The Mechanics Behind a Bluetooth GPS Navigator

There are many things at work to make your Bluetooth GPS navigator do its job. If you have ever been curious how this works, then this article is here to help. The mechanics behind a Bluetooth GPS navigator are fairly simple, it is in the execution of these mechanics that you really can see how powerful Bluetooth enabled GPS is.

How a Bluetooth GPS Navigator Works

A Bluetooth GPS Navigator will stay in touch with satellites in geosynchronous orbit send signals to the unit. A Bluetooth GPS navigator will use four satellites to calculate its position. The Bluetooth GPS navigator uses the current time from when the messages are sent and compares that with the known time. By doing this the Bluetooth GPS navigator can calculate the distance to the satellites and triangulate its position. It needs to have four satellites to do this as one satellite will be used to correlate the time.

Within the GPS system there are three segments – the space segment, a control segment, and the user segment. The space segment comprises the orbiting GPS satellites in orbit. The original design called for 24 satellites in three orbits, but the current design has these satellites in six planes with four satellites each. Each satellite completes one orbit per sidereal day. Currently there are 31 actively broadcasting satellites in the GPS network. The additional satellites have improved the precision of Bluetooth GPS Navigators by providing redundant measurements.

The control segment of the GPS system corresponds to how the satellites are monitored and tracked. The US Air Force Space Command master control station receives information from basses around the world and coordinates the position of the satellites and synchronizes them with atomic clocks to ensure a reliable network. The updates are created by a Kalman filter which uses inputs from the ground monitoring stations, weather information and other inputs.

The user segment is the portion that your Bluetooth GPS navigator takes up in the GPS network. These are composed of an antenna tuned to the frequencies sent out by the satellites and have receiver processors to analyze the data. In addition the units need to have a highly stable clock to base all of the calculations off of. They are also labeled with how many channels or satellites they can connect up to. Bluetooth GPS navigators today typically have between 12-20 channels. That is some of the basics as to how a GPS system works. There are many complicated components at play, but hopefully you understand the basics of what is going on.