The Evolution of GPS Tracking System

Did you know GPS tracking system has a history that goes back to nearly 2000 years? For ages people have been looking for ways to find locations and identify directions to different places.  It all began in the first century when the Chinese used lodestone ladles whose handles always pointed towards the south no matter what direction they were placed in.

Always fascinated with new places and directions, people looked for ways to document the different pathways and roads. In the 2^nd century Ptolemy used latitudes and longitudes, and created the first map. This map was the forerunner of the highly intricate maps that are now being used in GPS tracking devices in India and other countries.

As years went by and people started traveling overseas to explore nations on the other side of the shore, maps became even more important and detailed. Abraham Zacuto came up with a system to determine the exact latitude while other scientists started exploring electromagnetic waves, earth’s magnetic power, discovering satellites, all which formed a solid basement for the development of the modern GPS tracking system. Also involved in the development of this tracking system is technological development of photography and videography. Another parallel invention that formed the basis of this tracking system is the development of computers and chips, which allowed one to store millions of bits of data in a square millimeter of space.

In the year 1978, a Block-I GPS satellite was launched. It was basically used for defense purposes. Another milestone in the GPS system is the development of Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) a digital map that allowed users to create virtual maps. This digital map was released in 1989, and sometime before that in 1983, the US president had declared that the GPS system would be made public for everyone to use. Both these factors speeded up the process of the designing and development of GPS-enabled tracking devices in India and the rest of the world.

Over the next few decades, more research institutions and IT-based companies began to create devices based on GPS. Now, GPS has become so commonplace that one can find it in Smartphones, cars and more. This 2000 year history of GPS is still continuing with more research and development in this extensive field of global positioning and mapping.