GPS in a Nutshell
GPS or the Global Positioning
System was the first global navi-
gation satellite system (GNSS) to
become fully operational, in 1995
(the 24th orbiting GPS satellite
had been launched in 1994).
GPS was developed by the US
Department of Defense (DoD) and
was initially intended for use only
by the US military, with the sig-
nals intentionally degraded for
non-military users via a system
known as ‘Selective Availability’.
However, Selective Availability
was turned off in May 2000, fol-
lowing a policy directive that had
been signed by President Bill Clin-
ton in 1996.
Since then, the uses of GPS
by civilians have grown almost
exponentially, not just in the US
but all around the planet. GPS
receivers are now incorporated
into mobile phones, laptops and
touch-pad PCs, navigation receiv-
ers for cars, trucks and buses,
tracking systems for trains and
light-rail systems and of course
navigation receivers for aircraft,
ships and boats.
By February 2016, the number
of satellites orbiting in the GPS
constellation had risen to 32, with
31 of them in use and one a spare
in case of a failure. Strictly speak-
ing, only 24 orbiting satellites are
needed for navigation anywhere
on the globe because this ensures
that four satellites are visible at
all times. However, the additional
satellites provide worthwhile re-
dundancy and improve receiver
accuracy.
But how does GPS actually
work? Well, all of the GPS satel-
lites orbit the Earth at an altitude
of approximately 20,200km, in
orbital planes that are tilted at
approximately 55° to the equator.
They’re orbiting at a speed such
that they make one full revolution
in half a sidereal day (11 hours
and 58 minutes). The orbits are
arranged so that at least six sat-
ellites are always within line-of-
sight from virtually anywhere on
the planet’s surface.
Inside each satellite there are
two caesium-beam atomic clocks,
and the satellites all make fre-
quent radio contact with each
other as well as with dedicated
ground monitoring stations. As
a result, each satellite always
knows two crucial parameters
with great accuracy: the current
GPS/UTC time and its own cur-
rent location in terms of latitude,
longitude and altitude.
Each satellite also contains a
CDMA spread-spectrum micro-
wave transmitter, which continu-
ally broadcasts its current time
and location data on a number of
frequencies – mainly 1.57542GHz
(the ‘L1’ signal) and 1.2276GHz
(the ‘L2’ signal). Although all of
the satellites use the same fre-
quencies, the signals from each
satellite are encoded with a dif-
ferent high-rate pseudorandom
sequence, so receivers can always
identify from which satellite any
signal is originating.
This allows a GPS receiver to
work out its own current location
by decoding and comparing each
of the signals currently being re-
ceived from at least four satel-
lites. It does this by measuring
the time taken for the signals to
come from each satellite, at their
specified locations. This allows it
to calculate its distance from each
satellite, and then to find its own
location by finding the intersection
of these multiple path distances –
a technique called triangulation.
But a GPS receiver doesn’t just
provide this accurate location
information. Most GPS receivers
actually provide a continuous
stream of many items of data, in a
format known as the NMEA 0183
data stream (where NMEA stands
for the US National Marine Elec-
tronics Association). This emerges
from a GPS receiver as alphanu-
meric serial CSV (comma separat-
ed variable) data, usually at a rate
of 4800 or 9600 baud (bits/sec-
ond). It’s in the form of a number
of one-line message ‘sentences’,
each one identified by a unique
header word. All of these header
words begin with the characters
‘$GP’, but are then followed by a
three-letter combination identify-
ing the type of sentence.
Perhaps the most useful mes-
sage sentence for many appli-
cations is the one carrying the
$GPRMC header, also known as
the Recommended Minimum sen-
tence. This provides the current
UTC time, the receiver’s latitude
and longitude, its speed in knots
(not very useful when operating
in a fixed location) and the date.
As well as providing this handy
data stream (updated every sec-
ond), most GPS receivers also
provide a 1pps time pulse each
second, with its leading edge ac-
curately locked to GPS/UTC time.
This makes them especially use-
ful for synchronising clocks and
frequency references.