How Accurate Are Modern Navigation Systems?

Everybody has heard one or more horrific (and probably funny) story about people being led into tricky or dangerous situations after blindly following their GPS navigation system… in fact most of us have got a horror story of their own. A number of these stories are in fact too dangerous to be funny… well, to normalcy people anyway. Before petering out completely with nothing but a sheer drop getting closer and closer and nowhere to transform round whatsoever, i mean what’s funny about being led up the side of a mountain on a track which gets narrower and narrower? Okay, don’t answer that question, it kind of depends who’s in the vehicle I suppose.

Chevrolet introduces GoGoLink, an embedded smartphone application that delivers full-function navigation  including live traffic updates  through the  seven-inch, high-resolution touch screen of the vehicles MyLink infotainment system Wednesday, March 28, 2012 in New York, New York. GoGoLink is expected to be available in the fall for the Chevy Spark and Sonic vehicles. (Photo by John F. Martin for Chevrolet)
Chevrolet introduces GoGoLink, an embedded smartphone application that delivers full-function navigation including live traffic updates through the seven-inch, high-resolution touch screen of the vehicles MyLink infotainment system Wednesday, March 28, 2012 in New York, New York. GoGoLink is expected to be available in the fall for the Chevy Spark and Sonic vehicles. (Photo by John F. Martin for Chevrolet)

Anyway, this poses one enormous and very important question – can GPS navigation systems be trusted? Lots of modern motors have these gadgets built in (browse the choice at Nissan West Covina) but are they really reliable enough to help you get from A to B safely? I mean, are you ready we all threw away our maps completely, or should we leave them in the glove compartment just in case?

Well, the government insists that civilians have access to the identical accuracy and data which helps the military to discover its way around, along with the government can invariably be trusted to tell the simple truth, right? It’s the other 5% we need to probably all be worrying about, though apparently we can blindly follow out GPS navigation systems knowing that they are no less than 95% accurate.

GPS navigational systems are entirely reliable in themselves however it is external forces which really throw a spanner in the works. The quality of your receiver, atmospheric effects and sky blockage can all inhibit the reliability and accuracy of this type of system. Another potential problem is nothing to do with the GPS system itself, it’s the data it is actually reading which happens to be way out of date.

Surely some of those mountains have been in place since a long time before the data was gathered to the first systems , even though okay, so we can all forgive a GPS system which doesn’t have the correct data to recognize a whole new road lay-out so sends us through the town rather than on the quickest route. . . I am talking about, they’ve been there for millions of years haven’t they?

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A Few Basic Facts about GPS

GPS receivers may seem extremely exciting and new however they are actually quite simple in real terms – the receiver calculates the exact position of acar and person, plane or boat by timing the continual flow of signals which are sent between the GPS satellites orbiting high above the earth and the receivers. These monitor the some time and position of the transmission message to calculate your exact position on the surface of your earth.

By their very nature you are doing need a clear passage for that signal traveling from the satellite to the receiver. If you stop to think about the level of data that is installed in these gadgets it will start to blow your mind. In the event you simply punch in the area code or address of Downtown Nissan as an example, the chances are your GPS navigation system is going to take you straight to the door, and it won’t matter where worldwide you started your journey.

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Wow, I don’t know about you but I learn that pretty mind boggling. There’s no wonder that the GPS systems get it wrong occasionally could there be? If you kind of know that you’re going an unacceptable way, Don’t throw out your maps yet and don’t follow the instructions blindly.