Judith Harkham Semas
Freelance Writer...Editor...Author

(Published in Technology magazine, this piece discusses how Trimble Navigation and others have only begun to capitalize on the immense commercial potential of GPS, the global satellite system that can tell us precisely where we are and how to get where we want to go.)

By Judith Harkham Semas

"Where am I, and how do I get where I want to go?" Humans have been asking these questions since they first stood upright and began wandering around the planet. Yet through the millennia, every system we've devised to give us the answers has had problems...until now.

Marking trails with stones or bread crumbs worked fine until it rained or snowed, obscuring the markers. And basing careful measurements on the stars has serious pitfalls: You can calculate only on clear nights, when the stars are visible.

Even modern radio-based systems such as Loran and Decca, or the satellite-linked Sat-Nav system often used by sailors, can be affected external factors (electrical disturbances, geographic variations) resulting in significant errors.

"Finally," explains Charles Trimble, CEO of Trimble Navigation in Sunnyvale, Calif. "someone got fed up and said, 'That's it! We've got to have a system that works under all conditions.'"

That someone was the U.S. Department of Defense, which needs to know where people and things are because lives hang in the balance. What's more, DOD has the resources to invest over $12 billion in building an accurate system.

What DOD developed was the Global Positioning System, based on a constellation of 24 satellites orbiting the earth and serving the function that stars served for ancient mariners.

These satellites are high enough to avoid the problems of land-based systems, and their technology is so accurate that they can pinpoint any land or sea position anywhere, any time, in any weather.

In regular use, GPS provides street-width accuracy, and in special modes, it yields land survey measurements accurate to within a centimeter.

"What's most exciting about GPS today is its potential," said Mr. Trimble, who also chairs of the U.S. GPS Industry Council.

He founded Trimble Navigation in 1978 to make marine navigational systems. The company gained fame more than a decade later when the U.S. military installed Trimble's GPS-based navigation devices on thousands of vehicles used in the Persian Gulf War. Soldiers relied on the mapping system to find their way across miles of uncharted Iraqi desert.

"With today's integrated circuit technology, GPS receivers are fast becoming small enough and cheap enough to be carried by just about anyone, giving humans -- finally -- the ability to know exactly where they are, all the time," Mr. Trimble said. He envisions that this capability will become a "new utility," as basic and ubiquitous as the telephone.

Applications for GPS are limited only by imagination, and its widespread acceptance only by consumer considerations.

"It's simply a matter of size, power, and price point," Mr. Trimble said. "We've got the technology."

In one application of GPS, delivery vehicles determine precise locations. For example, Whirlpool Corporation recently implemented software provided by Mineola, N.Y.-based Lightstone Group, running on the NavTech database created by Navigation Technologies, to manage the comings and goings of its 440 technicians across the country.

The result: A reduction in total service mileage for the territory by 10 percent; a cut in individual driver mileage by up to 30 percent. On-time service also improved because knowing precisely where all fleet vehicles are at all times allows dispatchers to choose the most efficient routes and schedules.

According to Navigation Technologies (which has its North American headquarters in Sunnyvale), other Lightstone/NavTech customers have realized annual savings of from $100,000 to $250,000 in their delivery, distribution and field services operations.

People who need emergency help are big beneficiaries of GPS, which allows public safety personnel to respond more quickly. Here in the Bay Area, ambulances are equipped with such systems.

"With GPS the dispatch center can tell instantly the nearest available ambulance and get it on the road, even before talking with the caller," Mr. Trimble said. "GPS effectively cuts almost two minutes off the dispatch time required to get an ambulance to an accident scene. In one case in Phoenix, the emergency team was able to get to a home within 83 seconds of the call -- fast enough to save the life of a child who'd fallen into a swimming pool and had stopped breathing."

"We're starting to see GPS receivers on the backs of search and rescue dogs," he noted. "So you can tell what portion of the wilderness they've searched when they return to base."

GPS systems equip cars with maps that instantly show best route to any destination. No more wasted time from misread maps or stopping for directions.

One such map, described by y New York tech experts as a "way cool" product, is the award-winning SkyMap personal navigation guide for hand-held and laptop PCs. It allows mobile professionals to identify and track their position via computer screen; locate business destinations such as customer offices, banks, restaurants, and conference centers; and navigate to them in real-time.

Developed by Etak, Inc. of Menlo Park, this GPS-based system monitors a traveler's progress on digital "moving maps" that display cities, streets and highways across the continental U.S. Users can even print out the map if needed.

And using TravRoute Software's new Door-To-Door CoPilot (a product of ALK Associates in Princeton, N.J.) a driver simply enters a starting point and destination into a laptop, and CoPilot generates turn-by-turn directions, along with distance and estimated travel time.

A GPS receiver connected to a laptop dynamically guides the user along the way by reading off specific directions: "Turn right on Cherry Hill in one mile," for instance. And if the driver makes a wrong turn, CoPilot will compute a new route to get the vehicle back on track.

GPS makes location-based services possible, too.

For example, if you include the On Star option when you buy a Cadillac, by pushing a designated button on your car telephone, you can ask the Center you're automatically connected to "Where's the nearest 5-star Italian restaurant?" or "Where's the nearest bank?" and receive directions. And if your airbags are deployed, your position is automatically sent to the On Star center, which automatically calls for emergency services.

If you forget where you parked your car at the airport, or lock your keys inside, you can call a special toll-free On Star number. The center will locate your car via GPS, unlock it if necessary, and make its lights flash and horn honk, so you can find it.

"The Hertz 'Never Lost' system is acquainting a lot of Americans with GPS today," Mr. Trimble said. "It allows you to enter a street address or identify a hotel or business you want to go to, and will give you voice instructions on how to get there.

"Recently I drove from Sunnyvale to Fresh Cream Restaurant in Monterey using that system, and it took me to the back of the Restaurant, right outside a parking garage," he said. "I couldn't have gotten any closer on my own."

According to Dataquest Inc., the San Jose, Calif.-based market research firm, the worldwide automotive navigation system market is expected to achieve rapid growth, with revenues increasing from $246 million in 1996 to nearly $1.7 billion by 2001.

Although in widespread use in Japan, with the European market No. 2, automotive navigation systems have been slow to catch on in the U.S. They are priced in the $2,000 to $2,500 range now, but experts foresee $700-$1,000 as the price point that will trigger popularity here.

"With the cost of electronics dropping at about 30 percent a year, we're still three years away from widespread use of these systems here," Mr. Trimble said. "Even so, the overall market for automotive navigation systems is currently expanding at the rate of 91 percent a year."

Risk management is yet another area in which demand for GPS-based systems is growing. "Insurance companies want to plot on maps and record trends in catastrophes such as earthquakes and floods in order to define regions of higher risk," explained Craig Lynar, Etak's marketing vice president.

Hollywood uses GPS technology, too. The well-known scene showing Forrest Gump sitting on a bus bench was shot over a six-week period, making it crucial that the sun be in precisely the same position for each shoot. "If you enter the sun and moon tables into a GPS receiver, you can do those calculations and replicate sunlight or moonlight right down to the instant," Mr. Trimble said.

According to Mr. Lynar, falling prices on handheld GPS devices are making them more attractive to general consumers for use in hiking or on boats. "And with the coming technology improvements in wireless communication," he said, "we'll soon be able to get live traffic readings on our individual commute routes from home, showing actual road speed; any construction, roadblocks and so forth; plus estimates of time before the obstructions are cleared.

"We'll just enter our commute routes one time," he added. "The system will remember and can be set to call first thing in the morning and tell us what traffic along our commute route is like."

James J. Spilker, Jr., chairman of Stanford Telecom, and Bradford W. Parkinson, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, are considered the architects of GPS, having developed and designed it in 1973. Their two-volume book, GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM: Theory and Applications (published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) is considered the foremost reference series on GPS today.

According to Mr. Spilker, the potential applications and implications of GPS technology are enormous.

"In the next century you'll see all sorts of new uses: for instance, earth-moving and road-grading equipment that can run day or night, rain or shine, with literally no operator, guided entirely by GPS as to what grading it will do and how it is going to move the earth. And remotely piloted vehicles traveling to and from locations with no manpower," he said. "I don't think we've even begun to see the real possibilities of GPS yet."

Judith Harkham Semas is a freelance writer based in San Jose.