The civilian use of GPS
GPS is in use in many different branches. The classical example would be the use in shipping traffic on oceans, seas and rivers. Many ships of all kinds of sort are equipped with GPS receivers already today to determine the exact location and bearing of the vessel. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for example are going even further beyond with their experimental oil tanker "Cosmo Delphinus" in the bay of Tokyo: their goal is to link the GPS techniques with the Inmarsat Weather Satellite System. While GPS gives the computers onboard enough information about the current location, speed and bearing, Inmarsat is verifying the weather in the area and ahead of the oil tanker so that the computers onboard the "Cosmo Delphinus" can - if necessary - alter the course of the ship to avoid storms and other dangers. When in the final step these two satellite systems are linked up with other surveillance systems onboard the ship (by the year 2001), this vessel will carry the smallest - and after a testing period no - crew but will offer the highest safety standards when it is moving in the ship traffic of the world. Similar projects and techniques are running for an "Automated Highway" in California and even in Germany with electronically guided passenger trains.
Also other security aspects have to be newly defined in combination with GPS.
My first example comes from the airplane industry. Big air companies have equipped their planes with the ILS (the Integrated Landing System), which is supporting the pilots in the landing phase of the flight, especially during the night and in bad weather conditions. But when this system is linked with GPS data, the landing phase will be performed by the autopilot and will become as safe as the rest of the flight. The reason for this is that the autopilot is comparing the optimal position (provided by the ILS) with the actual position which is provided by GPS receivers. So all the human pilot has to do is to monitor the landing phase and in case of an emergency (for example an engine malfunction) the pilot can take over control of the plane.
The second example describes a new way to protect your car from robbery. There are two ways how this protection can be activated: Either the thieve is using brute force to gain control of the car which is registered by a computer inside of the car or the owner can report his car as stolen by calling a control center. In both ways, however, specialists in this control center are able to track down the stolen car because the computer in this car is transmitting the current GPS coordinates via the GSM protocol (which should be a synonym to everybody who uses a cellular phone) to this control center.
Another, totally different use of GPS, was invented by the University of Birmingham in England: Blind people no longer need a special trained dog to guide them through their environment. The blind simply has to enter the desired target (in other words: the address) where he or she wants to get into a laptop and a special program calculates the best way how to get there, using a digital map. Now the blind person puts headphones on and is ready to go. The laptop in his backpack uses a build in GPS receiver card and therefor "knows" where its carrier is located at the moment and gives instructions when the carrier has to turn left or right. The latest software and maps are even supporting public transportation systems.
All these and many other improvements in life-style, safety and protection were impossible only a few years ago. But now that the costs for GPS receivers are as low as never before, the public and not only the military can take advantage of this technology.
