Monday, May 28, 2007

More reliable GPS

2 comments:

Finn said...

Just a few pointers:
- GPS is an all-weather system because it uses radiowaves that penetrate the clouds, if less than 3 satellites are available, positioning accuracy is significantly reduced
- all compasses (digital or not) receive harmful magnetic interference from electric wires with currant and ferromagnetic substances like iron or steel
- only GPS units already integrated in the car computer can make use of the odometer
- calibrating the odometer is a job for service technicians, an error in the GPS system can easily be bigger than the error caused by tire pressure, also car depreciation must be considered
- compass could be even useless, navigating system could rely simply on the speedometer and a few G-force sensors, thus creating a system like the fighter jets have (inertia navigation)

Ch00f said...

Good idea with the inertia navigation, would also take slopes into account. I wasn't planning on the odometer being the actual one that car dealerships use to determine value. I guess I should have said tripometer, but that sounds weird. I figured that this would just be an invisible feature used in luxury cars that already have GPS installed.

And while GPS is an all weather system, mine still takes about two minutes to find enough satellites to navigate every morning.