Acronym for Global Positioning System (or Global Positioning System ), GPS is a system that allows determining the position of any object (from a person to a vehicle) on the Earth thanks to a precision that calculates down to the centimetres themselves, although the average is usually based on distance per meter.
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How Does It work?
Created and developed by the United States Department of Defense in the 1970s, GPS is powered by a network of at least twenty-four satellites in orbit around our planet. From here, the satellite itself allows sending a signal to any equipment through the so-called “reverse trilateration method”, which draws the position.
GPS Utilities
Essential in practically any current device, it is the best ally not only when it comes to orienting ourselves through a certain place, but also when it comes to locating other points of interest or geolocating any type of content associated with a map.
Currently, all smartphones and most tablets come with a GPS module. Thanks to it, we can use our smartphone as a navigation system (for example a GPS for the car, a map to find a street, etc.) and it also allows us to take much better advantage of social networks, being able to upload our exact location at any time and check the GPS status of your mobile.
Anyone who has ever used the GPS function of their smartphone will have lived moments when they thought that their GPS was not working correctly, for example, by not catching a signal or by returning very strange positions. To make sure that everything works correctly and that positioning problems are foreign to our smartphones, we can use an application that shows us the values that the GPS receives.
For this, we are going to use GPS Test, a free and very simple application to analyze the status of your mobile’s GPS and check that it works correctly.
How To Check The Status
Once this application is installed we execute it. We will see a screen similar to the following.
This is where it will show us the GPS results it receives. Receiving data may take a while, so while it does so, we will see the program’s options menu. To do this, click on the icon with 3 vertical buttons and a list of options will appear.
The most important ones in this menu are «Clear AGPS» and «Update AGPS» which will erase and update the Assisted GPS positions respectively. AGPS improves accuracy and reduces location time in exchange for using mobile networks.
We should already have a position on our smartphone.
In this first screen, we will see the GPSs to which we are connected and the intensity we have of each one of them. We can also see how many GPS we are “seeing” and how many are connected. Finally, we will also see the precision with which we are being located.
At the bottom of the screen, we have a series of boxes that take us to other screens with more information.
