Hi All,
Does Sparkfun have any products that will transmit its own location and position at all times, other than a GPS unit? GPS units are unreliable as they’re only accurate to three or more feet. I would like something that will give me the precise location of itself at all times, something that has an accuracy of an inch or less. Thanks in advance for your reply.
Robo1
As far as im aware, thats the whole purpose of GPS. Granted, to get mm accuracy GPS devices cost an absolute bomb. It is possible that you might be able to get a device that triangulates itself off of Mobile Phone masts, but I have never heard of one (though haven’t looked) - perhaps I have been watching too much CSI. Even then though I doubt you’d get inch accuracy, and you would have to be in range of at least 3 towers.
What kind of scale are we talking here? If you need your position within a 5 square kilometer area to the accuracy of an inch, you will not find that kind of stuff at Sparkfun. However, if you need to position something within a relatively small space, maybe you could get that precision by setting up IR or ultrasonic beacons and triangulate. Still, getting within an inch will not be easy.
One of my friends had told me about the technology that is older than gps.It uses a system of accelerometers and gyroscopes changes are recorded by a computer and direction volatility and position are all computed.he was saying it is so effective technology.
Your talking about an inertial navigation/management system. SparkFun does sell accelerometers and gyroscopes and even a complete 6 DOF IMU.
You should know a few things about INS systems before you go down that route:
INS systems don’t tell you where you are. They tell you where you’ve moved. In other words they don’t know where you are in the world, they just know how far you’ve moved from where you started.
INS systems have their own accuracy problems. Because they are calculating lots of small differences between two positions, then end up accumulating small errors which end up having the readings drift.
Finally, they are much harder to use than a GPS. A GPS just sends locations on a serial port, so it’s pretty easy. You have to do a lot of calculations to use an INS correctly.