopter, and all the men wanted was to complain that the water provided to them “tasted salty.” The third time they pushed the button, the rangers had had enough, loading them all onto the helicopter and removing them from the canyon, citing the leader of the group for creating a hazardous condition.

Although this is an extreme case, false alerts are happening a lot more often. In 2010, hikers in Grand Teton National Park asked for help down the mountain, with one of them requesting hot chocolate be flown in. In the US, hikers are sometimes charged for an unnecessary rescue. However, rescue teams try not to do this too often. According to Jeff Sparhawk, public information officer for the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group based in Boulder, CO said, “We don’t want people not to call for a rescue because they think they can’t afford it. Then they’re likely to get into deeper trouble and trigger a more dangerous rescue.”

Even Scharper knows that PLBs are useful despite the fact he calls them “yuppie 911′s.” “PLBs have saved a lot of lives, and as the technology develops, the problem will partly solve itself. Instead of a ’911 hangup’” – the distress signal attached to the person’s GPS coordinates – “we’ll be able to text back and forth. We’ll be able to talk a lost hiker back to safety without going out to get him, or putting any rescuers at risk.”

As an avid hiker, I can agree with these expert opinions. There are too many people reliant on these devices that can fail, rather than using their common sense: following trail markers, staying on the designated trail, or the worst scenario, being poorly prepared for weather conditions. Despite a hiker’s experience level, one should always prepare for a trip in unfamiliar territory: pack for any weather conditions, familiarize yourself with the trail ahead of time, carry a map along as backup, and do not hike terrain you aren’t comfortable with. Above all, have the common sense to realize that the need for hot chocolate is not one which requires search-and-rescue response.