The next time your car’s navigation system takes you straight to the front door of a perfect little grill, thank the U.S. military.
The Global Positioning System – a network of satellites that allows accurate location – is courtesy of the Department of Defense. The Space Force and the Coast Guard are now responsible for their operation.
But drivers didn’t have to wait for the military to develop GPS to get help getting where they were going. In the 1930s, the Iter Avto, a replacement device, offered navigation guidance. With rolling paper maps and a speedometer cable connection, the dashboard-mounted device could track an approximate route, as long as the driver remained straight and narrow. Getting out of the way, even if momentarily, would be an obstacle.
This mapping technology has evolved over the years, sometimes intermittently. But GPS is now a crucial driving companion. Smartphones use their satellite signals for navigation and other purposes.
There are disadvantages to using a phone for navigation, especially if it doesn’t connect to the car’s infotainment system. Positioning a phone correctly can be tricky, and since smartphones rely on a cellular signal for map data, coverage can be lost in areas such as mountains, where reception is poor.
But smartphones are convenient and almost everyone has one. Apple and Google maps are updated automatically as needed. Most newer vehicles allow the Apple CarPlay or Android Auto to appear on a large monitor on the dashboard.
New after-sales navigation systems, mounted on top of the panel or installed on the panel, are a step ahead of a smartphone – and that Iter Avto. For example, the Garmin DriveSmart 61 LMT-S navigation system can be ordered with a 6.95 inch screen for good visibility. Garmin provides spoken instructions step by step using street names and landmarks. Points of interest and hospitality facilities are called, bottling notices issued, speed limits displayed and driver alerts provided. Other top models, like TomTom and Magellan, also offer complete feature sets.
All after-sales navigation systems come loaded with localized maps and wireless updates are usually provided. Many “better” lists are available on the web.
But better than smartphones and dashboard devices are the navigation systems that automakers are plugging into their cars. These factory-installed systems offer better accuracy, more features and better integration. The screen is generally more robust and a built-in system will not attract thieves like a unit with a suction cup on the panel. Integrated systems often have more powerful chips than replacement models and their antennas can be larger and better positioned.
The navigation system on the Cadillac Escalade 2021 is a good example of how technology has advanced. If you select audio direction instructions in the system menu, the voice emphasizes the action required. When approaching a right turn, the voice comes from the right side of the vehicle. As you approach the intersection, the volume increases.
If you prefer to hear the vehicle’s 36-speaker surround sound system, you can turn off the voice and rely on the large, high-resolution screen on the vehicle’s 16.9-inch infotainment screen. A heads-up display of route directions complements the windshield. Obviously, you get a well-defined map, but the system also provides images of traffic signs at important intersections, indicating, for example, which path you should take at a fork in the road. Turn on augmented reality and the vehicle’s cameras provide an image of the road ahead with an overlaid map.
When you are choosing a destination and on arrival, the system provides pictures so you know what to look for. You can also show the surrounding area.
These photos are courtesy of Google Street View, which includes millions of panoramic images obtained through Google’s own work and contributions from ordinary people with cameras. Most vehicle navigation systems take advantage of Google mapping and photography. Tesla’s navigation system can even provide aerial views of Google Earth on its 17-inch screen.
Luxury brands like Tesla, Mercedes-Benz and Cadillac offer feature-rich navigation systems, but you don’t have to spend six digits to get GPS guidance. Chrysler’s Uconnect navigation systems are viewed favorably by car owners, according to Consumer Reports,
In a Jeep Cherokee, the Uconnect can be easily set in motion by speaking an address. The system uses sensors to assist GPS in locations such as tunnels or parking garages, where it can lose contact with satellites.
The 2021 Ford Bronco, a vehicle designed to explore beyond the end of the road, offers SYNC 4 navigation on a 12-inch screen on models priced around $ 40,000 or more. This GPS-guided navigation system can help drivers find their way in the desert and provides camera views to assist those who wish to climb one or two rocks.
Although the navigation systems installed by the automaker have become complex in recent years, the first to appear in cars were more modest. In 1981, Honda, Stanley Electric and Alpine developed the Electro Gyro-Cator, which used a gyroscope to determine inertia and translucent maps on a lighted screen to illustrate a route. Sold only in Japan, the system added the equivalent of $ 2,750 to the price of a car and worked slightly well. It demonstrated that, given the starting point, speed and direction, a location could be calculated. It is what engineers call the dead calculation system.
Other dead calculation systems would follow, including some using digital maps stored on tapes or other media. But the dead calculation can never be absolutely accurate, and the chances of getting off course are considerable.
Then came GPS and navigation grew. The first GPS navigation device offered by an automaker arrived in the Mazda Eunos Cosmo 1990, offered only in Japan. General Motors followed in 1992 with a system installed in rental cars. In 1995, it was offered as an option on the Oldsmobile 88. Using maps stored in cartridges, the system was initially marketed only with the mapping of California and Las Vegas, but other cartridges followed.
While automakers gradually added GPS navigation systems to luxury models, the aftermarket took advantage of the concept. Alpine offered a system that used compact disc maps in 1997, and Garmin did the same in 1998.
The roots of GPS technology go back to 1842, when the Austrian physicist Christian Andreas Doppler described how movement affects the frequency of sound waves. This Doppler effect is illustrated by the whistle of an approaching train. As you get closer, more sound waves reach your ear and the pitch increases. As the train moves away, the tone decreases.
In the late 1950s – those exciting Sputnik days – scientists demonstrated that a satellite orbiting the Earth could be tracked by sending a microwave signal and watching how its movement changed the frequency of the return signal.
In the mid-1960s, the Navy needed to track nuclear-powered submarines. Using six orbiting satellites, Navy scientists found that they could observe changes in the Doppler when the radio waves from the submarines bounced off the satellites, thus calculating the location of the submarines.
The Department of Defense expanded the concept and in the early 1970s began the development of an accurate satellite navigation system. The first Time and Distance Navigation System satellite was launched in 1978. A full complement of 24 Navstar satellites became operational in 1993.
GPS technology has already tracked submarines, and today a much more powerful system can help you hunt a Swiss submarine.