Where am
I? The question seems simple; the answer, historically, has proved not to
be. For centuries, navigators and explorers have searched the heavens for
a system that would enable them to locate their position on the globe with
the accuracy necessary to avoid tragedy and to reach their intended destinations.
In the late 1950's, researchers realized that the radio transmissions of
a satellite in a well-defined orbit could be used to determine the position
of a receiving station back on the ground.
Global positioning system or GPS is one of the greatest technological success
stories. Today GPS is used is all kinds of application from navigation to
pin point location of positions on the earth surface. This paper is an effort
to understand the various technicalities and the factors involved in the
working of a Global positioning system. It also tries to estimate the various
errors and inaccuracies involved under specific working conditions, in relation
to location of underground utilities. The urban underground is a complicated
network of all kinds of utilities lying one beside the other and so it is
very important to have some reliable, cost effective convenient method to
locate the utilities in case of maintenance, repair etc. This study tries
to evaluate the applicability of Global positioning system for Location
of Underground Utilities.
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